Another wee rant

bruceonthefringe a rant, Edinburgh Fringe, Ticket prices, Uncategorized Tags: Leave a comment

Booking fees!! Finally they’ve nabbed me, the blighters! As a local I’ve always just trotted along to the Box Office in person, thus avoiding what had been a 90p booking charge per ticket (on phone, online or app bookings up to £5.40), so imagine my horror when I discovered that this year they’re including counter sales too!! How very dare they!

At least they’ve had the good gracious to reduce it a bit to 80p a ticket  (to a max of £4.80), but still!!?*##%*!! Yes, I know, its only 80p, but it’s the principle of the thing. Oo, and a sudden thought (I do have them occasionally) – what about shows that are Free Ticketed? Huh? Not quite free anymore, that’ll be 80p, sir? Another thought occurs ( I’m on a roll today!), is this booking fee right across all tickets or is it just at Fringe Box Offices? i.e., not charged at the venues themselves? Hmmm.

Now if the Fringe had just decided to add an extra 50p on to every ticket instead of an additional booking fee added on afterwards, everyone would have just thought, yeah just another wee price rise. And the phone/online/app bookers may primarily twig on, but they would have been delighted too. No extra booking fee always sounds better, even though most of us realise its only because its just been put into the ticket price.

Jeez, three thoughts in a day! The new way of “Buy a ticket in advance to guarantee entry or Pay What You Want at the venue” for some shows may find fewer advance tickets being sold, the paying public can be a very principled lot especially when parting with cash – that 80p will be needed to pay the extra hike-up in beer prices!

Pick a category, any category!

bruceonthefringe Edinburgh Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe Programme, Spoken Word, Uncategorized Tags: 3 Comments

Oo, not long now. In two weeks time I’ll be just home after seeing my first two preview shows, fingers crossed it won’t be chucking it down like it is tonight. Now is the time to go through the programme again and see what else leaps out as possibilities.

For many years the first category in the programme was Children’s Shows, to be skipped past to reach Comedy, then in 2011 Cabaret appeared! Had the Fringe been devoid of cabaret before this?! Argh, the new prog has Cabaret & Variety, what? When? In 2015 it turns out, and in 2014 Dance & Physical Theatre took Circus under it’s wing. Prior to 2014 circus could be in Comedy, Theatre or Dance & Physical Theatre, some acts probably still are.

Variety acts sometimes still laze in Comedy and if you throw in a few amusing songs then Comedy or Music fit too and also back to Cabaret. It wouldn’t surprise me if Magic is put in with Cabaret & Variety next year (there is quite a bit of it about), but if you tell jokes while doing it, you’ll probably list it under Comedy. Is your head spinning yet?

Then in 2012 came Spoken Word, well yes, they usually are on stage. Ok, so the poets and storytellers generally leapt over to this, unless they considered themselves more comedic or theatrical. Plenty of university academics and scientists like to pop up to pontificate on their subjects, yep, definitely Spoken Word. My favourite entry in this year’s crop just says, Diary, Charlie Dupre, A man reads his diary. Fairy nuff, but when is a word just spoken, how theatrical can it be before it’s Theatre? Or Cabaret? Is Spoken Word more of a solo sport? But then if it’s funny would that make it stand-up comedy?

Are there any rules, or is it just about how a show wants to be perceived?  I think I’ll just go lie down in a darkened room a while.

Who?

bruceonthefringe Dr Who, Edinburgh Fringe, Fringe history, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Yes, I am referring to the new Doctor, Jodie Whittaker (just had to check that – one t or two, it’s one of those awkward names like Paterson), a Yorkshire lass and a fine actress. I do wonder if she can conjure up that otherworldly quirk of the Doctor, but so far since the Doc’s revival the choices have all been great, unlike some of the later reincarnations in the first run! And changing the Master into Missy was worked so well, Michelle Gomez was magnificent, so it’s not like the Doctor is the first timelord to change sex.

So, I got to wondering last night whether, in years gone by, did a young aspiring Jodie ever appear in a Fringe production? No, I don’t know, but I like the thought that maybe I saw the future Dr Who in a Fringe production. Maybe there’s a future Doctor performing this year, who knows?! Ok, so if you’re not a Who fan you may not be so tickled by this idea, but imagine if watching a Bond movie it dawned on you that you once saw Daniel Craig in a tiny fringe venue in a production of Bouncers? All famous actors began somewhere so why not at the Fringe?

The Fringe also has plenty of old luvvies at the other end of their careers. Well, when I say end I don’t mean, erm, oops, just not spring chickens anymore?! Rodney Bewes is back yet again, can’t keep him away! Twenty years ago he turned up with a little boat he’d built himself to do Three Men in a Boat (afterwards he was signing copies of the paperback, I still have mine!) and I don’t think he’s missed a year since. Some years later he left the boat at home and put on Diary of a Nobody, the last few years he’s been regaling his audiences with his own life story, forever a Likely Lad, a lovely gent.

