Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2018
From my other research I
have become interested in what makes a performance or a gig special. Whilst
watching a range of different shows at the fringe festival I was observing what
makes them different, memorable and special “full of aura”.
Summary:
:) no
expectations, bizzare/not like anything I’d seen before, knew the performer,
improvisation, things particular to that show, subtle, outgrageousness, audience
participation (making things personal)
:( audience being rowdy
and rude, dreadful acting, insensitivity content, demanding money, bad
presentation, no empathy or interest in characters
1.
Joey
Page
He was
something that we just stumbled across. This meant we had no
expectations of what
it could be other than it looked weird and we were outside the venue. The
advert for the gig wasn’t really anything like the gig itself. He was a guy who
was funny but then kept having weird surreal acting out moments where he
re-enacted a dream where a lady had a crisp packet for a head and kim jong jun on
stars in their eyes. It
wasn’t like anything I had ever seen or come across before.
2.
Van Gogh
This was
where an American dressed as Van Gogh sat in a small hot room putting on an
accent and drawing the person in front of him with Posca pens. He recited a
very enthusiastic monologue evaluating him as a character whilst telling the
events of his life. None of this went in and for me it was a very long hour of
listening to his accent drifting to French and then Dutch and then Swedish and
then German however other people thoroughly enjoyed it.
3.
Scott
Bennett
This
was another gig we stumbled across. It was mildly entertaining but quite a
touch out of reality. His audience must have been for middle aged parents
because quite a few jokes were very judgemental and almost offensive about the
younger generation. He was also mildly sexist, be-litteling his wife for
wanting to work.
4.
A.C.I.D
This
was an enjoyable event to watch because our friend was performing.
This was a variety performance so we saw some random things but it was very poorly organised. What was
memorable was the spontaneity,
that the show would never ever be the same again. The first act hadn’t
thought of what he was going to do so he sang some songs from a musical he
wrote when he was 12 and they got a girl up from the audience to improvise the keyboard
and singing and they ended in a song about sheep. One of the cast was laughing like a donkey
throughout and it was very off putting how fake it was.
5.
Pitty
Laughs
This
was by far the worst comedy performance I have ever seen. It was 2 guys who
were performing about being gay. Their acting was like year 7 drama at school and they basically said
it was horrible and depressing and that you should be heterosexual if you want
to be happy. At one point they both left the room because of a “phone call” and one of the guys talked
about having dead parents. We decided that this was the last comedy performance
we were going to.
6.
The
Wardrobe
This
was a performance by some teenagers about a wardrobe that leads you through
different snippets of history. It was a serious drama but subtly funny and very well acted. It was very
cleverly done with information
not drip fed to you and all of the little scenes weren’t too dramatic,
just a flavour of the time.
7.
Danger
Strip Show
This was not like anything I had ever
seen before. It was cabaret with the added element of danger… people walked on glass, had pegs
over their bodies, pins up their noses, snakes, playing a sore. At one
point they brought up a guy
from the audience who got whipped by the performer (actually got whipped
and had red all down his back after). It was slightly spoiled by having rowdy drunk guys shouting “get your tits
out” all the way through and spilling a drink on my mate.
8.
Masquerade
This was
something spontaneous because we wanted to see a range of different types of performance.
It was a very intimate
performance with about 9 people in the audience. I sat in the corner
hoping not to be picked but that was counter-productive and I ended up being on stage for
most of the show but this made it very memorable. The tricks were very
clever and I was very surprised by how good and enjoyable the show was.
9.
Tattoo
Circus
This was
hilarious. It was 2 very hairy
Scottish bikers wearing kilts doing tricks. Well they did a lot of
drinking and joking around
with the audience (feeding them shots), at one point dancing with bits
of ribbon but also whipping a breadstick out of a guys bum and standing on a
blade staircase whilst juggling with weapons. Very amusing and very funny.
10. Hate
Live
This started
off by asking everyone to
write down things that they hate on a piece of paper and then 4 people
on a panel talk about why they also hate those things. There were some very
touchy topics that were racist and homophobic but some very funny things and
some very clever answers. This was exciting because they were all things that
the comedians couldn’t prepare
for and you were waiting to see if any of your words came out of the hat.
It was slightly spoiled at the end by the way that they demanded money at the end.
11. Testament
I
think this was the best thing that I saw at the fringe. I’m not sure that the
title was the best for it but it was all about a guy who had lost his gf in a
car accident where his brother was driving and we later find he jumps off a
building and has a brain injury as a result. It was very pschadellic with some incredible stage direction
of smooth flash backs where the bed spins around and car headlights that dance
around and backwards rolling off the bed. There was a very clever scene that
was almost a song about the stages of getting ready for a night out which was hilarious. I would
definitely see that again.
12. Spoken
Word
We
thought we would try and see some different spoken word. Oh my word. This was
dreadful. It was an old man reading out Marxist poems which he liked/wrote. There were 2 other people in
the room, one who wanted to interject to say he had met the person and was
rudely shushed. Again I couldn’t really listen to him just reading aloud and there was a ridiculous amount of ums and no eye contact.
13. Modern
Horror Stories
My
mates wanted to watch something horror so we found this. It was dreadful. It
was re-enacting suicide but in an extremely insensitive way. Not scary, not funny, just uncomfortable so after 10
minutes we decided to leave our first ever gig.
14. Frankie’s
Furnace
This
was another show that our friends troop was putting on. We knew that it would
be weird and wacky and so random… so we sat on the front row. It was hilarious.
Much more well-oiled than the other was but even more bizzare. There was a scene where Frankie
had a doll who came to life and a gimp dog. The best scene was at the end where
they did some weird dancing with may pole sticks and we ended up getting on stage and dancing
around with them.
15. Heaven
Burns
This
was a very serious drama about a woman steeling a guys identity and killing
witches in the 1600s. It was bizarre. It was probably based on a true story but
the audience didn’t really like
any of the characters or have empathy for them. It was a very weird show
that was good but just kind of
happened to us.
16. James
Bond Improv
This
was excellent. We missed the very beginning so spent the whole show guessing the words that kept
popping up… Bees that take over Europe at Christmas time north of Plymouth.
It was very very good and had a live saxophonist twiddling which gave it added atmosphere. The
performers were having a good time and were very funny and it was just a very enjoyable
experience.
17. The
Vaccines and Bastille
My
mates who actually wanted to go to this gig didn’t end up coming so we ended up
watching a gig for 2 bands which we only knew a couple of songs. It didn’t
bother me. It was really lovely, laid back gig without a huge crowd so we had a fantastic view.
The Vaccines were amazing performers with very good stage presence. I was a bit surprised by
how normal Bastille were… you wouldn’t recognise them on the streets. The
singer is an incredibly talented
musician who can jump around and still be in perfect tune. I will never forget his dancing as it was exactly
the same as a friend of mine, very weird. At one point the singer came into the audience
and stopped and sang in front of me and touched my arm. It really made
it show that although he is extremely famous and talented he is just a normal
human being. I also liked how the drummer also wanted attention so he came to the front of the
stage for a while and when the singer was in the crowd the drummer and
guitarist were throwing
drum sticks.
18. The Improverts
At
this point we were knackered but wanted to watch one last show. I had seen this
show before and it lived
up to my expectations. Its people from Edinburgh University who play
lots of improvised games. There was some very clever acting and they always knew when to stop
something before they got too carried away. It was such a laugh and they had to
work with some very difficult things like having spaghetti legs or a fear of
cucumbers.
