festival
own-10m
COMEDY PREVIEW
THEA VIDALE
Thea Vidale. the straight- talking US stand-up comic billed as a cross between Tina Turner and a truck. is back for her second Edinburgh Festival. She‘s been away some time and there‘s a lot she wants to talk about
‘lt's going to be rough." she says. ‘We're going to talk about sex. We‘re going to talk about racism. And wait till I tell you my side of the OJ. Simpson story. There's an incredible level of racism in America right now. You know what LA stands for? Like Alabama!‘
Vidale feels she's established a special relationship with British audiences. ‘I find you can deal with me on a more raw level. Some of the LA audiences are a bit jaded but in Edinburgh they really enjoyed that I'm quite raw — quite direct. There's a lot we have in common. I talk about the British too. You people can‘t have Camilla as Queen you know. It’s not going to happen.‘ (Catriona Craig)
I Thea Vidale (Fringe)
The Starr Tent (Venue NW) 668 49l8. 9—3! Aug (not I3. 27). 9.25pm. £9l£8 (£8/£7).
Thea Vidale: rough-talking black Roseanne
THEATRE PREVIEW
GLAMDUR
Actresses. eh‘.’ Hard- boiled basket-cases with one eye on the main chance and the other on the mirror. Ask Shirley Anderson. whose solo adaptation of Iidna Ferber's l‘)33 short story charts at life in the day oi~ Broadway diva Linda I-‘ayne. Breezing through her social whirl with a well-practised smile. Fayne keeps a cool calculated distance from anything that might affect
FESTIVAL THEATRE USC - USA SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Presents
IN REPERTORY - 3-31 AUGUST I996
STAR WARS TRILOGY IN 30 MINUTES RESEVOIR DOGS o * GIRL GONE
THE LISBON TRAVIATA o * SPIKE HEELS 0
MRS SORKEN / * MEDEA / TITANIC / BLOTS
* 4 GUYS EATING OUT
THE ZOO STORY & THE AMERICAN DREAM MARVIN’S ROOM 0 THE GLASS MENAGERIE
her career. ‘lt's very tongue-in-cheek'. says Anderson. ‘lt‘s intentionally poking fun at the whole theatrical thing and showing that glamour‘s only skin deepf
Anderson‘s new show follows last year's gorgeously observed Dorothy Parker adaptation. Big Blonde. returning this year to play alongside Glamour. in which Anderson plays a boozy party girl on the verge ol‘ breakdown. So is Anderson anything like the crazy dames she plays in her two shows? ‘l‘m not an alcoholic.’ she says. ‘but I've been around alcoholism. Now I'm a workaholic. but a little more grounded than Linda [Fayne]. Where Big Blonde is my worst nightmare. Glamour is my wet dream.‘ (Neil Cooper) I Glamour (Fringe) Shirley Anderson. Hill Street Theatre (Venue 4i) 226 6522. alternates with Big Blonde. 10—27 Aug (except Sun). 8.45pm. £6 (£5). I Dig Blonde (Fringe) Shirley Anderson. Hill Street Theatre (Venue 4 l) 226 6522. alternates with Glamour. 9—28 Aug. 8.45pm. £6 (£5).
I'll”.
w /
\
21?:
\ll
\
Q
(t DENOTES UK OR WORLD PREMIERE)
DRUMMOND COMMUNITY THEATRE COCHRANE TERRACE 0 (0131) 558 - 9695
i aout to begin...
'...8 masterpiece. . ." THE SCOTSMAN
From Tue 13 Aug at 8.45pm Theatre Workshop, Venue 20
to book your passage phone 0131 226 5425
Dominic HoHand
Dominic Holland is the Gary Lineker ot the comedy circuit, the man worryingly tipped by a leading national newspaper as ‘the next Michael Palin’.
Surely there’s a Hyde beind this nice- man-ol-comedy Jekyll? ‘I like to think I’m a nice guy, but I am very ambitious. I’m nice because I’m conlident.’ His nastiest characteristic?’ ‘lmpatience.’ How nasty.
‘What does piss me oil is people slagging me all lor being middle class and public school,’ he says. ‘Which is rubbish — I went to a comp. My comedy’s not about class.’ It’s not about swearing either. ‘I swear avidly in my own life. I’ve just come oil the golf course with some mates and I was elting and blinding all the time, but I don’t like to swear to make people laugh. I’m almost an anti-comedian, deliberately innocuous. I’m just trying to tell the things that make people laugh!
Dominic Holland: the Gary Lineker ol the comedy circuit
Mainstream success beckons tor Holland. He’s mixing with Des O’Connor: ‘So meticulous and a great encourager,’ and Bob Monkhouse: ‘He’s amazing - he’s an avid comedy tan and he knew all about me’. Monkhouse liked him so much that Holland is now writing gags for him. At this rate he’ll soon be on Give Us A Blue. (Grant Gordon)
Dominic Holland (Fringe) The Honeycomb ( Venue 139) 226 2151, 9—31 Aug, 8.15pm, £6.50 (£5.50).
COMEDY INSIDER
odern Problems In Science
Modern Problems In Science are three blokes from Chicago who make lots of people laugh by proving spurious theories with improvised comedy nonsense. Ever thought of being politicians boys? Read on for the whacky comedy professor’s theories on how ‘The 1995 Edinburgh Fringe led to the re-election of Boris Yeltsin’.
‘The Edinburgh Fringe is regarded as the world’s most iniluential arts lestival, but it you‘ve seen any weather satellite data lately, you’d know that the Fringe also inlluences global politics. In 1995, it started with record-shattering beer consumption at the Fringe. Gratelul Scottish grain farmers promptly took long holidays to Malaysia where they contracted intestinal parasites. This led to a massive inllux ol methane into the atmosphere over the Malay Peninsula and the creation of a high pressure system that pushed the autumn monsoon rains over the Himalayas and into Southern China.
‘This brought increased crop yields and a leeling of goodwill, which prompted the Chinese to relax their grip on Tibet and reassign a large portion ot their occupying lorces to borders oi lormer Soviet states, thus putting hundreds oi Russian generals back in uniform at the lront and saier
out ol Yeltsin's political path. ‘Meanwhile, chip shops, struggling to meet demand lor late-night pizzas, sent larger-than-nonnal heat plumes into the atmosphere, which travelled north with the jet stream and melted the glaciers ol Horway, leading to tlash flooding and widespread destruction of Olympic facilities at lillehammer. Collecting billions on insurance, the Norwegians set oil to build estates in Finland. The Finns, unprepared tor the construction boom, were torced to purchase raw materials - mostly lumber and textiles - from the industrial region around St Petersburg. This brought rouble signs to the eyes at even the most ardent tree market sceptics and Yeltsin was again praised as a hero.’ (Hich Fulcher, Phil Granchi and Dick Costolo) Modern Problems In Science (Fringe) Assembly Rooms (Venue 3) 226 2468, 8.45pm, £8. 50/2 7. 50/66 (£7. 50/66. 50).
Modern Problems In Sclence: what exactly Is In these test tubes?
58 The List 9- l 5 Aug l‘)‘)6