Scotland vs Poland on the Edinburgh Fringe

Poland versus Scotland: it might lack the clarity of a sporting contest, but theatre does bring out the national identity

FEATURE BY GARETH K VILE.

PUBLISHED 01 AUGUST 2012

The Edinburgh festivals - Book, International and Fringe - play an important role in revealing how different nations approach the performing arts. The spirit of the founders of the EIF, optimistic in the aftermath of the Second World War and envisioning a spirit of international understanding based on the sharing of culture, is powerfully represented in the willingness of countries - this year, like South Africa, Russia and Poland - to send their artists to Scotland and share their talents.

By following a particular strand throughout August, it becomes clear that even countries that share a heritage have very different approaches. Perhaps on the back of the UK's Shakespeare celebrations, Britain appears to have a respect for the text: Kieran Hurley's Beats or Gary McNair's Born to Run (at the Traverse), The National Theatre of Scotland's Appointment with the Wicker Man andLove Letters to Public Transport, Macbeth in Scots or even the entries from Glasgow's venerable A Play, A Pie and A Pint seasons (Slice and Casablanca, the Gin Joint Cut) all base their action on the written word, even though Hurley and McNair are more than willing to add cross-platform sparkle.

Meanwhile, the Polish programme, supported by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, suggests that they are equally inspired by devised or physical origins. Even when a Polish show is inspired by a text - such as Planet Lem, Teatr Biuro Podrozy's take on the world of the science fiction master - the production relies as much on the scale, the video projections and movements of the actors as the word.

The Blind, which is based on a novel by Jose Saramago, is a fast paced, physical spectacle, evoking an epidemic of blindness through a choreography that is between dance and despair. As the victims are imprisoned in an asylum, they develop their own society, acted out on a massive set and with props that become boats, cages and beds through the actors' dexterity, The Blind explores the impact of deprivation on the way that humans evolve morality and community. Yet words are of minor importance: what is spoken in Shakespeare through a sophisticated language is expressed through the very body.

In the British corner, Molly Taylor, in Love Letters' eloquent exploration of passion and the hidden lives that ensure that trains and buses and planes and trams take us to our destinies, uses the minimal setting of theatre: alone on stage, limited movement, a suggestive set and a script that is, in itself, a love letter. Tracing her journeys across the country - and chasing the men who made them possible, pausing only to tell anecdotes of how buses have brought together artists and lovers-  Taylor reveals her skill as a storyteller and celebrates the beauty of the mundane. It's in the detail that her writing is most powerful, whether describing the first flush of desire or the modesty of a champion bus driver, lending a mythic grandeur to the commuter or the public servant: a perfect example of how theatre can sanctify the apparently frustrating and irrelevant.

It isn't that the Polish artists are unwilling to take on intimate subjects - 24hr is a durational piece that is part of Waclaw Miklaszewski's attempt to document his entire life in a series of performances - but that the emphasis is shifted. Two versions of Macbeth give the bard a suggestive, allusive and physical workout: while Taylor or Hurley balance the demands of script and the performer's presence to empower the words, the Polish approach seems to privilege the presence.

Future Tales (komuna//warsawa) is a rough and ready assault on both the bullshit of modern Marxism - their attack on the florid verbiage of the left which fails to turn words into action; indeed, the words replace and obviate actual political engagement - is equally a challenge to the pieties of contemporary theatre. More like a punk happening than a polite tragedy, it deconstructs the possible futures of a noted Polish thinker in a scathing cabaret of ideas and loud music. While their leftist manages to avoid attending any sex clubs, he is satirised for his willingness to substitute rhetoric for direct action: komuna//warsawa have a background in anarchism and while they have abandoned the idea of theatre as a meaningful contribution to change, they hammer at expectations and assumptions with the reckless intensity of Crass: the glamour of language that fuels much British theatre is replaced by a relentless and hilarious violence.

The joy of the Fringe is that both Scottish and Polish companies can learn from each other - Hurley's uses of the telling phrase and sublime integration of Johnny Whoop's DJ magic is alongside Wojtek Ziemilski's Small Narration, which seeks to address his own family history and is influenced by the director's time training with the UK's Third Angel, who share a tradition with the artists who appear as part of Buzzcut's programme.

Scotland, far more than the rest of Britain, has always been influenced by  international currents - possibly because of Richard Demarco's attempts to flavour the Fringe - and the younger generation of Scottish play makers, even those like Rob Drummond (Bullet Catch) who identify as authors, are ready to toy with traditional formats. There is also an interest in different sorts of stories in the Polish programme.Casablanca, the Gin Joint Cut and Appointment with the Wickerman reconstruct classic cinema through a wry filter: the Polish programme is marked by serious intentions.

The kabbalah is still an esoteric mysticism, but neTTheatre use it to restructure the Book of Job in Puppet: Book of Splendour. Pawel Passini began hs process by considering the impact of Polish performance superstar Kantor, but soon developed a alternative musical that takes on the problems of evil, the status of the artist as a god, the interaction between the holy and the profane: at the same time, he mixes up video projections, an exquisitely designed set, angels as gospel singers, a desperate painter, children as wise men and some of the most dense theology of the Jewish tradition.

If Casablanca is a witty play on the film and the cliches of drama, Puppet is a primal scream at the mysterious universe, deeply moral but ready to embrace degradation. Across the programme, the various national strands take on their own character: British work tends to the script, Polish to the body and the geography of the stage and set.

Thanks to the Fringe, there is no need to relish one approach at the expense of the other. The sort of fusions that mark McNair's (watch out for the running machine), or the reimagining of Shakespeare by The Song of the Goat - a far better tribute to his genius than another predictable straight version - emphasise that although there is a dialogue between the national styles, they retain individuality. And after the interplanetary drama of Planet Lem, which alternates social satire with a stern moral warning - and cool robots - the broad humour of Wickerman or Taylor's sweet travelogue may be the perfect combination: a reminder that theatre can range  across the breadth of life's apparently disorder tapestry of moods.

Incomplete Fringe 2012: Three Writers

The programming of three young Scottish writers at the Traverse this year is perhaps one of the most exciting  events of the Fringe: Rob Drummond, Kieran Hurley and Gary McNair all studied in Glasgow and while their respective careers do not point to a particular movement, they do share certain sensibilities and their presence at one of the Fringe's most important spaces suggests that they are set to become even more important voices in the shaping of contemporary Scottish theatre.

The three plays - Bullet Catch, Beats, Born To Run - are very distinct in terms of style and content: Drummond plunges into a cerebral look at despair with the help of magic tricks, Hurley weaves tales of hope and disillusion around a visit to an illegal rave, McNair places Shauna McDonald on a literal treadmill to examine the journeys of the body and mind pushed to exhaustion. And while Hurley and Drummond both perform their plays, McNair is directing his own script, although he has been known to be his own front man, most notably in Crunch.

