Mea culpa, mea culpa - the insanity which has been work over the past week and a half (ie creating a brand new fortnightly LGBT arts and entertainment magazine from the ground up within a single week) , plus planning for a very short notice trip to Copenhagen tomorrow (which I had less than a fortnight's notice of!) means that I haven't had time to blog regularly. For that matter I haven't had the time to see as many shows as I'd planned to either, dammit.
Enough with the excuses though...
THE LIST OPERATORS
This two-man comedy show, built around a series of lists such as '10 alternate ways to start the show' and 'Members of the audience we'd like to do 'sex' with'
was funny, engaging, and only very occasionally strained. Matt Kelly and Rich Higgins are already strong performers, with good rapport and an excellent 'warmly daggy' and 'sardonic straight man' vibe going on: given another year or two honing their writing and performance skills, they'll be amazing.
Three constant chortles out of five.
SCATTERED TACKSOh. My. God. This show was
amazing - definitely my pick as the best show I've seen in the Fringe so far. To call it 'just circus' would be like saying J.R.R Tolkien was 'just' a fantasy writer. A complex and intense show that played with ambient sound, lighting, comedy, fragility and one's sense of smell, as well as providing moments of tension, awe and sheer joy, and which I wholeheartedly recommend you see before it closes this Sunday. Promise me you will?
Four and a half gasps of awed delight out of five.NZAMBI NZAMBIA deliberately low-fi, shlocky horror-comedy about a group of students making a film in a suspiciously abandoned Tasmanian town. Cue secret affairs,
Evil Dead-style shennanigans, and attacking zombies. Not a great show - if nothing else it needed more blood - but certainly a fun one - and at only half an hour, what's not to like?
Two and a half hoots of mirth out of five.
I DREAM ANGUSThough occasionally too self indulgent and self conciously intellectual for my tastes, there was much I enjoyed about this one-woman show at the Croft Institute. Inspired by a Celtic myth about the god who gives us our dreams, this show incorporated dance, performance and video projection to sometimes stunning effect: such as a sequence when a young woman danced (on stage) in awkward sync with her idealised self (projected behind her) at a party. The stories of a series of characters, including the god himself, were never quite as fully realised as they needed to be, which resulted in a lack of clarity and lucidity; but ultimately
I Dream Angus conveyed both longing and dream-state confusion, and so in my book at least, was ultimately successful.
Three chin-stroking contemplative moments out of five.
SAMMY J - THE 50 YEAR SHOWSadly, because of work commitments, I arrived late at this show in the festival club, and had to leave early to judge
So You Drink? You Can Dance! at the Bella Union Bar, but what I saw, including Asher Treleaven's fashion tips, Sammy J's songs, Heath McIvor's puppetry, and Adam Hill's interactive crossword puzzle segment (thanks Adam - now I have be a column every five years until I'm 91) was as hilarious as it was shambolic. I'm so there in 2012 or is that 2013? I so failed maths in Year Nine!
Three and a half gales of laughter out of five.Then there's also been
The League of Shideshow Superstars. the Fringe Festival
Trivia Challenge to the rest of Melbourne's arts and cultural organisations (won - again - by the increasingly bloated Comedy Festival team not that I'm jealous or anything), some stunning gigs and films in the festival club, and more more more. My wholehearted and utterly unbiased congratulations to the Fringe team - luv yr work!
Sadly I have to fly out to Copenhagen this Wednesday night (indeed, I should be packing instead of blogging), which means I'll miss the final weekend of Fringe frivolity and madness - but fuck it's been a good festival this year!
A short, simple but utterly charming production, While I'm Away sees writer/performer Telia Nevile build a solo show around the Poet Laureate character she's developed over the last 18-odd months at The Last Tuesday Society. Gently mocking the pretentions of bad performance poetry while simultaneously using poetry to explore themes of love, life and contemporary angst is no mean feat, but Nevile manages it with aplomb, while simultaneously screening a series of antique slides which counterpoint and compliment the verses and stories she presents. There's a bittersweet tenderness to this production that I found utterly disarming, as well as a sharp, dry wit and subtle, goofy, fragile charm. Highly recommended.
A solo performance by Skye Gellmann, which like his co-devised 2008 show Scattered Tacks takes the traditional tropes of circus and refines them down into a marvellous minimalism. With only a slide projector, a bowling ball and a couple of wooden blocks to assist him, Gellmann focuses the audience's to focus on the human body and contemplate what it is capable of. There's a cold purity to Asleep in a Secret that some may find offputting, but which I found enthralling; it's like Skye has boiled away all the extraneous elements of physical performance to focus on the heart of circus, with an entertaining game of Chinese Whispers added to the mix.