N A W N E K - A G Y M M O T © O T O H P
FESTIVAL MUSIC | Reviews
BIDING TIME (REMIX) Fame examined, with video art and audience headphones ●●●●●
A Band Called Quinn's multimedia meditation on fame, Biding Time (Remix), is best experienced live (rather than in its recorded format). The audience wear silent-disco wraparound headphones, before lead singer, Glasgow’s Louise Quinn, is lowered out of a bin bag by a life-sized furry Rabbit (Lewis Sherlock). She joins the band and they begin to play their synth-pop soundtrack, ranging from fuzzy lo-fi (‘You Know the Right People’) to torch songs (‘Snowing in Paris’) and glam-tinged showtunes (‘Forget About It’). Evocative imagery by Uisdean Murray and Tim Reid flashes on
two large screens, featuring Lynchian nightmares and sun-dappled surrealism with an angelic choir. Quinn's character, Thyme, is wrestling with the notion of compromise (represented by the evil Rabbit, who cooks up more than mischief) and becoming a sex kitten to shift units. Mr Big, the record company boss played with impish glee by Diane Torr, wants the band to sell out. Thyme's alcoholic mother (Quinn again, this time in a greasy
black wig) wonders why she can't just be a ‘normal’ girl like she was, and lower her expectations. Elsewhere, Martin McCormick portrays various oddballs, tempting the band with grand promises which prove elusive. Questions remain; of nature versus artifice, art versus slop. Eventually, Thyme swaps her powder blue cardigan for a skin-tight black bustier, straddling the Rabbit's back, and the whole band succumb to the big bucks, blindfolded, during ‘Drive With Your Eyes Closed’.
Quinn's creamy voice, augmented by Robert Henderson's elegiac trumpet solos, has a warmth that suits the intimacy of this theatrical setting. The concept album is reinvented for a new generation, as wry satire. Just don't let the Rabbit do the catering. (Lorna Irvine) ■ Summerhall, 0845 874 3001, until 23 Aug (not 10 &11, 14–16, 18, 22) 10.20pm, £12 (£9).
P H O T O © L A U R A P A R D O
PETER STRAKER: BLACK MAGIC Showtune singer thrills, but picks wrong songs ●●●●●
DANDY DARKLY’S PUSSY PANIC New York storyteller brings horror songs about genitals ●●●●● DANIEL CAINER’S JEWISH CHRONICLES Eccentric stories and stale gags ●●●●●
Peter Straker is British musical theatre royalty, partly due to his breakthrough role in Hair in the late 60s and partly through a hard-working career over the decades since. Following on from his recent Fringe appearances performing Jacques Brel, this latest show is the Straker rock’n’roll’n’musical standards set, and it often feels strangely smaller than his huge talents. ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ misfires with cultured gentility instead of raw sexuality coursing through its veins, and ‘It's a Kind of Magic’ works best in context as a tribute to Straker’s friend Freddie Mercury, whose pomp he doesn’t match. Straker’s locally sourced band of Edinburgh
musicians are good, although perhaps somewhat mismatched with a man whose voice demands either an orchestra or as minimal a backdrop as possible. In this context, versions of Hair's ‘White Boys’ and The Rocky Horror Show's ‘Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me’ are more suitable rabble- rousers, while Brel's ‘If You Go Away’ illustrates the virtuosity of a voice which is a thrill to listen to, no matter the wisdom or suitability of a few of the musical choices. (David Pollock) ■ Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, until 24 Aug (not 11, 18), 6pm, £11.50–£14 (£10.50–£13.50).
72 THE LIST FESTIVAL 7–14 Aug 2014
Unsettling, hilarious and political, Dandy Darkly's Pussy Panic is a searing critique of queer culture, celebrity obsession and misogyny.
New York raconteur Darkly explores the horrified obsession that has sprung up around the vagina in the gay community. Darkly is a born storyteller, and his four tales of gynaecological gore underpin the show. If The Vagina Monologues was adapted by the Tiger Lillies, it might sound something like this. The standout numbers of the night are ‘The Blood Mother’ and ‘Mr Timothy’, both nightmare-inducing surrealist, camp fantasies about what happens when celebrity culture goes wrong. In the first, Madonna vampirically drains subculture of anything she can use in her music only to be murdered by her hordes of children, all adopted from developing countries. ‘Mr Timothy’ takes the construction of a gay icon to a new and terrifying level. In a welcome addition to one of the most feminist-
friendly festivals to date, Dandy Darkly, far from whipping the audience into a hymen-fuelled hysteria in a schlocky horror show, achieves nothing less than a vagina détente. (Kaite Welsh) ■ CC Blooms, 226 0000, until 24 Aug (not 13), 6.45pm, free.
One man’s personal journey through his own family and faith’s past, via comedic stories-in-songs, forms the basis of Jewish Chronicles, which has an eccentric cast of characters including bickering Jewish tailors and hooker-loving rabbis.
This solid rather than spectacular set is
predominantly made up of comedic and jaunty, ragtime and klezmer-influenced numbers, but is punctuated with the heavier vibes of slower, more sombre pieces about Cainer’s experience of journeying to the Holy Land. The anecdotes are at times amusing, and the
characters always colourful, but their theatricality is somewhat jarring compared to the stripped- back performance of Cainer tapping away on his ‘Yarmulke’ (a riff on Yamaha. . . get it?) keyboard. The pop-culture references are fairly stale and a few stories dip into the well of Jewish comedy stereotypes perhaps slightly too often to really pack much punch. To his credit, however, Cainer’s superb vocal range and friendly banter between songs help propel the show forward, even when the material seems at risk of reaching a plateau. (Colin Robertson) ■ Underbelly, Bristo Square, 0844 545 8252, until 25 Aug, 1.30pm, £9–£10 (£8–£8.50).