It's tempting to link the three, through their shared Glasgow connections, but that would undermine their identities. Hurley's work has emphasised an interest in politics, and a cautious belief in the possibility of change - Hitch followed his journey to the G8 summit; Drummond revels in the possibilities of theatre as a place for serious existential discussion - even when he is having a fight in Wrestling; McNair often manipulates the format of the lecture to present his idiosyncratic takes on social issues. They do share an interest in the personal, and much of their output would be unthinkable without their presence in performance, and they all acknowledge that their identities define the approaches that they take both to theatre making and the content they explore. But beyond that point, they lead theatre into original, fascinating and startling territories.

Beats is Hurley's study of the impact of the rave experience on different lives - a worried mother, a young lad finally getting to dance to the music and a jaded policeman who is battling his conscience and trying to find his own peace of mind. With DJ Johnny Whoop in the corner, mixing up a storm and an integrated video projection above him, Hurley cuts a lonely figure at a wooden table, changing accents and embodying his characters until even their prejudices and ignorance become understandable and sympathetic.

The conflict between the young lad's naivety, his mother's knowing concern and the policeman's gradual hardening are set into sharp contrast by other personalities that wander in and out of the narrative: Hurley's ear for a resonant phrase and measured, comfortable tone suggest that he has found a way of taking the story-telling template and giving it a contemporary vitality.

Like Beats, Drummond's Bullet Catch stars the writer as raconteur. Somewhere between side-show showman and philosophical lecturer, Drummond uses cold-reading techniques to bring an audience member into his web of intrigue and doubt. Drummond's interest in science manifests in his use of an evolutionary theory of survival to drive along the drama, and the recreation of a classic, and dangerous, vaudeville routine offers a visceral tension.

Unlike Beats, Drummond is not telling a story at one remove. The character on stage is a version of Drummond and the thoughts on existence and suicide and despair and free will can be ascribed to the narrator. It's worth questioning whether Drummond does believe the various ideas he recounts (the line about the absolute determinism of the universe is one of the bleakest concepts in human history) - but the point is that he seems to be saying what he believes.

The Magic of Theatre (Warning: contains pontification)

Since I spend most of my time at the theatre - and believe that it is the natural forum for advancing the discussion of the issues most intimate and germaine to human existence - I have been trying to develop a theory of "what makes theatre good". My students at Tramway's Young Critics session can back me up when I say that I am happiest using whatever theory justifies my instinctive opinion, whether it's the Wikipedia version of Marxism or a variation on Aristotle's (pretty nonsensicle) notion of the Unities.

Being an autodidact doesn't help. What I am about to present has probably been explained before, in far more detail, by an author that I haven't read. It might also be a variation on the "suspension of disbelief" riff that I vaguely remember from University. I plead for tolerance and forgiveness. Also, I do have a really cool chart that helps me work out my star ratings, but I can't print that here because it is copyrighted by a serious philosopher and I like to reveal it to my students as a surprise. If I give it away here, there's no reason to join the Young Critics programme, apart from the chance to see a load of cool plays, listen to my weekly enthusiasms and become part of the new generation of informed, motivated critics.

This idea - such as it is - occurred to me halfway through The Fantasist during the Fringe. Theatre Temoin come from a physical theatre background, and admitted that this was their first stab at puppetry. They timed it well - puppetry is definitely this year's big thing - and applied it to appropriate content (The Fantasist is primarily an attempt to represent a distressed consciousness).

The main character, a young woman suffering from bi-polar, is descending into mania and is forced to make a choice: to either accept the mania, symbolised by a larger-than-life puppet of a sophisticated lover, or get back on the tablets and forge a reasonable life in the world of the sane.  As the lover hung over her closet, and manipulated her movements, I experienced a sudden dislocation of my perception. I realised that I was watching two things simultaneously.

The literal scene involved a real human being manipulated by a puppet. It had enough irony and meaning to keep me happy. The inanimate object controls the living being. The puppet was a figment of her imagination, and the literal sight caught the paradox of how the imagination can be more powerful than the person doing the imagining.

Then there is the scene being acted out - the pretend, the fictional. If I suspended disbelief - or have one of my sporadic bouts of insanity where everything becomes not what it is, but what it means - there was a monster emerging from the darkness and commanding a woman. The literal representation reinforced the imagery, but the metaphorical reading had its own power. I knew that if I watched the same scene in a film, it wouldnot have the same impact (unless the director was able to signpost the puppet's nature, initating the dual vision I receive in theatre). Film's veracity - it could always be a documentary - precludes the same immediacy and - dare I say it - alienation of my perception.

So the peculiar power of theatre lies in that ability to reveal two versions at the same time. Discuss.
That explanation is pretty dense - I reckon there's a PhD in it for someome with patience. However, I am a critic, not an academic. I'll give a few more examples, and run away, hoping not to get flamed.

There are two long sequence's in Sylvia Dow's A Beginning, A Middle and An End when the characters build up, and then dismantle the set. On the literal level, it's a way of setting the stage without having to have an interval, a bunch of stage hands wandering about, putting the tables and chairs in place, covering the space with advocado trees, reminding the audience that they are watching a fiction.

On the other, it's a montage sequence about how - in the first sequence - a couple build up their relationship through the accumulation of household items and how - in the second - the death of a partner is like a diminution of the self.

The second session rather reminded me of this great joke about a blind man and a dishonest doctor.
In the context of Dow's play, however, both interpretations feed the play's impact. Part of Dow's point is the way in which people build up their lives through the telling of stories and the interludes beautifully, and literally, illustrated the process of addition and subtraction that feeds the story.

By contrast, a less effective version appeared in Macbeth 2008, one of the many Polish pieces that appeared in the August Festivals. A two tier set was used as a series of stages for this updating of the Scottish play, and the literalism of the helicopter landing pad, battlements and boudoir locked the interpretation into a very literal representation. As soon as the Naughty Man started banging on about "daggers" and lineage, while standing in front of a washing machine and toting a big machine gun, the gap between Shakespeare's words and this contemporary, relevant reading (Macbeth being involved in some clash with Islamic militants) became too wide. The literal and the metaphorical could not hold.

Meanwhile, Boris and Sergey's Vaudevillian Adventure went to town on the disjuncture between the puppet's self-determination and the presence of six puppeteers keeping them going.

Inevitably, I haven't got to the bottom of this one yet. Earlier today, I was walking around Glasgow listening to Public Enemy. In my head, I was being Chuck D in rage mode, knowing that I was really just a shabby critic rushing to interview a dancer at Scottish Ballet. Yet in some way, I held both states in my attention, ready to either act like  Chuck, and threaten the stability of social order with a few well-placed words, or return to Gareth, and help an old lady with directions to the shops.

