R.I.P to Robert Breer

I saw Robert Breer's show at Baltic and really enjoyed it, I'm glad that he and his family got to see the show.


A great loss.

Milton Jones - Lion Whisperer (£15)

If you read my review of Shappi Khorsandi, you'll know that I measure whether I enjoyed a comedian of if they make me belly laugh or not. Before the show started my brother and I managed to find seats with only two rows in front of us, we were facing the side of the stage but the view was good nonetheless. I turned to Sam and told him that I was hoping for belly laughs and did an impression of Santa. Milton started the set dressed as his grandfather, it was weird and unexpected considering the name of the show was "lion whisperer" the crowd were connecting straight away because every time a latecomer came in, Grandfather Milton would start his little set again, with "I once had a cousin in Leathe, he kept his money under his mattress because he didn't think anyone would look in the garden" he did it three times and it got funnier each time.

My first proper belly laugh of the show was when Milton's grandfather was talking about the Olympics and said "could the winner of the 400 metre butterfly please come and collect their giant insect." Milton's style is to pummel the audience with witty one liners, the joke is over before you realise and then the humour hits you unexpectedly. It was a great show.

"Similes, what are they like?" and "I saw a clown's eye, that was a big plus" were mine and my brother's favourite jokes of the night and we've already repeated them a fair amount.

Venue: 8/10
Price: 8/10
Show: 10/10
Enjoyment: 10/10

Overall: 9/10

Blood and Roses (£10)

About 20 minutes into the Blood and Roses experience, I started feeling guilty. The reason I felt guilty was that before the show my brother, Sam, and I went to the overly crowded St.Georges West looking for a room where the show would be shown, so we could sit down, watch and leave. We could find no such room. We asked around and a nice woman who I would later meet again asked me what I knew about the show. I was not enjoying the crowded room, I wanted to sit down and watch whatever I was going to be shown. I embarrassingly replied that I knew nothing of what I was about to see, her eyebrows raised, I've forgotten her exact words because I couldn't hear them after she said the word "tour." That's when my heart sunk, along with any good expectations I had for the forthcoming show. So, the guilt, the reason I started feeling guilty was for doubting the adventure, the adventure that I was part of.

The friendly woman who told me that I had bought tickets to see a tour guided Sam, five mismatched strangers and I down a small flight of stairs to the back exit of St.Georges West. There were headsets on a table, if it was possible, my heart sank further. We were given an introduction to Electra, who I guess was our guide. Everyone donned some large headphones that were connected to a long wire and then a small MP3 player. Electra and the nice woman (I apologise for forgetting her name, she was nice though) tried to start everyone's MP3 players at the same time. It didn't work first time so they had to try again, this took a little time and I started to think about the small group of 7 who had decided to trust Electra with the next 90 minutes of their lives. Firstly I noticed a middle-aged man, all in black, carrying a black leather folder, he wore black glasses and as far as I know avoided eye contact. I wondered if he was going to be part of the show... He wasn't. My wondering about this man was interrupted when music started playing in my ears. It was Scottish music. A tour of Edinburgh accompanied by Scottish music, I imagine that at this point I was pulling the same face I do when asked to tidy my bedroom, frankly I was sulking.

The group followed Electra down the street, it looked like she'd done the route a hundred times but still enjoyed every step and sight. I have no idea where we were, I'm terrible at directions. I just followed Electra as she calmly guided us, listening to her own headphones and looking content. I was listening to a story told by a broad Scotswoman, she said something about the people passing and I looked in the faces of the real people passing. My bother and I quietly giggled to each other silently, I don't know about him but I was laughing because I was expecting a normal play and then somehow there I was walking down a street with headphones on, an interesting story in my ear, 6 mismatched strangers around me, following Electra.

