Points of view: theatre, comedy and news
Aunty Ginger knows how to make an entrance, and the energy of Finding Splashman certainly starts at an electric place. The atmosphere then settles quite significantly as we’re then treated to a large portion of audience interaction, stand-up and the occasional satire, a very varied and occasionally muddled set.
They say that there’s no genius without a touch of madness and Alexander Bennett’s Emotional Daredevil has both in barrels.
Teresa Livingstone’s Delighted is such a playfully sarcastic show where she seems to find new levels of social observationism to share with us.
Edy Hurst’s Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Himself is proof that you can really tie anything together to form a conspiracy theory and make it mean anything. This is just a very fun show, where exaggeration and irony pervade the humour and create this comically spooky, mad-cap adventure.
Improv is always a huge risk to go to as an audience member, just because there’s such a wild and fluctuating difference in quality that can occur. That being said, Holy Shit Improv is pretty much as safe a bet as you can make with this genre. I have never laughed as hard or for as long as I did during this show, there’s just no way to stop laughing at what occurs onstage.
The wonderful thing about theater is that we can really build the world that we want with it, to draw and establish connections between topics that in any other format would be tenuous. The exception to this rule seems to be ALL Productions’ My Blood, and its connection to the Oresteia is perhaps as distant as the Percy Jackson films are to the books.
My MILF-Shake Brings All The Boys To The Yard is a sarcasm-littered show where Ellen unpacks and openly discusses everything from the concept of MILF-dom to therapy, using visual aides to signpost throughout her show. In the use of the doctor’s report, there’s almost an attempt to explain the context behind the words of this report. This show certainly goes in unexpected directions before coming round again with a logic maybe only Ellen can see. The topics aren’t always engaging, but they’re certainly unique. She comes up with these elaborate jokes that come together very creatively at the end, a payoff she spends the entire showing setting up.
Initially unassuming, Claire Parry’s Boorish Trumpson is an example of how art can surprise you.
Kate Hammer makes her debut this fringe with her show, Double Virgin on the Rocks (With a Twist). Here she talks to Pepper&Salt about the concept behind her show, the struggles of having many names and we we do this.
Have you ever wondered how sea creatures must feel about the destruction of their ecosystems? Well, Zoë Bullock’s Gracie and the Start of the End of The World (Again) might just answer that question. It’s a creative and funny story that balances the humour and devastating throughout.
Pepper & Salt 