And back into the Who-verse, Sylvester McCoy is popping up this year to do a new comedy play – you can’t keep an old dogter down (sorry), or their companions, 2014 saw Katie Manning at the Fringe. She and Susan Penhaligon played two aging actresses in a retirement home, a charming bittersweet play. Katie Manning played Jo Grant the first companion I really remember and I suspect I wasn’t the only one there because of old memories!

Oo, and if all the brouha over the latest Doctor has amused you, check out Jodie Whittaker is Doctor Who by the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre on YouTube, it may just tickle you.

Shakespeare for Breakfast?

bruceonthefringe Edinburgh Fringe, Fringe history, Fringe Top Tip, Fringe Venues, Shakespeare, Sooo fringe, Uncategorized Tags: , , , 1 Comment

Oo yes, please! Complete with coffee and croissant! As the show starts at 10 o’clock (well, possibly by 5 past 10 by the time everyone’s squeezed in), first breakfast may have been rushed or missed altogether, so a second breakfast is quite welcome. Mind, if I have a few minutes spare I prefer to grab myself a coffee from Caffè Nero at Blackwells. The croissants are on serviettes on the seats, the folk who don’t want one generally place them on the next seat along until if you’re one of the later arrivals you’ll have to unearth the last seat on the row from the mound of croissants. TOP TIP if you’re doing the Fringe on a small budget, hang about afterwards and clear up the spare croissants, a packet of ham slices and a bit of cheese, sorted!

You may have noticed how I used the word “squeezed” earlier, I do not lie, the show is often sold out and the seats are very narrow, there is NO room for long legs, big bottoms or wide shoulders. Depending on the size of your neighbours you may find yourself sitting slightly uncomfortably  to slot in with them. Be assertive! Get yourself comfy and sit your ground (unless you’re sitting next to me!). And don’t think you can leave a crafty seat free for some breathing space, as the venue fills up everywhere is scrutinised for room, that seat will be filled!

Another TOP TIP, on your way into C+1 be sure to find yourself a sturdy flyer if you haven’t been organised enough to remember your fan! Oh yes, it’s gonna get warm, really warm, but you can at least take some comfort in the fact that you would be way hotter if the show was still in it’s original venue C+3.

By now you may be wondering if Shakespeare for Breakfast is really worth the early rise, the pain and discomfort, but yes, it is, well, most years it is (I cannot lie there has been the odd dodgy year). Indeed this is testimony to how good C Theatre are!! For myself and many others, this is one of our great Fringe traditions, this is sooo Fringe! I haven’t missed one since my first in 2002, a panto of Romeo & Juliet. “Hello Nursey, ‘ows your floury baps?” we’d all holler whenever the dame, sorry, Nurse came on.

It is a great way to start a day at the Fringe. Yes, but you haven’t said anything about the show itself, well, it’s Shakespeare with a twist. Sometimes it’s based on one of his plays, sometimes it takes characters from all over the bardverse and puts them in a modern situation. It’s Shakespeare and it’s silly and there’s always a song at the end. Nuff said.

Great Shakes & not so great shakes.

bruceonthefringe Edinburgh Fringe, Fringe history, Shakespeare, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Y’know I really should do my blog earlier in the evening but I always allow myself to get sucked into catching up on the other blogs I follow …… two hours later! I procrastinate by reading the Procrastinator’s Day Off, oh the irony!

Anyways, old Shakey, how many ways have I seen thee? Let me count the ways. As straight no-messing-about productions go I’ve not seen many, Coriolanus was memorable, Venus & Adonis less so but for the venue it was in. Hamlet I’ve seen as a Panto, performed on a bouncy castle and something called Fat Hamlet, which I have absolutely no recollection of!

I do have a fond but vague memory of A Midsummer Night’s Dream re-write where the set was just a huge old sofa in a student flat; they sat on it, sprawled on it, clambered over it, hid behind it. Yep, the sofa was the star.

Then, of course, there’s the Scottish play. In 2000, we had the one man retelling of it with Homer Simpson taking the lead. Checking back, apparently I also saw a Japanese production of it that year, you might think that one would have stuck in the mind! More memorable was Macbeth Pruned & Henry V Pulped by the Flying Pig Theatre way back in 1997. Henry V was done Tarantino-style but it was Macbeth as a “if it can go wrong it will” amateur theatre show that was hilarious. We bumped into the cast two nights later queuing  for another Macbeth retelling, they were very happy to hear we’d enjoyed as they didn’t seem too positive, but just as we’d buoyed them up, the show we all saw deflated them again.