It's the gap there, and the gap between the real and the potential on the stage, that allows magic to flourish.

Puppetry Poker Pit

It starts so innocently. Boris and Sergey are off-stage, assessing the audience and gleefully imagining the quickest way to empty their wallets. A few moments later, they bound on-stage, supported by their puppeteers and ready to entertain. The Vaudevillian Adventure has begun.

The two dastardly puppets, mysteriously eastern European in accent and origin, keep to their promises, at first. Acting as hosts and turns, they present a late night cabaret - full of adult humour, sibling bickering and a move perfect impersonation of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights video. The audience interaction is friendly, until they invite a man and a woman up to their Puppet Poker Pit.

The Puppet Poker Pit is supposed to be the chance for Boris and Sergey to fleece their marks. Unfortunately, due to follhardy bidding and their innate stupidity, the game descends into farce and deadly demons are summoned. And, although they admit that there is only a single plot moment in the entire hour, the last twenty minutes shifts the mood from drunken revelry to more serious themes, and a virtuosic display of action puppeteering.

The Adventure is a mixture of improvised humour and skillful set-pieces: when Boris and Sergey throw down, they do it Matrix style in a tightly choreographed recreation of Neo's famous "bullet-time" ruckus. But the banter with the two audience members (one renamed "The Lonely One" in possible hommage to another puppetry based show in the Pleasance) is quick-witted and sponataneous. These puppeteers know how to act and play the crowd.

Perhaps more than any other performance form, puppetry relies on the gap between what is literally on-stage - in this case, six puppeeters and two faceless puppets - and the pretended activity - high speed chases, magic tricks, injury and, finally, damnation. The Adventure elegantly exploits the gap, making Boris and Sergey aware of their puppeteers and forcing them to explain their presence. When the anti-heroes meet their respective tragic ends, this gap is enlarged, lending pathos is what is, literally, a couple of inanimate objects being thrown to the table.

The performance satisfies on several levels: the skill of the puppetry, the humour of the routines and the sudden dark finale are all impressive. Knowing nods to the artificiality of the show and sharp pop-cultural references reveal the thoroughly post-modern intelligence of the company: it deconstructs the action even as it entertains and moves. The usual blather about "puppetry not being just for children" is replaced by a new blather: "puppetry is for intelligent adults, who have a sophisticated appreciation of the form, but aren't above a good laugh."

Get Naked (Only Keep Your Clothes On)

Forgive me the heresy, but female nudity, on stage, is boring.

Once upon a time, I supported art that involved naked bodies, blood letting, rough treatment of the audience, anything that bellowed against the complacency of theatre that was predominantly aimed at the middle classes. I was bored by the script - it has been the foundation of British theatre for too long - disappointed by "new writing" and saw in the Live Art habit of using the body to shock a hope for performance that carried on the tradition of vital, energetic theatre that had produced art that got off the stage and took various debates forward.

I even encouraged burlesque in the hope that it would liven up the stage, and bring new ways of exploring sexuality and gender to public attention. That hope is largely lost, although Cherry Loco always impresses me, and Boy in a Dress is as unashamed of its burlesque roots as it is of its post-modern philosophy. And Lashings of Ginger Beer Time, although they languish in the same semi-professional state as much early cabaret, have a clear, bracing, political intensity.

But after Ther Fringe 2012, I am ready to reject nudity and all its meanings. At least, for a couple of months, until it finds a new meaning beyond being a signifier for emotional honesty. I might even be persuaded to support actual censorship if it encourages directors to stop telling actresses to get their tits out for the good of the play. They might have to think of creative ways to signify important moments.

And yes, I am using the word "actress", even though "actor" has been used as gender neutral for a while. I picked it because it is female nudity that is the standard.

The Shit is a great place to start: scathing attack on Italian society, performed by a nude woman. And there is one moment - at the end - when her nudity is important, when she covers herself in a flag. Yes, throughout the recitation, her body is present, to be examined, just like it is the subject of the examination of those the heroine wishes to impress. Yes, the audience is implicated by performing a male gaze exactly like those who are the villains of the piece. But does the audience acknowledge this?

Discussions about the use of nudity inevitably refer to other performers whp have bared all for their art. Karen Finlay, Ann Liv Young, Annie Sprinkle: all women. There are plenty of tits out in theatre, but the cock tends to remain holstered.

Any meaningful presentation of the female nude in theatre has been lost: last year's mostly wonderful Hotel Medea had the completely unnecessary appearance of a Greek army in motorcycle helmets and breasts beared. Since a huge point in any version of Medea is the tension between the masculine Greek world and the feminine East - Euripides' version takes this further by contrasting Medea's often female deities against Jason's male gods - this display of hooters was not only distracting, it undermined a central theme.

Interestingly, the version of Hotel Medea at Latitude had the breasts covered, possibly because there might have been children present or it was outside in the cold. The scene lost nothing.

For the record, Jason's crew were not Amazons: Hotel Medea focuses on exactly the gender conflict that Euripides made so crucial. It gains credibility, however, for the reveal of Medea's brother's penis. Equal opportunity nudity can soften the blow.

For another Italian example, I am Son had a topless woman. Thanks to a mask, her gender was not clear at first, but when she came on stage to receive applause , the sudden  appearance of a t-shirt was a reminder that male and female toplessness are not equal. In neither performance was nudity meant to titillate, but it is clearly a choice, and a choice that has implications for the reception of the performance.

There is something here about the difference between what is seen as "real" on stage, and what is "performed". That's a topic for another rant.

Finally, SexLifeis a short two-hander, staged inside what appears to be a peepshow booth. The plot is simple - it is only twenty minutes long. A couple, after the birth of their first child, find their sex life is dull. In an atempt to spice things up, the husband turns up dressed like Tom Curry out of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It's played for laughs, and it is only when the wife drops her robe that real sexual content returns to the couple. Here, the reveal of the female body, which has been discussed throughout, and mostly in negatibe terms, signifies eroticism. Some bloke in suspenders is a clumsy parody of real eroticism.

Although the reason for defending nudity is easy to explain - essentially, restrictions on what can be shown inhibit artistic expression and besides, it assumes that the body is vulgar and needs to be hidden - the same freedom of expression is not even handed and runs the risk of obscuring the true power of nudity in search of a simple signifier. Ironically, nudity on stage strips the body of its innate power. The meaning of nakedness replaces the nakedness itself.

