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Umbilical
Project: Uncut
Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
There were times when this frenetic activity felt as if it could have
been the work of a young Caryl Churchill. Sadly, the play remains at
the level of an interesting experiment, but it is tempting to think
that this will not be the last we hear of a writer or cast with much
energy behind them.
Andrew Haydon
Strawberries
in January
Traverse, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Theatrical tricksiness, combined with acerbic wit, prevents the romantic
side of this comedy ever threatening to turn the whole into a unappealing
slushy mess. Nonetheless, the show still manages to pull off one of
the most unashamed feelgood endings you're likely to see this Edinburgh.
Andrew Haydon
What
I Heard About Iraq
Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
For a play that trades heavily on righteous veracity, you can't help
feeling it's actually a simplistic and worn-out polemic that is preaching
to the converted. We've heard it all before.
Iona Firouzabadi
Crunch!
Pleasance
Courtyard, Edinburgh
Festival Fringe
The script is laden with hundreds of apple-based puns ranging from the
groansome ('apple-y ever after'), to the genuinely witty (the backing
vocals to a 1950s Bobby Darin-style number, simply running 'pomme, pomme,
pomme, pomme').
Andrew
Haydon
Aeneas
Faversham
Smirnoff Underbelly, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
In the main, this is a lot of fun. There are plenty of good ideas swooshing
about the place, from pastiches of the sorts of secret societies found
in the Sherlock Holmes stories, through to the inevitable mockery of
straight-laced Victorian morality.
Andrew Haydon
Unprotected
/ Bodies in Transit
Traverse, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
The terms of the debate on prostitution have moved a very long way from
the ground trodden by these two plays. These developments reflect little
of the realities facing those who sell sex for money, but failing to
recognise that simple-minded horror stories do not give the whole picture
does no one any favours.
Andrew Haydon
Finer
Noble Gases
Bongo Club, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
You wait for something more, but it’s just not there. the American
Dream is as hollow and wasted as the lives laid out before us on stage.
Well shucks, we’ve never been told that before.
Iona Firouzabadi
Hamburg
Smirnoff
Underbelly,
Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Hamburg is both a neat half-hour history lesson and a warning from history.
It creates a vortex of horror, aided by remarkable and shocking sound
design, but it offers little beyond the fire of the moment.
Iona Firouzabadi
Persae
Smirnoff Underbelly, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
This is an incredibly downbeat play, almost breathtaking in its pessimism
and negativity, but Badham isn’t making it up; it is the logical
conclusion of much contemporary thought about the war on terror and
life in general.
Dolan Cummings
The
Convent
Aurora Nova @ St Stephens, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
More gothic and twisted than a night out in Camden, this is a grim tale
of self-interest, malice, false belief and murder. But it's also very
funny.
Iona Firouzabadi
Redreamt
Smirnoff Underbelly, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
Imagine what would happen if your subconscious was given its own Edinburgh
venue. And was allowed to throw cornflakes at people. Here humour and
violence, chaos and order tumble over each other like scary clowns,
each threatening to strangle the last.
Iona
Firouzabadi
The
Hamlet Project
C Central, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
The project works, if only by inviting the expectation that this time
Hamlet will actually do something. Benjamin Askew and Robert Donnelly
in the lead role(s) dramatise Hamlet's inner turmoil, sharing his lines,
which often seem here to take the form of an argument between the two
Hamlets.
Dolan Cummings
Particularly
in the Heartland
Traverse, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
What sets the show apart from the standard liberal critique of religious
America is that it does not set out to disillusion. Its attitude is
instead one of wonder and empathy. The musical interludes are highlights
of the show, with the group bursting into dance routines like the kids
of FAME.
Dolan Cummings
Jesus:
the Guantanamo Years
Smirnoff Underbelly, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
The general problem is that irreverence about religion is just not intrinsically
funny any more. The portrayal of Jesus' 'dad' as a silly old duffer
is maybe funny the first time, but in an overwhelmingly infidel society
there is little edge to be had from such cheekiness.
Dolan Cummings
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