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Monthly Archives: August 2017

Fix, Underbelly Cowgate – Review

Pros: The sing-along moment that shows in practical terms the process of dopamine release that the play is all about. Cons: With its hour-long running time, this lively show left me wanting more. When we do something we like, our system produces dopamine, a substance that – as they illustrated by having us sing along during the performance – ‘rewards your brain and numbs your pain, provides the feeling you adore and keeps you coming back for more’. Fix is a ...

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Whore: A Kid’s Play, Greenside @ Infirmary Street – Review

Pros: Outrageously funny. Cons: The brazen jokes about sex and religion are for an adult audience. Whore: A Kid’s Play is not a comedy for the faint-hearted. Exploring serious matters like family, religion and sexuality through the eyes of three thirteen-year-olds, it uses the outrageous language of the cool kids from the block and it’s stuffed with jokes that’ll make you cringe before making you laugh out loud. ‘My dad wants to send me to catholic school to avoid getting pregnant’, states ...

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Woke, Gilded Balloon Teviot – Review

Pros: Apphia’s mellow storytelling and powerful singing are a perfect combination. Cons: Some background knowledge of African-American history is beneficial. Opening with a live cover of the popular jazz song St. Louis Blues, Woke moves the audience with a tale of two lives which run 42 years apart and are interwoven into a powerful solo show by Apphia Campbell. In 1971, New York-born Joanne Chesimard, rejects her “slave name” and becomes Assata Olugbala Shakur. As a member of the Black Liberation Army, ...

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Last Clown On Earth, Pleasance Courtyard – Review

Pros: Arresting images and dark humour. Cons: A clown in existential crisis inevitably produces a show light on belly laughs.~ For the first half an hour I was baffled. I’ll admit that I had been expecting more of a twinkly eyed, red nosed, falling-over kind of clown. This was a challenging work with striking visual images, but some of the staging was shabby and it didn’t hang together well. Russian actor Adasinsky’s company Derevo (it means tree) made their Fringe ...

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Slapstick, Assembly George Square Theatre – Review

Pros: Charming, hilarious clowns, who also happen to be virtuoso musicians. Cons: The section with the projection didn’t work well, and made the energy drop. The children in the audience are part of what makes a clown show, and this performance featured the rambunctious laughter of a little boy somewhere at the back, whose timing was perfect and brought the house down twice. The five clowns of Netherlands-based Wëreldbänd reacted with ready charm; in fact, the audience was part of ...

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