The Festival is dying
now but it does not go with a whimper. Yesterday I saw three shows as
well as performing the day job. This is not uncommon, several of my
friends who have been performing all Festival are now planning to fit
in as many shows as they can in the last weekend and so a frenetic
whirl of performers-seeing-performers begins as the last weekend run
of tourists surge in.
The first show I saw
involved an old friend of mine from Youth Theatre back in the Black
Country (those of you imagining me with a Black Country accent now
couldn't be more wrong, let's get that clear right now). She's not
the only old friend of mine to appear in Edinburgh thanks to the
festival but this year she is the only out-of-towner I know.
This show was the Ruby
Dolls : Fabulous Creatures, a show which defies classification - a
phrase whose cliché status is ironic since it is used to describe
shows which have abandoned cliché. There is no other way to describe
a show which combines singing, dancing, magic tricks, feminism,
classical references, Jane Austen, Mary Poppins and a puppet goat
though. If you find that description enticing you should, the Ruby
Dolls are fast establishing themselves as an act par excellence.
A cult following and poor imitators cannot be far away but they are
the original and the best, catch them now before they shakes hands
with Midas and turn to gold.
I
had a drink with my friend afterwards in the venue. The venue itself
is a sign of the bohemian world and the business world clashing the
bohemian world winning. Previously the venue - Assembly Checkpoint -
was a café known as The Forest. The Forest was a place which served
vege food and put on, all year, the kind of stuff the Fringe is known
for - smaller acts as well as internationally renowned people like
Jason Webley.
Then
the owners of the premises went bust and PriceWaterhouseCoopers came
in to take over. They immediately gave The Forest notice, saying the
place would be easier to sell without current occupation. The Forest
fought hard, raised a lot of money in order to try and keep the place
but it was to no immediate avail - they were kicked out. They found
other premises elsewhere, though, and to the relief of the Edinburgh
arts set The Forest lives on (though I admit that their new location
is not as close to my own stomping grounds).
However,
the building remains empty used only for one month in August now
taken over by Assembly. So the only thing they have found to do with
it is the same thing it used to do all year round but now only in
August. Alas the toilets no longer have trans-friendly notices on
them but despite that the forces of Bohemia have won an unexpected
victory over the men in grey suits. Heartening to anyone with a soul
but not to PWC. The forces of Dionysus defeat the forces of order and
oppression through the twisting of fate and irony, a story at least
as old as time. Which brings me neatly to...
The
next show I saw, The God That Comes. A musical narrative by Hawksley
Workman whom a friend of mine, HFO, swears is incredibly famous in
Canada. It was HFO's fault that the Moose and I were there - I knew
nothing about it other than its title and that she recommended it. I
trust her recommendations and I was not disappointed. Hawksley
deserves to be incredibly famous everywhere.
The
God That Comes is about the God Dionysus and his ultimate victory
over the forces of the oppressive and the ordinary via the embrace of
carnal power as opposed to military power. Passion trumps order and
the king is torn apart. (I'm giving away little by telling you the
end, by the way, as Hawksley himself gives you the entire story right
at the start of the show.)
The
word that comes to mind when describing the show is 'primal'. From
the very start to the very end it evokes a cave in the mountains
where passions rule, a place of darkness and beauty - wine, sex and
poetry away from civilisation and given pure form. An impressive
evocation considering Hawksley uses a mess of wires and technology to
achieve it all on his own, creating melodies and duets with himself
(maybe there's a little bit of Narcissus in Dionysus).
Afterwards
I went for a drink with HFO and her partner - in life and music - RFH
and, unusually for HFO she was giddy with happiness. Turns out that
after meeting Hawksley after the show he invited them both to lunch
on Saturday. One can be so cynical about showbusiness but can you say
anything but, "What a nice guy," when he's so willing to
reach out to his fans and fellow musicians like that. Excellent show,
excellent guy and I've seen another show I'd recommend to anyone.
By
now the regular readers of this blog, if such creatures exist, must
be wondering when I will see an awful show. Well, after sunset comes
the darkness.
After
my day job myself and the Ghost Gang went to the City Café. As the
night was winding up there and we were wondering where to move on to
a woman approached us and told us that we were going to see the show
downstairs. I told that was a bit fascist and after a brief talk
about fascism I decided that a show recommended and compared by a
drunk woman might be entertaining.
It
was entertaining... in a way. The comparing was drunken but of the
four comedians introduced three of them died on their arses. It is a
strange thing to watch joke after joke, if any of them could be
called jokes, fall utterly flat. Alright, if the last one was
deliberately terrible just so the line, "Pause for laughter,"
would get a laugh then kudos, it worked, still it was quite the
build-up for one gag. The only funny one was the one at the end
talking about how he doesn't have real testicles anymore owing to
cancer. Sounds dreadful but somehow he made it funny, especially
after the other acts just stood up and died.
After
the act I made my way to Banshee to try and find the Ghost Gang but
they were nowhere to be seen so I had a beer, read my Fortean Times
magazine and left in time for the night bus. I had seen two excellent
shows but finally I had seen something awful.
No comments:
Post a Comment