OK so first of all let me address the absence of The Chart Project.
i. I am still doing it. It's a good idea and I would like to see it through.
ii. I don't have a desk or speakers so typing and listening to music is an act of contortion that makes the project less fun.
iii. I had this run of about 25 songs that I hated and began to question my sanity.
There you go. It will return.
SO
I can't begin this with anything original or insightful about Edinburgh or the state of the festival. If you've never been, any available space in which a comedy/theatrical/cabaret performance is subpoenaed to what appears to be a collective enterprise toward a month of 18-hour days of performance: every venue employs multiple wranglers to silently usher audiences in and out with maximal efficiency so barely an hour is lost to changeovers in a day in some venues. It's crazy busy out on the streets, even in mid-week. Flyers will appear in your hands. The concept of 'five stars' will become meaningless.
People with more familiarity and nouse know there to be rival factions, indeed multiple concurrent festivals with differing interpretations of what the Fringe/Festival is and should be. It isn't necessary to familiarise yourself with the politics to have a good time: turn up, grab one of the phonebook-thick guides, pull out a red pen, find a bar, and start circling things that sound good to you. That is what we did. Observe.
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| Simon Munnery |
SIMON MUNNERY - 'FYLM MAKKER'
The Stand 1
Munnery's doing two shows this year - 'La Concepta', of which I saw a preview of a couple of years ago, which is now a full-length and polished piece about a restaurant that serves art, and this one - an experimental piece in which Munnery occupies the physical space ordinarily reserved for a soundman (about 10 yards away from the stage, but facing it), festooned with sound and visual gizmos enabling his face to be broadcast on an on-stage screen. With musical accompaniment, live editing, and crude animations, Munnery spews forth a dizzying stream of tyrannical aphorisms and brilliantly carved-open deconstructions. I've always felt that Munnery was somebody who really enjoys pulling apart the inconsistencies of language, especially those sentences and moments in lyric that appear to pass by the mass ear without much of a challenge. It isn't pedantic or cynical, either: comedians who have garnered this level of respect and admiration don't need to do a second, experimental show each day crammed full of ideas. It feels like the performance of someone 20 years younger attempting to prove something.
STEWART LEE - 'CARPET REMNANT WORLD'
Assembly Rooms
I reviewed this show a few months back in its tour-length format, admittedly in a somewhat obscure style. The Edinburgh run sees Lee abridge the act into 75 minutes: from the top of my head I can only think of one section that was removed. Though that section was indeed funny, its omission doesn't undo the complex structuring of the set, nor does it reduce the punch. I'm going to use a proper reviewer-type word here, the kind of word that were I to use for one of the many university revue shows, would be grafted onto their promotional materials in 12 hours time: 'masterful'. That was the overwhelming feeling, aside from being helpless with laughter: that Lee was so adept at putting his audience into the correct position to receive even the most tortured of set-ups (the second-language callback, I admit, I missed first time, but anticipated second time and found myself laughing as the gears cranked mercilessly to a calculated poor pay-off, leading to a lengthy (comedic) diatribe and recap of the entire act so far). I'm sure there will be a backlash against the man in around 2014 but I don't want to anticpate the curve: he is funny.
HENNING WEHN - 'HENNING KNOWS BEST'
The Caves
I think it's generally bogus to comment upon the audience at a show but I was fairly surprised that Wehn's audience was much older than the average 'contemporary non-BBC3 comedian' audience. Presumably this is a matter of Wehn finding traction on BBC Radio 4, the staple radio station of educated middle-class over 40s England. Me? I know him because of Stewart Lee. Wehn made his mark as a notional 'German comic' trading upon the English superiority complex regarding Europe's inability to 'be funny'; now Wehn's material is much more of a hybrid as a result of British cultural saturation, it allows for a more complex character (not that he is a 'character' comedian, per se, we are just working on the assumption that most comedians play a version of themselves) to emerge that can name-drop specifically British references and then hide behind a stereotype of affable German logic and efficiency. Wehn works best in his accelerating anger toward both sides in an argument: upon discovering the British pastime of WW2 weekends, in which English townspeople will parade as leading Nazi officers, both the English complacency and the German history receive excoriation in equal measure. Fortunately he does this often.
