Top Tips for Nicola Todd...

Nicola Todd is a playwright, but she also studied with me. So she knows a great deal about dramaturgy. 

This means many fringe companies would do well to heed her.

Moaning aside, she's coming over to see shows, and I am giving her a set of top tips...

Tar Baby
In a few days, my podcast with Desiree Burch will be on the blog. On it, you will hear me declare my love for her. Actually, not in so many words, but I had just seen her show, and she is this year's art crush.

It's about racism. It pulls no punches. It is witty, it is fierce, it is authentic (last two adjectives, of course, open to interpretation... do I mean fierce like ballroom fierce? Do I mean hip hop authentic?).

I usually worry about adopting social thinking from the USA to a British context, but this is like an object lesson for all those writers who think they are doing political. 

I'd like to start a petition on change.org to get her to move to Scotland. We need her.

Wild Bill
I'll admit: I have seen this one yet but you probably remember my

feelings about Shakespeare (won't repeat them lest our tutor Vicky is reading this... and I like her better than the Bard... well, it's more the Shakespeare industry than the plays and...).

But this one looks fun: the actor made it himself, and I like the cut of his mockery. 

Gary Busey's One Man Hamlet
Again, not seen it, but... have a read. Another madcap Shakespeare session...

Greatest Stories Never Told
I know you were asking about Russian theatre, but I am kinda not sure what is about this year... there has been years when the Russian physical theatre massive have come over and warped my tiny little mind... so how about this... a kind of historical show... I think you'll be interested in the script here.

Five Festival Favourites for Finch

some weird art, yesterday

Following one of my infantile rants, Patrina Finch said she had a taste for 'weird choreography from the EU'. So here's a selection of things that fit into at least two of those categories.

Mamoru Iriguchi

I think Mamoru is going to the Fringe, probably at Summerhall, but I'll need to check. Anyway, he gets in under 'weird' and 'choreography'. He wears a projector on his bike helmet and films himself as he wanders about the stage, sends up the stereotype of the strange oriental artist, has a great deal of charm and gets spooky when he uses backwards film. I'd like to explain more clearly, but that would probably miss the point: it might err on the side of whacky, but there is something going on in this man's mind that demands a stage.

Gecko
Ticks all three boxes, and I saw this one a few months back. Perhaps one of the most playful meditations on alienation ever to reach the stage, it is some guys trying to make sense of an office that has all sorts of tricks hidden in drawers, up filing cabinets and that.

I'm a bit worried that the set, which is its own character in the way of these things, is a bit big for the usual Fringe get in (twenty minutes after the comedian finishes... maybe a meat raffle going on next door), but Gecko are going to be one of those 'surprise' hits of August 2015 (that is, not a surprise at all, since they have established themselves as game-changers over the past decade).

Richard Move
Hang on, this isn't at the Fringe.

Butoh Medea
Not the hardest sale for me: it's the Greek classic done as Butoh. I have some really cool images of this somewhere which I am going to turn into a comic strip... time pending... Not from the EU, but Butoh is double weird.

Joan Cleville
With that name and accent, I reckon he is French (EU!), via Dundee (Scottish Dance Theatre), it's at Dance Base (choreography) and... well, I am not sure it is weird at all. In fact, none of this is really weird, not as weird as, say, carrying a coffin down Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday Night behind a skipping David Hoyle...

Fringe tips for Jack Lothian....

Mad Cyril's son

It's always nice when Jack Lothian off Laptop Guy turns up in the office. Apart from having another writer in the room, Jack is usually good for fashion tips, and online personality quizzes.

Sadly, he'll have gone off by the time the Fringe starts - he's a busy guy - but if he were around, I bet these five shows would be right up his ally.

THE MARVELLOUS MECHANICAL MESMERIST

sees Cornwall based actors with disabilities in an Edinburgh Festival Fringe World-Wide Premiere of a new hilarious play with
hypnotised people from the audience playing supporting roles this August.

It's steam-punk influenced, which ought to suit a man who is working on an episode of Dr Who. The bloke off Holby City is playing a mesmerist who is trying to get rich quick, plus he is going to hypnotist the audience. Mayhem beckons...

Edith in the Dark

Playwright Philip Meeks weaves Nesbit’s own life drama alongside her resolutely domestic terror shorts, imbuing her refined words with a little of her own inner darkness and humour.

It's about a writer who had a bad experience as a child. Not saying that is Jack, but I know how writers are both intrigued by the biographies of other writers, but also like to enjoy other writers' anguish. It's a horror show.

The Solid Life of Sugar Water

The world première of an unsettling story of love and loss - breaking down barriers, challenging preconceptions and boldly placing deaf and disabled artists centre stage.

Jack did some episodes of Shameless, and so did Jack Thorn, the playwright of Solid Life. So they are kind of like ink brothers, and they share a name.

Allie
15-year-old Allie is a young, pimple-popping Edinburgh lass who collects wooden animal figurines and likes to chase bad boys. When she meets the silver-tongued gangsterBobby Warren, a girl’s wet dream turns into a woman’s bloodstained nightmare. After years of being caught in Bobby’s twisted spider web Allie is all grown up and is now out to wreak vengeance on the man who stole her dreams.

