I'll never forget the day I told Rob Drummond, successful playwright and tough guy about town, that wrestling was fixed. He stared me down, told me it was "sports entertainment" and that it was staged, not fixed. He then got me in a headlock and threw me across the radio studio.
So this month, I have a choice: wrestling or dancing? In the blue corner, the mighty Edinburgh tag-team of Tony "The Hardest Working Man in Scottish Dance" Mills and Jack "GlitterGrid" Webb: representing contemporary choreography and tough enough to remind this critic that he might want to be careful moaning about masculinity in dance. And in the red corner, Insane Championship Wrestling, stars of a feature in Vice and preparing to move from their base in Maryhill Community Hall to the East Coast, giving Edinburgh grapple fans a reminder that no-one is harder that a man who'll wear a unitard in Glasgow.
The IWA's arrival in Edinburgh (the show is called Tramspotting) promises "edgy story-lines and episodic story arcs." Not content with being entertainment for those who love seeing a chair being used in ways its maker did not intend, IWA are challenging theatre to be as roughneck as fighting, occupying the space usually occupied by drama.
Webb and Mills have a double bill heading north to Aberdeen: Squish / GlitterGrid. Webb has been playing with his celebrity lately, and GlitterGrid has him going all out for Ziggy Stardust theatricality. Mills is working out a dance that happens on a squash court, examining the nature of success - and what it costs.
What do these works share? They are all heavy on the masculinity, presenting men in tough environments. And every single person involved in them could give me a doing.
So this month, I have a choice: wrestling or dancing? In the blue corner, the mighty Edinburgh tag-team of Tony "The Hardest Working Man in Scottish Dance" Mills and Jack "GlitterGrid" Webb: representing contemporary choreography and tough enough to remind this critic that he might want to be careful moaning about masculinity in dance. And in the red corner, Insane Championship Wrestling, stars of a feature in Vice and preparing to move from their base in Maryhill Community Hall to the East Coast, giving Edinburgh grapple fans a reminder that no-one is harder that a man who'll wear a unitard in Glasgow.
The IWA's arrival in Edinburgh (the show is called Tramspotting) promises "edgy story-lines and episodic story arcs." Not content with being entertainment for those who love seeing a chair being used in ways its maker did not intend, IWA are challenging theatre to be as roughneck as fighting, occupying the space usually occupied by drama.
Webb and Mills have a double bill heading north to Aberdeen: Squish / GlitterGrid. Webb has been playing with his celebrity lately, and GlitterGrid has him going all out for Ziggy Stardust theatricality. Mills is working out a dance that happens on a squash court, examining the nature of success - and what it costs.
What do these works share? They are all heavy on the masculinity, presenting men in tough environments. And every single person involved in them could give me a doing.