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| 'This Arthur's Seat Belongs To Lionel Richie' (comedian out of shot, photo by @jhindsight) |
BARRY FERNS - 'THIS ARTHUR'S SEAT BELONGS TO LIONEL RICHIE'
Arthur's Seat
This show took place at 1pm on top of the extinct volcano that looms over Holyrood, the seat of the Scottish parliament. We had figured that it was a nice day and would be good for a walk and even if the show was shit then it was 'a something' and if it was good then that's a pretty good bonus. "Edinburgh's highest show" isn't so much a show as a feat of endurance, given that Ferns will climb the Seat every day of the Fringe to perform. On this day, there was a captive audience of hill-climbers and tourists, which offered a fairly interesting spectacle even though Ferns freely admits that it's fairly impossible to do a real show in the wind and - these are my guesses - with an audience mostly not interested in comedy, many of whom not speaking English as a first language. No matter though: Ferns is a thoroughly likeable chap who exudes a similar charisma to a friendly cult leader or fitness instructor. A few one-liners here and there and some short anecdotes set against the backdrop of the city glazed in the sun - in a way, it's pretty perfect.
AIDEN GOATLEY - '10 FILMS WITH MY DAD'
Voodoo Rooms
Goatley seems pretty happy and surprised to see a full room on a warm Thursday afternoon to see his Free Fringe show. Fortune had been in our favour once that weekend (Wehn was sold out, but then two tickets appeared at the box office and we got them for nothing as they were unrefundable but were not being used. Then, wanting to catch Daniel Kitson at midnight, knowing the venue had held back 14 tickets for on the night, walking past the venue at 10.30pm to see 12 people waiting patiently for those tickets. We could have joined them, but 90 minutes on a pavement was very much a 14 years ago thing) so we were in the lap of the Gods in choosing a show more-or-less at random. Fortunately, much as our host seems to feel, we also lucked out: Goatley was excellent. I know that some people don't like comedy mixed with powerpoint or bits of film or projections but I'm pretty sure some people were against the seed drill, the cotton gin, and the computer - they're here to stay, it's not a fad, and it's going to become more prevalent, so shut up, anything can be done right if you give it some thought and love and care and some ideas. Which is what has clearly occured here. It's a simple narrative about the strange bond between father and son, and the films that served as lightning rods for moments between them: there are anecdotes, film theories, blunders, growing pains, jokes too, yes there are jokes. If you're into edgy blood-and-thunder 'truth telling' then I'd suggest staying away, but I'm going to stick my neck out and say that anyone who doesn't at least find the man a warming presence is probably being a bit of a dick.
MARY BOURKE - 'HAIL MARY'
The Stand 4
And I'd also like to use the sentiment in the final sentence of the last paragraph as a run on sentence here: you'd have to be a dick to not at least warm to Mary Bourke. Furthermore, you should actively like Mary Bourke. Opting for the spiked bat in a velvet glove approach to a solid hour of joke-telling, there's a smile that emerges across her face when approaching the battle-hardened saltiness of the punchline similar to when a child offers a friend a sweet and gleefully looks onward in the knowledge that they purchased it from a prank shop hours earlier. When there's no overarching concept (and there's not and Bourke is at pains to underline this point and no the concept is not an anti-concept concept), it's harder to talk about the act without recourse to joke spoilerdom - and I won't do that here. What I will say from my (admittedly limited) perspective is that it was alongside Stewart Lee in terms of being technically admirable as well as actually funny. Munnery, Goatley, Ferns, and Wehn, though all structured and intelligent, incorporate and invite the potential for failure into their work by varying degrees. Bourke's set, though not without digression and interaction, 'feels the beat' a little more: these are jokes that bear scrutiny against the rhythm and cadences of The Great Jokes of Yore and for the more elusive concept of ethical rigour. I also bet she'd hate this review for that kind of poundstore analysis. Oh well. Recommended
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| Mary Bourke |
