FESTIVAL THEATRE | Alt-right opposition
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From top: How to be a Bad Girl, Who Killed Franz Ferdinand?, Leave. To Remain, Ladykiller 114 THE LIST FESTIVAL 1–8 Aug 2018
it’ll be alt-right
on the night
Paul Joseph Watson is the British reporter for Alex Jones’ conspiracy theorist / fake news site InfoWars, where he spews badly reasoned and ill-formed rants across the internet about the threat of women, vegan diets, Marxists, contemporary art and anything else that upsets the alt-right and men’s rights
activists. PJW gets exercised by threats to the patriarchal utopia where traditional values and market forces have fi nally provided an objective standard of ‘the good’. His enthusiasm for fi nding opposing points of view and lambasting them until he spits and dribbles, however, needs all the help it can get, so theatre editor Gareth K Vile has handpicked a selection of Fringe shows that PJW can use to fuel his adventure into completely losing his shit
HOW TO BE A BAD GIRL Burlesque-inl uenced Sabrina Chap might seduce men’s rights activists with her promise of ‘the dirtiest song ever’, but she also supports queer politics and her How to Be A Bad Girl provides plenty of ammunition for PJW’s trademark anger against the degeneration of art. Laughing Horse @ The Place, 15–26 Aug, 10.55pm, free. LADYKILLER This one ‘tears up the gender rule book’ and is a romantic tale of a woman’s quest to embrace her inner psychopath. Writer Madeline Gould says: ‘it is important that, in our battle for equality, we accept, explore and embrace the female capacity for violence and criminality.’ So PJW can claim that it reveals the essential nature of women, before his head explodes at the contradictions. Pleasance Courtyard, 4–27 Aug, 1pm (not 13 &14), £11 (£10). Previews 1–3 Aug, £6.50.
[INSERT SLOGAN HERE] The mixing of music, spoken word and video project is an abomination against proper performance. The implied critique of the consumerist obsession with branding is just another example of how Marxist post-modernists want to destroy Western civilisation. ZOO Sanctuary, 5–21 Aug, 6pm, £12–£14 (£10– £12). Previews 3 & 4 Aug, £7.50. RED AND BOILING Not only does this star bearded drag king Hasadick, his sidekick Rosay recreates interviews with queer
womyn through shadow puppetry. Why can’t they spell women properly? It’s all well and good giving voice to the silenced, but you didn’t get cross- dressing in Shakespeare. Venue 13, 2–25 Aug (not 3, 16, 20), 1.15pm, £12 (£10).
LEAVE. TO REMAIN Found in Translation have the temerity to adapt an Aristophanic comedy to aim a pithy response at the dei nitive Voice of the People statement about the EU and probably the foreigns. I can remember when comedy used to be about mocking minorities and not making trenchant analyses by examining theatre history. theSpace on North Bridge, 4–11 Aug, 10.10pm, £10 (£8). Preview 3 Aug, £7 (£5). WHO KILLED FRANZ FERDINAND? Of course, PJW wouldn’t relate to four coked-up professors trying to disentangle the assassination that caused WWI. It’s just the kind of reckless reconstruction of history that liberals love, confusing the certainty of GCSE students with the suggestion that the past didn’t run like clockwork, and academic investigation isn’t purely objective. theSpace on North Bridge, 6–11 Aug, 7.15pm, £7 (£5).
HOW TO SWIM IN HOLLYWOOD Since this is set in 1979, it is totally unfair to suggest that standards of basic human decency could have been observed in the world’s Dream Factory, and that this whole Harvey Weinstein business rel ects an entrenched culture of male privilege. Greenside @ Ini rmary Street, 5–18 Aug (not 12), 10pm, £10 (£7).