Top Five for 85a

For eleven months of the year, I broadcast and write from Glasgow. This has caused me to be a terrible West Coast chauvinist, loudly proclaiming that the heart of Scotland's creative culture is on the left hand side of the map.

One group that have enabled my opinion are 85a - they might have roots in the visual arts, but water them with enthusiasms for live music, esoteric cinema and immersive performance. Their event at the Glasgow Film Festival converted The Glue Factory into an inverted multiplex, scattering the films of Svankmejer between installations, performances and shoved inside industrial sized boilers. They followed this up with Chernozem, their expressionist movie that included live action episodes, monstrous machines and a handy reminder of the link between industrialisation and totalitarianism.

Apparently, members of the Collective are coming to the Fringe tomorrow. I don't want them to be swept away by the horror of Edinburgh's mass appeal, so I am picking out anything that looks like it will chime with their aesthetic.

Chernozem made it clear that the Collective are tough enough to handle David Harrower's Blackbird, which looks unflinchingly at the issue of child abuse. By shifting sympathy between the characters, and refusing to follow an easy, judgemental line - although this is no apologist's piece - Harrower builds the intimate two hander to a moment of incredible intensity in the last few moments.

Originally, it was staged at the International Festival: now it is coming to the Fringe in a site specific production. Admittedly, it's in some offices, which is where the play is set, and I doubt they'll be going as far as 85a do. It's Harrower's characterisation of the couple that chills, and whether it is acceptable to describe this as a sort of love story opens up an entire can of critical worms about how theatre represents and persuades.

Edinburgh Training and Conference Centre, 17- 24 August


I'll get round to going on and on about I am Son  in a full post later, but I'd be remiss not to shout it out for 85a. They are three angry Italians, who take their cues from disillusion and distraction. Extracts from a poem that castigates the failures of the 1968 revolution soundtrack a vicious series of vignettes that lampoon fashion, nationalism, romance and alienation: high energy action from start to finish, it allies dance discipline, live art irreverence and a tiny taste of clowning (red noses are present, sardonic and tragic). Proving that dance can not only be political, it can be more precise than a script, I am Son is a refreshing burst of rage, controlled yet potent, when entertainment is being touted as the arts' answer to the idiocy of Our Friends in Westminster.

Dance Base, 16 - 25 August

Given how 85a feel about Eastern Europe - there is a strong Soviet Realism to much of their iconography - I'm calling up Future Tales (Sierakowski). It's rough and ready punk theatre, laughing at the vanity of a particular Polish leftist to make broad points about the failure of the Marxist cohorts to engage with society in a meaningful way. The music is loud, the performances direct, the bit about WWIII is funny and intense, and komuna//warszawa used to be anarchists. They decided that this wasn't working, so evolved into the closest thing Poland has to 85a.

Where 85a build huge sculptures, komuna are more likely to have suggestive mouse suits, but both gangs have a loud of the DIY, the punk, and the found space as a venue. Their dialectic against dialectic is superb, cabaret in style, their attitude harsh and their humour dark. Wait for the three way between the future Marxist dictator, the Christian and the Muslim churches. Apparently, it's all about the size...

Summerhall, 15- 26 August

I usually try to push my luck in the Top Fives, and roam around the venues, catching as much as I can... I am keen to mention  Zoo venues, because they have physical theatre and held a line against the encroachment of comedy... and Greenside is worth a visit both for its commitment to dance and the rather lovely gardens. But frankly, if I don't suggest the Polish work (any of it at Summerhall) and the Russians, I am not reflecting what I know about 85a.

Mr Carmen by Akhe: don't be fooled by the rash of stars it has been getting. This is not a strong theatrical production. Michael Cox from Across the Arts endearingly compared it to a live action Tom and Jerry cartoon: it stars the two Akhe guys as classic Russian style clowns (that is, like they have come out of a production of Waiting for Godot) arguing about who's the best out of the famous romantic opera. 85a would be interested in the way that these "theatre engineers" foreground the act of building a set and their ingenuity in staging: the runway that they set up around them is charming and funny, and their antics behind it can raise a wry smile.