Furthermore, it is predominantly female. Since the female body has an extra area that is supposed to be covered, the cock seems to be far too serious to be let out on stage: breasts are commonplace, the vagina is rarer but the cock is invisible. The naked body is not necessarily the only erotic strategy - the best burlesque relies on suggestion, and the boys in La Clique Royale are sexual because of their whole physicality, not because they whip off their pants. But as long as female nudity is more prevalent than male, the theatre is playing into the same value system that makes Page Three acceptable.

Of course, I have no answers: I am lucky that this is a blog and I don't have to conclude my analysis. All of these examples are from engaging, informed performances (if they want a rating, they are probably all four star shows. See my earlier posts for a few thoughts on that particular part of the critic-performer relationship). I just have a general sense that the use of nudity on stage has become lazy... although I have just remembered that there was a cock in Vanishing Point's Saturday Night.

Examining the shit

Shit became a sensation during the Fringe. Aside from its huge portable poster, which gradually became covered in extracts from reviews and deserves semiotic analysis of its own, it won awards from The Arches and Total Theatre and was the talking point of the Summerhall programme. Whether it was necessary for the female performer to be naked, whether the content was rescued by its remarkable interpretation, whether it said more about Italian theatre than society: The Shit offers plenty of roughage for late-night argument.

Against the context of Live Art - something that the Fringe does not contain in any large measure, but is the staple of Glasgow's new theatre scenes - The Shit is not exceptional. The nakedness of a solo female is familiar, since recent graduating shows from the RCS have followed the example of Nic Green and "celebrated" nudity. The monologue focuses on one individual's experience, another trope that has been played out in various pieces at the National Review of Life Art (now defunct). It is in the performance of The Shit that it takes on a surprising vitality: against the usual honesty and  consciously unmannered style of the Live Artist, The Shit brings the tricks and theatricality of the trained actor.

The monologue dwells on three main themes: a woman's relationship to her father (he committed suicide, although her memory is of a man passionate about the nationalists who forged her country and disappointed by the state of the nation), to food (she diets to reduce her thighs, which are a symbol of her body anxiety) and success (for her, a role in an advert is the dream beginning to a career in media). Around these, other themes, including sexual disgust - rooted in an experience at school - and sacrifice are weaved into a despairing narrative that concludes in a sung version of the national anthem that takes its cues from Hendrix's reworking of The Star Spangled Banner and Diamanda Galas' distorted range.

The monologue does not only sketch out the horror of one life: it conjures a picture of an Italian society plagued by corruption, and the assumption of corruption. The celebrities assessed are suspected to have achieved their goals by sucking cock, and the fantasy ambitions of the heroine are described in terms of media attention. Talent is absent: instead, beauty, size and sacrifice are all that counts. When the heroine remembers her father's advice, that hard work and sacrifice will eventually win out, she translates it into sessions of cosmetic torture and a starvation diet.

The particular oppression of women is foregrounded, and the internal oppression of the heroine is presented clearly. Having lost any connection to her own well-being, she struggles against her status - constantly she calls herself "a small one", in regard to both her physical size  and ability.

And for all the talk of the body, and a memorable interlude where her shit is examined and discovered to contain characters from her life and Italy's history, the nudity is rapidly irrelevant. It signifies honesty, in that time-worn Live Art tradition. Only when she covers herself, at the end, in an Italian flag, does it become meaningful beyond this. The applause for the monologue mocks the applause that the character hopesto achieve: dressed in a flag, she hides away the body, as if it is the disgust itself.

The Shit is undoubtedly powerful, clearly connecting the personal to the political. It is engaged with the politics of a country - and this need not be Italy - where appearance has overwhelmed substance. It questions the way that superficial culture, with its attention to surface, can destroy the interior life, reduce ambition and drive to trivial ends before the tremulous voice of the heroine spits out a defiance, mistaking it for a triumphant audition. It's also strangely old-fashioned, even familiar and safe in places: the power is not in the message but the way that it converts an intellectual understanding into an emotional experience.

The Fantasist

The Fantasist centres around an individual struggle for control over mental illness: specifically looking at bi-polar in its more manic phase, it combines puppetry, physical theatre and humour to describe the interior state of a patient who embraces the thrill of abandonment. While Theatre Temoin acknowledge that this is their first use of puppets, they take full advantage of the inanimate characters to present a world unfamiliar, frightening and funny.

Mental states, especially bad mental health, are notoriously difficult to display in art. Fortunately, The Fantasist does not follow the typical show business "undefined mental illness" stereotype, and in a superb performance by Julia Yevnine, reveals the enthusiasm and intensity of a manic fugue. The looming appearance of a larger than life male puppet, who has echoes of Bluebeard, are threatening: if the comic interludes, including a song about the dangers and delights of being seduced, sometimes break the mood, they maintain the heightened awareness of the main character.

Director Ailin Conant and her devising team of Yevnine, Cat Gerrard and Julia Correa picture the heroine's broken sensitivity to time and communication: a friendship is damaged, a nurse dismissed through the same conversation happening simultaneously on-stage but apart in real time. The ambiguity of the ending, when the real and the fantastic are finally confused, emphasises how bi-polar is not easily cured. Its connection to creativity and inevitable destructiveness are identified succinctly: Yevnine's Louise is both artist and patient, and it is the tension between the two that forces her to question whether the real is better than the hallucination.

There are a few weak points in the production: Yevnine's performance is so powerful that it reduces the others to bit-part players, and the nurse's imprecations are unconvincing against the magic of the imagined world portrayed by the puppets; the manipulation of certain objects is relatively clumsy against the puppet work. Yet the aims of representing the bi-polar mind on stage, and following an individual story towards a conclusion are successful. This is one play that elucidates rather than mystifies the workings of the unbalanced mind.

Let's Get Political...

 I can usually come up with a poor excuse for not getting involved in political action: truth is, I generally haven't thought enough about the issues to know what I believe, meaning any statement I make would be ill-informed. I get irritated by the behaviour of the Con-Dem coalition, especially since it appeared to express a public rejection of New Labour, coupled with a distrust of the Tories: despite Liberal Democrat's insistence, the UK government has acted as if it wants to just hand over all power and profit to their pals in business. Nevertheless, I can't bring myself to join any protests, citing suspicion of the organisers or a more general apathy about the effectiveness of campaigning.

Instead, I bang on about the importance of political theatre. I know that I missed most of the explicitly political pieces in the Fringe - The Economist, which dealt with the Scandinavian massacre, or that verbatim one about the oil slicks - and made do with work that had more of a "the personal is the political" vibe. The Shit, I am Son and, for a longer historical perspective, Bigmouth were my moments of activism.