That would be Elsie & Norm’s Macbeth. See, Norm wasn’t taken with all that flowery stuff Shakespeare came out with, so he’d rewritten Macbeth, proper northern stuff, like, and with wife Elsie and various cuddly toys they were going to perform it to us. If my memory serves me right Banquo was a large cuddly panda (with added sheet as a ghost) and yes, Fleance was a small panda. But the most interesting Fringe history fact is that Elsie was played by Pip Utton! Yes, he who is known for his brilliant monodramas playing such as Adolf Hilter and Maggie Thatcher. A quick look in this year’s programme shows he’s doing his Greatest Hits, methinks he won’t be including Elsie, but he should!!

Oo , I nearly forgot, in 2002 at what was the Gateway Theatre on Elm Row, in a small, very hot room, about a dozen folk sat with binoculars to watch Tiny Ninja Theatre presents Macbeth. The actors were dime store figures and inch high plastic ninjas, Mr & Mrs Smile as Macbeth and his Lady were particularly good. Though the audience couldn’t help a chuckle or two, the cast played it very straight, bit of a juxtaposition. I was very sorry the company didn’t return to the Fringe.

There’s only one other company I really have to mention when it comes to Shakespeare at the Fringe, but I’ll leave that til breakfast.

How would you like your Shakespeare, madam?

bruceonthefringe Edinburgh Fringe, Fringe history, Shakespeare, Uncategorized Tags: , , 1 Comment

As you can imagine there’s plenty of Shakespeare at the Fringe, in all manner of states, pruned,  punked, as panto, in the park, on bouncy castles, and occasionally the odd straight down the line, no messing, performance of the bard’s work.

Probably the first company who took pruning the Bard to a new art form were the Reduced Shakespeare Company. I never actually saw that show, but in 1996 I saw them perform The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged). I did see them again, no idea which show it was, I just remember a rousing song of “Everybody hates the French” which pops back in my head every year around the time of the Six Nations Rugby. Anyway, I digress…

In any year there’ll be a variety of takes on the likes of Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, this year take your pick of two Comedy of Errors. One is by a “vibrant young cast (who) bring the story right up to date”, the other is “Shakespeare meets Ska, Two-tone and Rudeboy”, all sorts for everyone. Personally I reckon Mr S would have approved of these adaptations  (so long as he saw some royalties!)

I do like to try to see something of Shakespeare each year, makes me feel cultured, y’know. Besides that endeavour,  since 2002 I’ve had Shakespeare for Breakfast once each Fringe – it starts at 10 o’clock in the morning, that’s ridiculously early when I’m on a day off work. S4B are a great company and though I don’t “recommend” shows generally (more on that later), this is one show that is sooo Fringe, go see!

Well, it’s very late so I’ll say toodle-pip, more on old Shakey next time.

 

Bruce goes to the movies II

bruceonthefringe Edinburgh International Film Festival, Films, Uncategorized Tags: , , , 1 Comment

So that’s another film festival done and dusted. I was pretty pleased with my choices, two retro, two Russian sci-fi, an Aussie musical, vampires in Hong Kong and crime in Japan and Taiwan, fairly global. EMO the Musical was a delight with it’s typical brusque Aussie humour and biting wit (think Tim Minchin), there’s something wrong if it doesn’t get at least a limited release here.

The two Russian films were subtitled but I think both Attraction and Guardians had dubbed versions. Guardians is superheroes Russian style, which is fairly cheesy but lots of fun with some pretty good special effects. Attraction was much the superior film for me, though I’m not sure the heroine would have been so inclined to help the alien if he hadn’t been such a hunk.

The Mole Song – Hong Kong Capriccio from Japan was my final film today and a fine finale it was. So colourful, crazy and full-on following the exploits of an undercover cop involved with a Yakuza boss and his teenage daughter.

My best film though has to be Time Bandits this afternoon. Daft, dark and utterly brilliant.

Bruce goes to the movies

bruceonthefringe Edinburgh International Film Festival, Films, Q&A, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , 3 Comments

It’s time once again for the Edinburgh International Film Festival, not that most people here notice it. Really, it doesn’t seem impinge on the consciousness of the Edinburgh public at all. I mention I’m going to see some films at the Festival and it’s “Oh has it come round again? Doesn’t seem like a year”.

Up until 2007 it was on in August, so colliding with the Fringe and International Festivals, as if the town wasn’t busy enough! It was usually over the last ten days of the Fringe, as we wised up to this we started waiting until the Film Festival programme came out before booking ourselves up and missing out on good films. Yeah, my Fringe buddy shared my love of films too and between us we could get the discount deals.