For sheer action, I would still go for Mefisto Waltz, same venue, same austere Russian atmosphere but with the bonuses of a fairly coherent narrative and emotive choreography, but Akhe is a curiosity. It might even guide your future approaches to installation based theatre.

Assembly Roxy, 3 -27 August

 Finally, it would be wrong of me not to mention Planet Lem. Of course, if you don't like the idea of a roller-skating robot, an astronaut arguing with the author, who has ended up a bit like God, only on a video screen, a rebellion against luxury and a warning against the dangers of relying on technology, I am sure there is some comedy around the corner.

This is in the Quad, so it is a massive spectacle. It is based on the writings of a great science fiction author from behind the Iron Curtain - apparently, he heard rumours about American sci-fi and wrote his own, without having actually read any. That he came up with Solaris might be astonishing given the circumstances, or the result of not having wasted time reading the pap that makes up much of the genre (like any genre, kit  has its share of cliché and dilettantes).

Planet Lem feels like a brief episode in a larger story, imaging a future universe, inhabited by millions of species across thousands of world, policed by travellers who bring their ideas to civilisations not yet ready to accept them.There is a cool spaceship bit, too.

Quad, 18- 26 August

It's The Russian Winter! In August!

Of course, any advice I give is always based on my own failures. So, really, don't overdo the Russian festival in one go. I spent a day at Assembly Roxy, catching the former USSR's finest. And now, I am tired, over-excited and slightly confused about the last few hours. Have I really been to hell and back again, returning as a sunflower growing on a stage covered in shit?

Derevo, Akhe and Do share approaches and flourishes. There is much dust cascading down from on high, white face paint, choreography that stops short of being disciplined dance technique, and an emphasis on the startling visual moment. The highlights of all three shows remain as static shocks in the memory. A scarecrow awakening to daylight, three conspirators swapping words around a table, a name spelled out in threads of light. Taken together, the Russian aesthetic is overwhelming and,, unfortunately, predictable.

Do were up first with Hangman. Perhaps the most thematically ambitious, it took the children's game, conflated it with the brutal occupation, and offered a series of sketches based around the nature of the word as image. Spectral, then rough, it dances around the consequences of using certain words (a hand is nailed to a book at the climax of a game) and the way that the image can replace the thing in itself. On a stage covered in newspapers - themselves oddly fragile against the eternal presence of the internet - Do provoke through veiled threats and the persistent clatter of a typewriter, bringing their fictions to visible and dynamic life.

Assembly Roxy, 3 -27 August


Then Akhe gave me Mr Carmen. The least satisfying of the three, the pair of performers reduced the tale of sex and death and bull-fighting to an elongated bicker between two unsettling clowns. Akhe suffer by comparison to Do - they are slower and more concerned with building up their set, and the narrative of Carmen is reduced to symbols and repeated writing of names. There is a menace in the performer's activies - they are goading each other towards madness - but the recognisable features of the Russian style become disappointingly predictable. The use of the staging, however, is intriguing and suggests that Akhe, who often collaborate with other companies, are more comfortable building than acting.

Assembly Roxy, 3-27 August


If the afternoon was a contest, Derevo won. It's no surprise to me: they have the most choreographic style, and the physical discipline of the performers gives them a visceral hardness. Last time, they dissected love: this time, it's hell, or something imagined by Bosch.

Although the description claims that this is the story of a scarecrow. Fair enough, the main character does stand in a field, rattles tins and has a nest for a hat. But he gets covered in shit, smashes a big melon (its skin illustrated like a globe), dresses up like a demented Roman Emperor, faces off a giraffe/woman/skeleton hybrid and wanders off with a big scythe. The seasons do pass, and it is strong meat: even when Frosty the snowman rolls up (and melts, inevitably), there's no "wonder of nature" subtext.

Surprisingly, the ending is relatively happy - a joyous return of summer. Luckily they get mysterious for the bow, and Derevo disappear (until the next Fringe) to plot the next assault on the mundane surface.


Assembly Roxy, 3-27 August