Edinburgh Fringe reviews

I'm just back from a week up in Edinburgh enjoying the Festivals there, so I thought I would offer a thumbnail guide to the best of what I've seen.

Pick of the crop was definitely Is This About Sex?, a new comedy from the Irish group Rough Magic (who also did one of the best shows at last year's Fringe, an exuberantly silly musical called Improbable Frequency - which featured one of my literary and boozing heroes, Brian O'Nolan, as a leading character): nicely played, and very, very funny, it avoids cheap jokes (yes, it does feature a short, middle-aged man in drag, but in context it's actually quite touching) or mere bawdiness, but instead provides a rather moving examination of the meaning of sex, and of questions of gender, identity, and sexual orientation.

A very close second, also on the Traverse Theatre roster, is Pit from Glasgow's Arches theatre company - a very dark, surreal comedy in which three actresses chart one woman's struggle to keep her family fed while existing on the poverty line in contemporary America - unusual, disturbing and thought-provoking.... and quite likely to put you off your supper. In many ways, perhaps, it's a more serious, more 'worthy' show than Is This About Sex?, but it's somehow lacking the charm of that production. Well worth a look, though.

Also quite excellent was Rosebud: The Lives of Orson Welles, probably the best of these biographical shows that I've ever seen (there have been rather too many of them in recent years). As a long-time Welles fan, I was already familiar with most of the anecdotes; and I would have liked a stronger ending (instead of a couple of easy gags); but even so, the time flew by. And Christian McKay's solo performance is remarkable, rendering a commanding figure of Welles that is both believable and likeable: the arrogance almost always a little undercut by a wry self-mockery, the bombast giving way to vulnerability.

Another fine one-man show is Northern Stage's I Am My Own Wife, an account of the wondrously eccentric East German transvestite 'Charlotte' von Mahlsdorf, who somehow survived both the Nazis and the Stasi (while amassing a huge collection of late 19th Century furniture and running a secret cabaret club in his basement!). Apparently it's been done on Broadway already, and author Doug Wright won a Pulitzer for it; but this new production by a small Vermont theatre company has been streamlined to 70 mins to fit frenetic Edinburgh scheduling (a very effective edit: you're not aware of any 'gaps', and you tend to feel that a much longer version might have begun to overtax the audience's patience) and boasts a fantastic performance by Kevin Loreque (who not only brings the exotic Charlotte to life but also provides distinct voices for several supporting characters, including the author himself). OK, I have to declare an interest here: I am an old friend of one of the producers, so I got to hang out with Kevin and his crew and the theatre patrons after the first show; this personal connection naturally makes me a little biased in their favour - but it really is an outstandingly good show.

My buddy is also involved in bringing over one or more Mexican shows to the Fringe every year, and this year it was Cállate! - a delightfully silly physical comedy piece (directed by Cal McCrystal, who has acquired quite a reputation working on the clown performances for the Cirque du Soleil, and creating utterly daft Hammer Horror spoof Cooped for the Spymonkey troupe - probably one of the biggest Fringe successes of recent years, subsequently touring all over the world). It's a farce, pastiching the melodramatic commonplaces of early Mexican cinema. The large number of Mexicans in the audience when I happened to see it were in fits throughout and clearly saw layers in it which were impenetrable to me; but you really don't have to appreciate all the references in order to enjoy the knockabout fun of it. It's a very slight piece of work, but it's an hour in the middle of the afternoon that will leave a smile on your face.

Another piece of pure silliness I allowed myself to indulge in was EUROBEAT - Almost Eurovision!, a spirited send-up of the Eurovision song contest. It was much better than I'd expected. It was very, very good indeed. It was much bigger than I'd expected - clearly they have plans to take this on tour, and perhaps find it a long-term niche in the West End. It seems to be drawing huge audiences (albeit with the help of a lot of half-price ticket sales) who are absolutely loving it. 10 songs from 10 countries, representing the predictable range of naff Eurovision clichés, including parodies of Bjork and Nana Mouskouri. Much of the music is actually quite good (catchy boy band numbers from Russia and Estonia are predictably the audience favourites when it comes to the SMS voting at the end), and lustily performed even when it is not (although the UK are about the worst of all the entries, second only to the wordless, tuneless 'performance art' electropop noodling of the Germans). And the whole thing is held together by a pair of great comic performances from the inept Sarajevan comperes. The voting phase at the end threatens to drag just a little, but the pumped-up audience seem willing to tolerate it in order to see their favourite song performed again. It's a hoot - a funny, sexy, exhilarating good time. (And I'm not usually susceptible to the popular favourites!)

And finally..... Belly Of A Drunken Piano is a late-night cabaret tribute to the music of Tom Waits, performed by Aussie Waits-idolater Stewart D'Arrietta and a local rhythm section. Of course, I have quibbles. Like any Tom Waits fan, I was irked that so many of my particular favourites were omitted: the set was divided between the early middle period (Small Change, Blue Valentines, Heartattack and Vine, One From The Heart) and the more recent stuff: nothing from the early days or - to my chagrin - from the wonderfully rich middle period (Rain Dogs, Frank's Wild Years, Night On Earth, Bone Machine). And I wasn't that impressed with the piano playing. However, D'Arrietta is an impassioned fan and a decent impersonator, and his show provided a fine end to a very busy day of theatre-going. I just found myself getting slightly melancholic at the realisation that I am almost certainly never going to see Tom perform in person....