The story was clever, it was told from different generations, different times in the stories and also included a Russian myth. The stories were overlapping and interrupted each other. It was Scotland meets Russia, reality meets fiction. It was like the Archers meets Harry Potter. We were led behind a building, into a stone walled path, Electra opened a grand door and we were led inside, if felt like we weren't supposed to be there but we went into a room and everything was white, it was beautiful. On the wall was the family trees of people I was hearing about on my headphones, on the floor was a model of a town and on the windowsills were small paper wedding dresses which coincided with the story. Whilst in the room I looked around at the people sharing this with me, the woman with curly hair next to me, she was alone and had blisters on her feet. Another woman on her own who wore a blue velvet jacket. An elderly couple, he wore all beige and a faded green fishing hat, she wore a navy body-warmer and took his arm when they crossed roads. There was the man all in black. There was Sam, a 20-year-old engineering student with a friendly face and skating shoes. And there was me, blonde hair past my waist, smart navy blazer and a large necklace which says "bang tidy"

As two of the characters were falling for one another, Electra threw a handful if confetti into the air and we saw a Banksy-esque paining on a wall of the characters kissing. As a story about times spent drinking in pubs was told, we were sat in the corner of a pub and were served water. At the scary part of the myth we were taken to an overgrown, secret courtyard that had been decorated with photographs, furniture and women with cabbages for heads. We finished off in a church garden where names were tied onto a tree, we read them then were led to stand around a stone carved heart as the stories came together and ended.

The mismatched strangers and I removed our headphones and tried to absorb the medley of experiences we'd just been given. Electra almost debriefed the dazed group and we dispersed, though I stayed to have a little chat with Electra about writing this! The experience has become a surreal blur of adjoining stories, strange people and Edinburgh's underbelly.

It is very hard to review this piece as the next person who sees it will not experience what I did, the stories and places will be the same but the crowd, weather and atmosphere will be different. Also, I've never seen anything like this so I have nothing to compare it to.

I very much enjoyed my 90 minute "tour" and I regret being moody to begin with. I would have liked to improve was the technology, me and Sam were out of sync so he reacted about 5 seconds before me to everything, he said that this could have been fixed with different MP3 players and a remote control, though most of the technological stuff he says goes strait over my head, I agreed that there must've been a way to sync everybody.

Here's the hard part:
I'm going to give this show 8/10 this is because I really enjoyed the story and seeing parts of the city that I would not have otherwise seen.

Shappi Khorsandi (£13)

Shappi Khorsandi (£6.50 but I think I got two for one)
Pleasance Courtyard "beyond"

My brother and I went to see Shappi Khorsandi together, which was fitting considering the show was primarily about the relationship between Shappi and her older brother.

I enjoyed Shappi's anecdotes, I liked being able to find my brother and I in what she was saying. I didn't relate to everything Shappi said though, for instance, the desire to eat her baby, I do not share that trait, nor do I have a baby.

I'm not sure that the crowd were totally playing along, there were about 150 of us, give or take. I was sitting in the back row, right in the corner. I had the stairs in front of me so nobody's head was directly in view but I did feel very 'edgy' excuse the pun. But even the people who were I the middle of other audience members didn't seem to be taking part in the give/take relationship between comedian and audience. One thing I use to measure how much I like a comedian is if I "Belly laugh" you know, one of those hearty, unstoppable giggles, sadly I had no belly laughs.

Venue: 7/10
Price: If got two for one so 10/10 otherwise, £13, 6/10
Show: 7/10
Enjoyment: 8/10

Overall: 8/10 (7/10 for full price)

2401 Objects (£5)

All I knew about this show was its name, I only found out the destination the morning before I went. When my brother and I were walking into the theatre we joked about how there were no objects on the stage, we wondered where they would be hiding 2401 objects. I was tired from a few late nights and an early morning, with that and the fact that wither were no objects of interest on the stage, my hopes for the forthcoming show were not high. In retrospect, I may have been too sceptical...

The play was about Hanry Molaison's brain, he was severely epileptic and in an effort to stop his seizures a doctor called Scoville delved into Henry's brain and removed both his hippocampi, which conveniently I'd learned about in psychology. This prevented Henry from acquiring new memories. We were taken through a few memorable moments in Henry's life to see how he lived, see how he felt, see his seizures and see him when he can't acquire memories. At the end there was a projection of Henry's brain being sliced into 2401 slices for research by Dr. Jacopo Annese, the narrator.