Both The Shit and I am Son came out of Italy: the antics of Berlusconi in the past decade has led me to assume that Italian politics is hopelessly corrupt and the very public moral lapses of the country's leader reflect a more sinister political dishonesty. The Shit is more explicit in presentation than content: a naked woman describes her ambitions in a faltering voice, before singing of the Italian revolution in the style of Diamanda Galas. Her failure to control her body through diet, and to get that job might symbolise the struggle of a people towards self-determination, or the oppression of the nation, and the specifics of her life - the self-starving, the death of her father, the miserable first encounter with sex - have a brutal resonance.

Rather, The Shit reveals the process of internalised oppression: this particular life embodies the pressures of a society that is fascinated only with success, and abandons the honest ambitions of earlier generations for a chase after fame that mistakes sacrifice for self-degradation. Having garner attention for its unflinching monologue, and the naked performer, it literally wraps itself in an Italian flag and questions the impact of a country obsessed with surface on the individual.

I am Son shares a similar anger, caricaturing obsessions with nationalism, fashion, style and romantic myths through a bracing choreography. The three dancers hurl themselves through episodic sketches, reducing to clowns or elevated to icons, hiding behind masks only to reveal furious disappointment.

Based on a poem that rejects the revolutionaries of 1968 - and sound-tracked by children's voices that articulate a social despair, I am Son captures the confusion of a world made mad by information and broken promises. The lack of a coherent programme for change in both works echoes my own political pessimism.

Against this, Bigmouth offers a broader vision: a series of extracts from great speeches, each one made ironic by subsequent history. MLK is mashed up with Hendrix's version of The Star Spangled Banner; Socrates' farewell to the Athenians after his trial becomes a riposte to The Grand Inquisitor's condemnation of Christ. Again, there is little attempt to create a reasonable agenda for change, and history itself is exposed as a series of failed ambitions.  

Political Correctness Gone Mad

I am a strange soul. Between wishing for a return to some kind of modernist idyll - when policemen didn't carry retractable batons and steam trains ran out of Edinburgh Waverley - I immerse myself in the most post-modern and counter-cultural arts. I might not even be real, being merely the shadow cast by the Daily Mail's morality.

Coming out of the Fringe, I can't account for the way that I can happily remember a show that began with an anecdote about Foucault taking a shit in a lecturer's mouth and being offended by an innocuous all-ages acrobatic performance. And the contrast between my admiration for Boy in a Dress, a melange of post-modern discourse, stripping and live art, and my frustration at Detention, which had an obviously talented cast, boils down to my idiosyncratic morality.

Although I have a vague hope that my morality comes from my time teaching for the Jesuits (based on both cerebral questioning and compassion), it is as likely that it comes from the stage: the moral value of something is intricately linked to its theatrical potential. And so, La Johnjoseph's promotion of  "trandrogyny" becomes more ethical than Detention's portrayal of the competitive gender roles of the classroom.

It's clear that the cast of Detention are talented acrobats, but the gender roles (simpering school-girl, macho boy pupils and a female teacher who inevitably throws off her frumpy glasses and gets down to a sexy shimmer) limits the narrative potential and turns what ought to be an impressive hour of stunts into an essay on old fashioned values. The boys get to show off and fight over the girl, who is given little agency, but none of the contests take flight. The entire performance stops and starts, a new skill is showcased and the teacher, who reveals stunning aerial techniques and a raw physical strength, is reduced to a series of interruptions to the lads' leapings.

If complaining about the relationships between the characters and the representation of male and female stereotypes sounds like political  correctness gone mad, the problem intrudes into the structure and development of Detention. With no real reason for the boys to do their spectacular actions, they never evolve their routines beyond displays of trickery. Every single move is cool, but the choreography goes nowhere.

When circus acts are trying to forge a deeper intention to their shows - Tumble Circus explore their relationship breakdown - Detention lacks coherence. That the show ends on an energetic but irrelevant session  of drumming - the characters appear just to decide to get the drums and bang away - highlights how a more thoughtful approach might have made the finale integrated and relevant.

La Johnjoseph is probably The Daily Mail's nightmare and naturally becomes my dream. An extended meditation on La Johnjoseph's life so far, it takes a series of poignant vignettes and weaves them into a sustained and entertaining treatise on the difficulties and rewards of Third Gender experience. Imaginative in its staging - a list of husbands is recounted like prizes in a cheap game show, while the revelation of the graffiti on toilet walls has the drama of an archaeologist uncovering ancient hieroglyphics - it uses only La Johnjoesph and animus to merge striptease, storytelling, dance, comedy and tragedy into a  satisfying and deeply moral tale of acceptance and compassion.

Fighting prejudice, La Johnjoseph is a gentle warrior: although the sung interludes reveal an untrained voice, each song is reinvented as a blow for freedom. Catholicism, so simple a target, becomes as much of an inspiration as an enemy: the grand moment of understanding between mother and child is a naked display of compassion.

Perhaps my morality is clearer than I thought: compassion is the divine principle and anything that strives to expand freedom is holy. Detention, despite its celebration of the bodies that fly through the air, constrains by offering such dull stereotypes: La Johnjoseph not only witnesses one life journey, but heralds new possibilities.

Support the Power of Woo Man

If I am honest, I only intended to leave the office for five minutes at around six. It's the back of midnight, and I have just returned. In the intervening period, I have encountered contemporary Indian dance (lyrical and enchanting, powerful and delicate), laughed along with an illustrated performance lecture that rages against ageism and ended up on stage, wearing a wig, pretending to be the Olympic Flame. People often ask me why I write so much. It's because things like this happen if I go outside.

I was lucky to get a ticket for Wendy Houston: she has worked with Time Etchells (Forced Entertainment) and Nigel Charnock (DV8), two artists who inspired men to take up the word in response to theatre. Her 50 Acts is a collection of "small dances and big ideas", raced through in under an hour and embracing eloquent poetry and cheeky choreography, sketched around a counter-blast against ageism but taking in the duplicity of politicians, the ferocity of the modern world, the troubles with radical performance and the difficulty of ending something, whether that be life or a show. And she throws in a few manifestos along the way.

Houston's dynamism - for a show about being old, there are plenty of high kicks, urgent pacing about and a rocking soundtrack - disguises the thoughtful core. It may seem scatter-shot, pot shots at health and safety bumping against moving interludes that evoke nursing homes and the indignity of slow death, but her vision is clear and her argument coherent. In a world obsessed with categorisation and speed of communication, the attack against the elderly's worth is not just youthful ignorance. It becomes, rather, the logical end point of the quest for speed and its cult of youth.

After a moment of poignancy at Houston's finale, I nipped off to see Jonny Woo. His solo show tells his life story - at least so far, as Woo is only in his fortieth year and frankly, looks great on it. His adventures in the worlds of Woolworths and New York clubbing are awarded equal attention, building his ambitions until he can finally fulfil his childhood ambition: to become Wonder Woman.