It’s good to go to screening where there’s a Q&A afterwards, even if the film turns out to be awful or dull, in fact that can be more fun watching the Festival guy trying to enthuse about the film with it’s director. Probably one of the most interesting Q&As was with Paul Schrader in 2005 after a showing of Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist. This was his original prequel to The Exorcist before the studio decided to completely refilm it. Was he bitter? Not half! But he did have a great story to tell and he suggested we, if we hadn’t already, should watch the other version. Oo, we did, yikes!! It truly was awful and not just in comparison with Mr Schrader’s work, which, incidentally we thoroughly enjoyed.

That same year we saw the premiere of Tsotsi by Gavin Hood. What attracted us to it? Our keen sense of things to try was as honed for films as for stage shows, wow, it was a wonderful film and we came back again and again to Tsotsi’s fate after the final scene. Watch it and decide for yourself.

2006 saw the first cinematic outing for the Treadaway twins, Harry and Luke, in Brothers of the Head. I spotted this one as a few years before I’d bought a battered old copy of the book, written by Brian Aldiss, at the Meadows Fair. This was a very disturbing tale of siamese twins (with a third dormant head) with exploitation, rock stardom, jealously and rage. The third head doesn’t appear in the film version (I’m pretty sure), there was probably enough to do without that complication.

After the oddity of Brothers the following night was Clerks II by the great Kevin Smith, not the first showing, those tickets would have gone in a trice, but there still a huge buzz to be seeing it.

Mind, the biggest buzz of all my film festivals was the world premiere of Serenity, we queued quite some time for it, all the main cast were there and Joss Whedon, all very happy to meet the fans and not only at the premiere but all the additional screenings,  we saw Adam Baldwin at the fourth! Yeah, so I’m a Whedon fan.

This year? Saw Vampire Cleanup Department late last night, it has the cutest vampire ever and also probably the funniest way for vampires to get about that you’ll ever see. I have my ticket for Repo Man and another bit of nostalgia, not seen on the big screen before, Time Bandits. I do like a good festival.

 

Put on the wellies, slap on the suncream, glug some cider

bruceonthefringe Edinburgh Fringe Tags: , Leave a comment

It’s Glastonbury time again! These days we can dip in and out of it with all the BBC coverage without suffering trenchfoot or sunstroke or being woken in the early hours by someone stumbling into your tent.

Ah, all the hordes on the hillside for the headliners at the Pyramid Stage. First time I went as a young moose back in ’87 we could drive right into the site and pitch our tent by the car on that hillside. I remember it had been raining before we arrived so by 6 o’clock Thursday evening the ground was already well churned up from cars getting stuck. Glastonbury mud, there’s really nothing quite like it. The trick is to just accept it as part of your being, it’s gonna be with you til at least the following Monday night, revel in the squishiness.

After that I returned twice more in ’89 and ’90, spending more time in the comedy tent. There I saw the rather scary Chris Lynam finish his act by marching up and down the stage with a lit firework up his bum, really, I wasn’t hallucinating! I also saw him do the banjo duel from Deliverance on tubas in one of the music tents. Friends were duly enticed along when he turned up in Edinburgh in a Fringe venue on the Cowgate.

The last time I went the Madchester sound was seriously taking hold, and I hated it. I remember one night someone in a nearby tent kept playing the same few tracks by the Happy Mondays et al through the night. Now I was a dawn riser and so rose with the sun, enjoying a short while of peace and solitude and much snoring. Then I decided it was my turn to share the music – so I put on Iron Maiden’s Phantom of the Opera, loud. Cracking track that is.

The secret love child of Brian Cant?!

bruceonthefringe Edinburgh Fringe, Fringe history, Uncategorized Tags: , 3 Comments

Ok, so I know he’s not but that’s what my buddy and I both said as we left after seeing Felix Hayes in The Pickled King back in 2003 and when he returned to the Fringe in 2006 with two shows, nothing we saw dissuaded us of this fact. They look similar (well, two eyes, a nose and a mouth) but the essence was the same. Essence? Have you ever met someone who was so incredibly like someone else but as much inwardly (if not more) as outwardly in appearance? That to me is the essence and Felix’s smile, his infectious almost childlike joy in absurdity was so Brian Cant.

The Unsinkable Clerk was a great romp of a play but Them with Tails was absolutely wonderful, so good we went twice! Them with Tails was improvised stories for kids, and out of the mouths of babes came weird and wonderful suggestions, things beyond the reasoning of rational adults. We did later contemplate how funny an adult version of the show would be but decided that what made it so good was the totally innocent suggestions which made for some tricky storylines, as opposed to a too-knowing adult crowd who would be trying too deliberately to set up laughs.

There’s a little game I sometimes play, Desert Island Fringe Shows, where I’m shipwrecked with various Fringe shows, well sometimes I go for the companies so that they can put on other shows and other times it is just the one show they have to perform over and over again! Either way Felix Hayes would be there.