I love interesting sets, I was very satisfied with what I saw; a gauze screen that was the whole backdrop to the stage, there were projections on the gauze which created an eerie, dream-like atmosphere, like we were watching memories, as we were. The screen span round, let the actors and props slide underneath it and it slid from the back to the front, imitating the 'cryomicrotome' that was used to slice Henry Molaison's brain into 2401 objects.

I'll finish with a quote from Dr. Jacopo Annese (Yes, I bought the book with information and the script)
"If you could put your hands in front of you so you are looking at your palms. Perfect. And now, if for a moment, you imagine that these are my hands. They are used to doing a lot of detailed work, you trust them.

Now if you close your eyes and bring your hands towards you, so they rest on the top of your head.

[the projection goes dark and hands are raised towards the camera and cover the lens as if following the instructions]

Your thumbs rest just in top of your ears, and the heel of your hands is sort of on your forehead. There, you've got the idea.

And you can feel the bone case underneath your hands. And under that, your brain. And inside that, everything you've ever known. Everything you've ever experienced is beneath your hands.

Enjoyment: 4/5
Set: 4/5
Acting: 3/5
Directions: 4/5

Overall rating: 75% good.

Durham Brass Festival

Without knowing what to expect I agreed to spend my Sunday night in Durham and because of a spare ticket I took my friend, Kathryn. We arrived in Durham expecting to see some sort of "dance thing." We parked by the river and walked up to the gala where we were greeted by a great French band with a lot of comedy value.

 

 

After the unexpected show we went for a coffee where I embarrassingly mistook a man talking fluent itallian for being Scottish... After that mishap we worked our way to the main square where we caught more feel-good bands with uncontrollable energy.

 

We'd been tipped off to work out way to the cathedral square before the crowds so that we did and we got a great spot right in the centre of the grass beside some kind of stage with a poll in the middle of it, we exchanged fears about how controversial it would be for a poll dancer to dance in this place of all places.

The synchronised dancing started on the right (if you're facing the cathedral, as we were) at this point it was impressive to see 4 separate groups of instruments all working in time and the dancing was unusual but I wasn't overwhelmed. Dancing started on the left and though the dancing wasn't interactive, I felt as if it was because I had to turn round and keep looking for other dancers. Then opposite the cathedral two male dancers started drumming on huge drums then fastened themselves to the first weird contraption.

 

Then for the poll dancing stage, which turned out to be very different, the dancers seemed to be technicians as well because they seamlessly and effortlessly constructed a huge rotating sphere

 

By now I was impressed but I still wasn't expecting the next part of the show: in front of the cathedral the dancers were joined to more crazy contraptions and suddenly it was as if they weren't dancers any more, but human Catherine wheels, whizzing in 360 degrees. The engineering if the equipment was amazing, the dancers were able to throw themselves in any direction while spinning around simultaneously. The shadows on the cathedral were amazing too as it was harder to see the poles that the dancers were on so it was as if they were actually flying in a dizzy manner. I'll leave you with pictures un hope that they captured what I saw.

Enjoyment: 95% (would have been 100% but I the weather was a bit miserable, not that that was anybody's fault)

Plan for Edinburgh Fringe

I just booked a load of tickets for the Edinburgh Fringe, I'm only up for a little while but this is what I have tickets for:

Monday 8th:
- 2041 Objects @ The Plesence
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- Shappi Corsandi @ The Plesence
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Tuesday 9th: 
- Blood and Roses - You've got to walk around the city for this event so I can't include a venue.
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-Milton Jones @ Assembly Hall
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Wednesday 10th:
- Tuesdays at Tescos @ Assembly Hall

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-Viral the Musical @Churchill Theatre
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Thursday 11th:
-The Wheel @ Traverse Theatre
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Friday 12th:
What Remains  -@ Traverse  University of Edinburgh Medical School Anatomy Department

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I will be going to more things, hopefully lots of free events and things I stumble on by chance. Very excited!