Woo alternates between songs and spoken word, all dressed in outrageous costumes - his poet, Spam Eyres, is a monstrous cross between homely old school variety and a sexual predator, and the things he does with boxing gloves do need to be witness. It's not until the final number, a fantasy on the Transvestite Olympics, that the audience participation gets going. And so my evening ended, shimmying and in a white wig.

Assembly, 1- 26 August

Painless

There. Just there. I have never considered suicide seriously and, as Camus said, that is the mark of a trivial man. Only by acknowledging the limitations of human freedom - that we are born not at our own command and live at the whims of other forces, known and unknown - is a moment of freedom possible. In the corrupted words of William Burroughs, in the time when a man recognises that he is about to die, then he is immortal.

Teatr ZAR deserve applause, a star rating, the standing ovation, the encomiums and receptions - the feast laid out for them, a table groaning with red wine and shattered glass, rich foods awaits as they sneak away, into the rain and leave behind the hollow clapping of an audience. There. Just there.

Caesarian Section. Essays on Suicide, supported by heavy struts of solid song, howls and rages and even laughs on foundations cast in death and the thoughts of death, the vignettes of disappointed love and frantic sensual drumming. There, just there, above the heart, their voices rise and harmonise like heavenly choirs - the cliché seems set to take hold but like the polyphony there are levels of emotion, the higher notes anguished, the lower echo out the stability of the tradition. The stage was made for those whom the church was not enough.

Alone, two hours of more later, the hum of the air conditioning above me and the world outside the building in silence - or at least, I cannot hear the warm conversations of the Summerhall night - I take snatches of hot Korean food, sip coffee and try to retain the mood that was left behind when ZAR escaped the theatre. In my head, Dylan snarls, "sometimes even the President of the United States must stand naked" and I replay that moment when he sings to Donovan... "look at yonder orphan with his gun..."

There. The day begins in sunshine and ends in rain: The Traverse after breakfast and Rob Drummond saunters on stage. The audience know he will perform the most deadly trick in magic, The Bullet Catch, and he wanders around a variety of shticks and stunts, befriends one man before asking him to shot him in the face.

My day has asked me about the nature of suicide, and how it might be the only way to determine freedom. In the early evening, murderous rain clamouring against the roof, ZAR are demanding. Just there. Not the cheap participation of pantomime, instead they want attention, silence, a willingness to embrace the horrific sequences of despair. Rob Drummond makes eye contact with his audience, appears to read their minds.

No tardy celebrations of the post-modern here... the Fringe is filled with worthy souls who recognise the potential of this age, the age of information and juxtaposition. Here's a necessary freedom, to match and mix, to mismatch and fix, to reconfigure Shakespeare to swing or hip-hop, the spoken word lilting over a pounding beat... those ancient questions won't go away, the quest for meaning, Rob Drummond reflects on his father's ministry (his work forever becomes a tale of the Christ who does not rise), The Stranger forever caught on that baking hot beach, shooting a human who is never named but ever just "an arab."

If meaning is up for grabs and everything is possible, can rolling out eighteen scenes in a large black tent to the sound of two cellos, an accordion, a violin, the drum and the voice, the holy voices recant this modern age and instil a soft, silent point around which the world can ever revolve again?

More coffee. Just there. Outside a festival filled with laughter and the memory of a time when a therapist looked at me.

"Have you ever thought that the jokes are just a defence mechanism?"

ZAR do not speak (a quotation from the programme notes "we had no language between us. Only words") only run and fall, run their arms through a river of broken glass, the metaphorical falls into the literal. Here's a single light on a single body. Then the woman tries to remove her straps, only to be trapped by the repetitive gestures, fast and more hysterical and the drum hammers, the shrillness of the song and saw is damning...

Only fragments. It begins in darkness and the smash of glass. It ends in a face, leaning backwards, mouth open. Rob Drummond comments that it is a fact: if the beginning of a sequence is predetermined, there can be no freedom within that sequence. Suicide is in both works, a symbol of freedom, perhaps, and polished so brightly that is becomes freedom. Just there.

Caesarian Section, Summerhall, 15- 20 August

Bullet Catch, Traverse, 3-26 August

New Writing Top Five

After all the hilarity of my idiosyncratic top fives, I have decided to try and play it straight. I have finally seen Caesarian Sections and currently feel chastened. This will express itself in a later post: for the moment, I want to calm myself by following a simple path. A new writing at the Fringe top five is sufficiently predictable, although the pieces I intend to choose are full of idiosyncratic vitality.

My first choice is easy: Kieran Hurley's Beats is on at the Traverse, following from its short run as one of The Arches' Platform 18 award winners. Hurley is one of a rising wave of young Scottish artists who are establishing themselves, with a cosmopolitan and intelligent approach to theatre making. Writer and performer, he is backed by DJ Johnny Whoop and visuals from Jamie Wardrop: he goes back to the late rave scene of the 1990s, and uses his charismatic on-stage presence and lively idea for a metaphor to relate a story of hope, disappointment and rebellion.

Hurley's skills are evident in his original use of music - the DJ is not mere add on but an integral part of the show, putting down the tunes to accompany Hurley's moving stories - and the easy manner in which he charms the audience and shows compassion to all of his characters, even the cynical copper. His own idealism, previously revealed in Hitch is tempered by a sharp intelligence and a winning manner: Beats is at once cerebral and emotional.

The Traverse, 14- 26 August

Up from Manchester for a short run comes A Sky Burial. Having been described as "ambitious... visceral and violent" by Amanda Dalton of The Royal Exchange (a theatre that has a generous policy on access for young authors), it has a more conventional script-based approach than Beats, and has been described as an episode of Casualty at the end of the world. Preoccupied with the uncertainty of the post-modern condition, and juxtaposing the screams of the sick on a ward and the roars of the streets beyond, it centres around a blind date that might offer redemption in the hour of chaos.

Author Joe McKie honed his skills as a curator of a comedy night, and his director Sophie Taylor has recently come from a successful Titus Andronicus - a Shakespeare number so brutal that a hardcore punk took their name from it. The combination of the author and director's interests sets the tone for this dark comedy that retains a belief in the power of human relationships.

theSpace on North Bridge, various dates until the 24 August

New writing isn't always my enthusiasm - I tend towards the physical theatre but there is a wave of Scottish writers - who often perform their own words - like Hurley and Gary McNair who have reminded that the script is far from moribund. Every time I head into the Underbelly, the huge poster for The Old Vic's New Voices chimes in by insisting that it isn't just about Scotland.

My pick - although all five of the shows are getting positive critiques - is for Sabrina Mahfouz's One Hour Only. Her entry to 2011's Fringe was a searing portrait (in couplets) of the life of a lap dancer had her nominated for The Stage's Best Solo performance: this year, she has a two-hander that pitches the naivety of both john and prostitute against the seriousness of the situation that they are both caught inside. AJ and Marley might have been brought together by his mates and her profession, but Mahfouz draws an intimate portrait of a meeting of minds in an unlikely location.

