Points of view: theatre, comedy and news
I Got Some Dope Ass Memories With People That I’ll Never F*ck With Again is the latest hour by Erika Ehler where, using her own experiences as a basis, she deconstructs the concept of friendship break-ups in a meandering, careful reflection of a show.
MC Hammersmith’s The MC Stands for Middle Class is just about as good as it gets in terms of improvisation, music and comedy. It’s difficult to go back to listening just rap after this show, because what MC Hammersmith does is a lot more impressive than anything out there. Even Hamilton appears less ground-breaking after seeing this show.
Xhloe and Natasha have achieved a kind of legendary status; they are remarkable performers and writers who create such curious and dynamic storylines and relationships within their theatre pieces, combining elements of clowning, physical theater in order to explore broader themes, building and improving on the strength of their previous shows. Their latest work A Letter to Lyndon B. Johnson or God (Whoever Reads This First) is no different, as with this show they break their own record of imaginative storytelling yet again.
Having returned to the Edinburgh Fringe with her sophomore show, Doomscrolling, Suchandrika Chakrabarti chats to Pepper&Salt about her new hour, character comedy and what's going on with the orcas.
Jane Bramwell’s and Michael Brand’s Wallis is an escape into a world of decadence and understated glamour through which we’re given a hole in the 4th wall from which to get a glimpse into the social weavings of the British upper class.
In Shakespeare, the role of the fool and the king are very distinct, with the idea that a fool can’t be a king and a king can’t be a fool. How do you think this applies to the modern context?’ This question was asked in a series of verbal and written interviews over the course of May 2024-August 2024, which very quickly spiralled into a larger thought experiment. During this time, there was a series of events that very significantly shifted the political conversation. To name just a few; the UK had a general election, Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee, and Trump was nearly assassinated (which occurred in a semi-media blackout as many topical news programmes were on hiatus). The question was initially devised in February 2023, taking partial inspiration from the political context of the previous years –Boris Johnson’s premiership, Donald Trump, Liz Truss and the cost-of-living-crisis - coupled with thoughts on a lyric from Stephen Sondheim’s 1964 political satire Anyone Can Whistle (‘laugh at the kings or they’ll make you cry’ – Everybody Says Don’t).
Showstopper! The Improvised Musical is a Fringe institution. We walk in the room expecting a good time, to be thoroughly entertained by the cast’s antics onstage. What happens in that room becomes the stuff of legends and inside jokes.
Shiny is Steve Bugeja’s latest offering to the comedy world at the altar of the Edinburgh Fringe. The show adopts on a linear structure as he takes us on a journey through his school days, comedy career to achieving his dream of writing a sitcom. Through all of this, Bugeja engages in a commentary about the connections that we make between self-worth, career and achievements, critiquing the nightmarescape that we create for ourselves. It’s a relatable hour as we follow him down this path of self-reflection that speaks to a larger sociological and cultural issues and analyses. It gets to a point where we can’t help considering when we’ve had a similar experience, when - to use Bugeja’s terminology - we’ve felt shiny or matte.
William Shakespeare’s plays have been staged and re-staged time and time again, in many different forms, settings, genres, each theater company trying to bring something new to an age-old and familiar story. Shadow Road’s Macbeth Sleep No More is the latest attempt at trying to present a new interpretation of a story so old that it has its own superstition attached to it.
Paddy Young returns to the Edinburgh Fringe with a new hour after smash-hit success of his debut. Here he chats to Pepper&Salt about If I Told You I'd Have to Kiss You, his foray into online sketch comedy and Quakers Theories.
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