When Jack did an episode of Ashes to Ashes, it had a gangster storyline. He also did one for No Offence, which is about Manchester coppers. He must like a bit of crime - in art, anyway.

Society of Strange
An hour of portmanteau horror inspired by groundbreaking writers such as - HP Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Neil Gaiman, Mary Shelly, Stephen King, MR James, Thomas Ligotti, and many others.

Dark horror all round. Besides, I sent him the press release of this by mistake and he was intrigued. 

Five Shows Not To Miss From Made in Scotland 2015

A Gambler's Guide To Dying | Gary McNair with Show And Tell
Traverse Theatre
What are the odds of living an extraordinary life? The story of one boy's granddad, who won a fortune betting on the 1966 World Cup and, when diagnosed with cancer, gambled it all on living to see the year 2000. An inter-generational tale of what we live for and what we leave behind. 

Gary McNair returns to the Traverse after last year's award-winning five-star show Donald Robertson Is Not a Stand-Up Comedian.
August 6 – 30 (Not Mondays) Various times, see planner (70 mins) | £18, £13 conc, £8 unemployed, £12 preview, £12 preview concs (6 Aug)

McNair has established himself as Scotland's funniest non-comedian: if the subject matter looks a little darker this time (death, gambling and cancer), his dead-pan humour and charisma will lighten the mood. 
Butterfly | Ramesh Meyyappan
Greenside @ Infirmary Street
A striking adaptation of Madame Butterfly, exploring themes of love, loss and hope. Told without words, this haunting piece uses visually poetic narrative, handcrafted puppets (by Gavin Glover, National Theatre of Scotland’s A Christmas Carol) and a beautiful score (by David Paul Jones) to tell the tale of Butterfly, a kite-maker. This lush, textured, innovative piece of theatre played to sold-out audiences across Scotland, earlier in 2014.
Aug 8 – 29 (not Sundays) 20.45 (60mins) | £12, £10 concs

Meyyappan is a restless creator: he has done aerial swinging, mime and here he goes physical theatre. There's more to this than a simple retread of the opera: opposing ideals of masculinity (neither very pleasant), competing symbolisms and plenty of resonance through the open-ended nature of Meyyappan's movement vocabulary.


The Jennifer Tremblay Trilogy | Stellar Quines
Each play is a story in its own right; together they form a powerful piece of theatre. Set in Quebec they follow a woman’s journey of discovery about her past.
The List: A woman struggles to adjust to an isolated new life and her obsession with lists leads to tragic consequences. Scotsman Fringe First and Herald Angel Award winner 2012
The Carousel: Nothing can stop the carousel. A woman is on an emotional journey into her past. Can she reconcile herself with her discoveries? Scotsman Fringe First Award 2014
The Deliverance: A woman struggles to fulfil her dying mother's last wish. Will her journey end in redemption?
Aug 6-31, Various Dates & Times for each part of the Trilogy, (60mins approx.)
Peak: 14, 15, 16, 21, 22, 23, 28, 29 & 30 Aug £14.50, £13 concs
Off peak: 8, 9, 13, 17, 20, 24, 27 and 31 Aug £12.50, £11 concs
Preview: 6 & 7 August £10
£35 peak & £30 off peak if all 3 shows purchased at same time

Words, words, words: theatre stripped back to its basics. 
Swallow | Stef Smith & Traverse Theatre Company
Traverse Theatre
Balanced precariously on the tipping point, three strangers are about to face their demons head on.
They might just be able to save one another if they can only overcome their urge to self-destruct.
Painful yet playful, poignant but uplifting, this world premiere from Olivier Award-winning writer Stef Smith takes a long hard look at the extremes of everyday life. Questions of identity, heartbreak and hope are explored with vivid, poetic intensity. Directed by award-winning Traverse Artistic Director Orla O’Loughlin, acclaimed for previous Festival hits Spoiling and Ciara.
Aug 7 – 30 Various times (70mins) | £20, £15 standard concession, £8 other concession, £14 previews, £8 previews concs (Aug 7 & 8)
BSL Interpreted and Audio Described performance: Aug 22 19:30
Age Rating 14+

I like Stef Smith's writing, and it is good to see it at The Traverse!
The Garden | John and Zinnie Harris
Traverse Theatre
Set at a time when humanity has run out of resources, John and Zinnie Harris’ The Garden tells a dystopian tale of a couple at the end of their tether. Living on the 10th floor of a “high-rise block” they discover hope in the form of a strange tree growing through the floor of their kitchen.
Based on an original short play of the same name by Zinnie Harris, commissioned by the Traverse Theatre in 2009 and winning a Scotsman Fringe First Award, this new operatic version was commissioned by soundfestival and premiered in Aberdeen in 2012.
Aug 18-23, 25 – 30 15:00 and 18:00 (50mins) | £18, £13 standard concession, £8 other concession