Underbelly, 3- 26 August 

It's a little tentative as a connection, but both Kieran Hurley and my next pick, Dancing Brick, have appeared at The Arches: Perle is not just a new work, it is creating a new genre. It's a live action comic book, based on the oldest poem in English, a one person show that grapples with grief and a young father's journey to reclaim his dead daughter.

Serge Seidlitz was called in on illustration duties, and this new writing is not about the words: the performance is all mime, contemporary clown style, with the text scrolling across the illustrated screen. Like Beats, it has the same writer and performer: Thomas Eccleshare approached the script as if it were a comic book.

Assembly Roxy, 2- 26 August

It is my last choice, and I have not even managed to scrape the surface of the diversity within new writing: of course, that's the top five format all over. The British approach to theatre has always privileged the script - when I am in dance mood, I can't stop complaining about it. But the five here ought to remind even Criticulous that the script is not played out and the way that authors approach writing for the stage is much more sophisticated than slapping the words down and leaving the director to fix it.


The Damsels Most Daring are on the Free Fringe, and I feel that I haven't given enough love to it this year. I admire the spirit of the companies that have stepped outside the relative safety of the paid programme, and who are clear in their intention to value art over money. The Bravery of Miss Anne and Other Tales of Splendorous Adventure has all sorts of different antics going on: they call it comedic, musical storytelling theatre. Their interests are obviously broad, and the live piano that accompanies their tales is typical of the way that the modern play integrates words and other theatrical aspects.

Miss Anne has hysteria, gun fights and grave-robbing, all in nineteenth century style: the author is on the stage again and the anarchic spirit of the press release made me consider that here is a work  that might reflect the anarchic state of current playwriting, where everything is up for grabs and talented new voices can mix and match and not be bothered by the demarcations of critics or academics.

French Quarter, The Voodoo Rooms 21-25 August

          

Five for Laurin: Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance

Today, Laurin arrives to join the team on The Skinny. I am delighted to have her back in Edinburgh: she is a rare example of a dancer who can write well about  many performance arts.

Before we get into an argument, I'll need to clarify. In my capacity as an editor, I am suspicious of the dancer who writes reviews. There are many exceptions to my distrust, and I am not saying dancers can't write. Indeed, Laurin proves that they can. But, when it comes to reviews, I have always wanted the voice of the critic to be distinctive from the one of the performer. Let's just say it's about protecting my patch, and save it for another time.

Maybe one when I am not trying to see fine shows a day. If there are any critics or editors out there, I finally realised that the way to prevent Fringe burn-out is to ensure that I stick to one venue per day. It concentrates the mind, allows breaks between shows and saves on the rushing about a city that is full of artists trying to get people  to see their show...

Any venues reading this might want to encourage audiences and critics to stay in one place by offering a free drink or snack to anyone who has tickets to three shows in their venue on one day. They might even buy more coffee, or more food, or stay for four. Just saying...

Anyhow, I need to give Laurin her recommendations. I am going to scatter them across the Fringe, but that's because my tips for her are really a framing device for another idiosyncratic top five. This is really a top five for potential audiences who are hip, young and might like to see some dance, enjoy scripted theatre and have a taste that can include the mainstream and the lighter, or skill-based end of the underground.

I had those Up and Over It boy and girl on my radio show this week... I started off on the wrong foot when I asked whether their show was a parody of Irish dancing, and made a joke about Michael Flatley. They didn't mind the joke, but Suzanne Cleary and Peter Harding are not just taking the piss. They are reclaiming Irish dance  from Lord of the Dance.

We know the score with that juggernaut success. Man with no top and a headband gives it laldy and the girls are stuck in the back doing the soft-shoe shuffle. Harding is vociferous in wanting to reconstruct the gender roles back to what it used to be, when women got a chance to hit the hard shoe action. There is humour in their choreography, yet they aren't about to mock the very form tha sustains them. Cleary used to be in the chorus for Flatley and they know without him, they would not have a foundation for their bold reworking of a traditional style.
Assembly, 3 -26 August

Stellar Quines don't need the Fringe: they've been winning awards and plaudits year round. Their emphasis on the female - these days, I can't get it right when I say "feminist," as the younger generation eschew the title (A Young Man's Guide to Sainthood, for example, might deconstruct the idea of masculinity, but the director denies that this is feminist), and the older generation have a clearly defined understanding of it that lacks any stability - has made them stand up and stand out in the Scottish scene. The List might share a name with a popular Scottish arts magazine, but it earned a rave review from Michael Cox from Across the Arts.

Despite his love for Eric Clapton, Cox is a critic who can recognise a good script and strong direction. Starring Maureen Beattie - another heavily lauded performer - it revisits Stellar Quines' recent interest in French Canadian theatre (their Ana also needed a translation into English). However, it has a universality in the story, of an isolated mother and housewife.

Director Muriel Romanes also has an eye for a good script, and her signature is a sparky vitality that emphasises the seriousness of the themes without getting stuck in rhetorical grand-standing. The List might be the break out hit that the critics are hunting. I am not sure, because I am behind with my reading.

Summerhall, 4 -25 August

A bigger risk, as I have no press release and no reviews to check (they got four stars from Broadway Baby, but that's on the flyer) is Into the Fog. They caught me coming out of Dance Base, and I rather like their approach to selling the show. They were standing very still, hands stretched out, and covered in quills. That's a good start, and there are a few keywords in their advertising that intrigue me: "physical theatre," "inspired by Russian animated film," "illuminate," "demanding movement."

They look like a young company, and are in one of the smaller venues... I have a belief that is always worth taking risks on these shows because giving the next generation a chance, even if they don't make out, is part of the Fringe spirit.

Sadly, that doesn't explain why I am not taking the risks in my own programme, as yet.

Venue 13 (Lochend Close), 4 -18 August

After these rather serious choices, you'll be ready for some fun. How about Mr B's Chap-Hop Hoorah? I caught the master of the riddling rhyme atLatitude a few years' back (he actually gave me a lift to the festival, and got us lost in Suffolk), and was surprised that his humour was backed up by the skills to get a tent rocking like mother.

His schtick is clear from the first couplet: he is applying formal English to the twists of rapping, and has acts the Original Gentleman. There are plenty of laughs in his cover versions - he knows his old school beats - and can drop a mean ukulele solo in the breaks.

Voodoo Rooms, 14- 26 August

While we are on the hip hop tip, I was impressed by my chat with Robbie from Bad Taste Cru. If The Council of the Ordinary is anything like the choreographer, it is hard-working, thoughtful and socially engaged, willing to remain hip-hop but ready to go beyond it.

