January 11, 2005
Mini review: Chance & Circumstance
Chance & Circumstance - Peter Malick Group feat Nora Jones etc.
It's crap.
Buy New York City instead, which has all the Nora Jones songs on it and which is half the price.
Permalink # | Comments (0)
August 20, 2004
The Fringe: The Fred MacAulay Show
Radio Scotland Live at the Spiegeltent
The success of this show often depends upon the mix of guests, and unlike yesterday today's lot were pretty indifferent, with the marked exception of Paul Tonkinson who was very interesting and swapped stories of touring Iraq with Fred.
♦♦♦♦♦
Permalink #
August 19, 2004
The Fringe: The Fred MacAulay Show
Radio Scotland Live at the Spiegeltent
Bit of stand up from Fred to warm up the audience, the guests (Priorite a Gauche and The Consultants) were absolutely brilliant [aside from some wee bugger who claimed to have known Andrew Gilligan as a child and who was hence rather superfluous], what more could you want, particularly for free? Ok, the coffee was awful, but otherwise license payer's money well spent.
♦♦♦♦♦
Permalink #
August 14, 2004
The Fringe: NewsRevue
25th Anniversary Edition
The best of the three NewsRevue shows I've seen, topical [unlike last year's version, which felt somewhat outdated] and occasionally savage. The George Bush caricatures are on the verge of becoming stale, although the Gordon Brown shows promise. The songs are brilliant, although several are repeats from last year.
♦♦♦♦♦
Permalink #
The Fringe: Natalie Haynes
Still not sorry
Stream of consciousness patter on parents, relationships, the Atkins Diet and the close ideological relationship between the Nazis and the Smurfs. Frighteningly intelligent comedy.
♦♦♦♦♦
Permalink #
The Fringe: Marcus Brigstocke
Planet Corduroy
Brilliant, scathing and occasionally savage work from the man who suffers for his art in a corduroy suit under the spotlights. Heartfelt political satire, from George Bush to France through the Butler Report to asylum seekers via the fascists [including his mum] who read the Daily Mail.
♦♦♦♦♦
Permalink #
The Fringe: Rob Brydon
The Keith Barret Show
Short and Welsh [surely not related, those...] this is essentially the same as the TV show of the same name, but much much better. Brydon was surprised to find the builder who did his loft conversion sitting in the front row, and things got better from then. Incredibly quick witted, the show seems completely unscripted yet is extremely polished. He was very good last year, and is even better this year.
♦♦♦♦♦
Permalink #
The Fringe: Laurence and Gus
Men in Love
A two man sketch show, although sometimes it seemed to be more of a two man very-very-short play show instead. A lot of it was very good, some of it was strange, and bits of it were downright bizarre. Excellent performances, though the material did let them down at times.
Unfortunately held in one of the hottest venues in the Pleasance - be prepared to drip with sweat for an hour.
♦♦♦♦♦
Permalink #
The Fringe: David Martin
Jacob's Bladder (and Other Libel Stories)
Interesting venue, and with a larger audience this blend of rather strange songs and poems would go down a storm. Shame there were only 12 of us there, including his mum and dad. Bless.
♦♦♦♦♦
Permalink #
The Fringe: Lucy Porter
Lady Luck
Despite starting an hour late, the show was perfectly amiable and generally interesting without ever really taking off - the role of 'luck' in life is an interesting premise but not much to structure a show around. The general incompetence of those running the Assembly rooms didn't help matters.
♦♦♦♦♦
Permalink #
The Fringe: Miles Jupp etc.
The Lost and Lonely Rebels
Miles Jupp and two friends try the sketch show thing... started off very weakly, but improved markedly halfway through and ended strongly. Some of the sketches were quite surreal [which is good], but all in all last year's solo show was much better.
♦♦♦♦♦
Permalink #