A few years back, Robbie was part of the winning team at Castle Rocks, the annual Big Battle that happens during the Fringe in a nightclub I would not go anywhere near except for the promise of headspins and back flips: he's done his time with 2faced Dance and Liv Lorent, so I trust that The Cru are ready for prime time.

Besides this, he told me that when Flawless didn't turn up last year when I challenged them to a dance off, they failed by not turning up. So, I currently own Flawless, until they challenge me back in 2013.

Zoo Southside, 14-27 August

Live on Fresh Air

Criticulous walked out to the studios. They were in the Pleasance Courtyard. Vile was firmly locked up in the corner of their shared psyche, and sought out a few guests... first up is Unmythable - time to deconstruct some Greek myths...

Within minutes, the studio is disrupted. Criticulous is on the floor, strangling his guest after a comment about Euripides' version of Helen. Fortunately, the sound of Nick Cave disguises the vicious crack of bone and flowing blood. Criticulous returns to his seat, his eyes red with tears and he tries to remember that fighting physical theatre artists is a bad idea.

The next guest arrives to find Vile trying to smile over the pain. Taylor Glenn was once a psychotherapist, now a comedian, she eyes Criticulous cautiously. Having kicked the analysis for the jokes, she ignores the mania and acts the professional guest...

Then the Bad taste Cru arrive, and Criticulous starts to talk of sex and death and religion. Not so much a radio show as a typical night out with Vile, he thinks.

I Have Known All Along and Pretended Not To Only Out of Weakness

It's clear. It's clear. It's clear. It's clear. It's clear and true. It's clear and true and true and clear that the critic is artist as every attempt to define the gap between art and response will end up lost... the critic responds and are we supposed to believe that the artist is responding to nothing but life itself is not generating the art and the critic comes from the same place... and considerations of form make the haiku and review and the poem all equal...

Another day another we'll look at what political and social considerations are at play that keeps me down, thinks Criticulous. But now we see the true and clear and good and holy even holy urge that strives both in Luke Sutherland as he trembles the strings of his guitar and Robin Masson as he rolls deep oceans through the cello's bow and the sweat of Tony Mills, and Chris Devaney's final loving swerve... the last thing we hear is laughter as the child spins...

Heading home

Shorts...

It's cooler in the corner. Criticulous can command a better view of the room. Mills is like a giraffe over there... tall, elegant. Emma has been dancing with a young child so long it is as if they are a symbol of a young woman still in touch with her childhood. The girl laughs as she chases Emma in circles. Beautiful doppler effect.

Daphne has another question... and the contact improvisation is working... she talks through Facebook... she responds to my responses...

I have a question though... your next post is titled 'meaninglessness and being'

but in life, as in art and criticism, all of us (intentionally or unintentionally) look for a purpose/meaning

so is art for the sake of art meaningless?

Our Soldier is not Your Daddy's Macbeth

You are reading the Vile Blog, Scotland's only blog dedicated to the ego of one lone critic who believes theatre can save the world. Today I am delighted to welcome Mr Joel Gatehouse, who has a show on at Zoo.

Now, I have start off by saying that I am suffering from Fringe Fatigue. I also have Adaptation Allergy, and a Macbeth Myopia. In other words, I am tired, grumpy and can't see the point in any more adaptations of the Scottish play. And yet, you are up here with a piece that is likely to irritate me beyond measure...

Well, there certainly seem to be lot of Bloodstained Hands and soldiers with dangerously ambitious spouses up at the Fringe this year. In fact, Macbeth isn't the only story we're seeing being retold, reinvigorated or rehashed. Multiple Miss Julies, lots of Lears... And exactly how many plays about soldiers are there? 

But the argument we make is that, although the many similar stories might be old and all too familiar, the message behind them rarely is. For us Fools it's not about the stories you tell but instead about how you tell them. We're handing out badges saying "Shakespeare stole ideas too" as a reminder to our audience that it's not about creating something no one has ever thought of before, but instead about truly owning the stories you tell. 

A Strange Wild Song and Grit are two shows about children effected by war at Bedlam this year. Yet they are two loveably unique shows that tell two very different stories in completely different ways. 

Our soldier contains exactly zero lines of Shakespeare's text. What does that make it? A adaptation? A reinterpretation? Does it matter? We think it doesn't and you'll come out at the end not talking about Shakespeare but about a lovably foolish war correspondent and a charismatic soldier. 

Okay, I'll show a grudging respect for your complete eradication of Shakespeare's text: if I heard another speech about a "a dagger before me" spoken by a bloke wearing a sub-machine gun, I'd be on the phone to Doctor Who to ask who is messing about with the space-time continuum. Then again, what's left of Macbeth if you get rid of the language? Is it a story about murder, the importance of having children to continue your legacy, or the problems or spending too much time trying to pick up weird sisters in the Forest?

So much is left! The power of a prediction. Of fate. The irresistible forces that push us everyday. Guilt. So much guilt. In Our Soldier we directly relate the guilt of a child stealing a Flump from her Grandma's purse to sending your husband off to kill someone... Possibly not the most obvious connection but for Alice Coggins, our plucky war correspondent, it's the only way she can relate to the horrific situation unfolding in front of her. 

Our Weird Sisters are Dali-esque businessmen with briefcases for heads, Half blind they select "Our Soldier" for greatness and the action of the play is set in motion. We ask the question "what if no one was left to tell this story of the boys and girls who are sent off to another country to play at war"? Not to make some vague political point about UK foreign policy but instead to make people connect with a story that is very much our story. Of our times. And no one else's. 

Perhaps you're right that we don't need a Macbeth set on the international space station or Much Ado About Nothing where they communicate only via Facebook but it might just capture something about right now that wasn't true yesterday... or that will be true tomorrow. That for us is the very thing that makes theatre so special. It's ability to react to the spirit of our times. 

Okay, I am starting to like this. By abandoning the original script, you've given yourselves free reign to explore the ideas and make it relevant again: much like the way the great Greeks did with the myths, showing respect to the source material as inspiration, not as the definition of how the story has to go. One last question before you go, then: how did you make the work and for a lazy critic like me, what categories does the production fall into - is it devised, physical, comedy or what?

We started by going through the play looking at the actions of the text rather than any psychology or language used. From this we created a framework in which to play around in. We improvise, mess around, try to make each other laugh. It was really important for us to find some light in a piece filled with so much darkness and our bumbling war correspondent helps this on its way. Our style is undeniably physical and visual and you'll find us in the Physical Theatre and Dance section of the fringe programme. 

We're at the Zoo (Monkey House) at 3PM and we'd love to see you there!

Mack is back!