STELLA
ARTO I S
STELLA ARTOIS ASSEMBLY Assembly Rooms, George Street
Sharon Shannon
FRIDAY 8 & SATURDAY 9 f AUGUST 11.45PM
“ ,'« stormed Glastonbury Festival with
her Celtic charm. Two shows only
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FESTIVAL le—3Pm
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Paul Brady
Solo in Concert
FRIDAY 15 & SATURDAY 16 AUGUST 11.45PM
“one of the few people worth getting out of bed to hear." Bob Dylan
The Storyteller SUNDAY 18 - SATURDAY 30 AUGUST 11.45PM
“unplugged and unmissable" Daily Telegraph
Steve Harley
SUNDAY 24 - SATURDAY 30 AUGUST 8.25PM
a blast from the past with Cockney Rebel
Beat the Queues! Book Now 0131 226 2428
42 THE “31' 8—14 Aug 199/
THEATRE PREVIEW Boy's Life
On the face of it, Howard Korder’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated Boy’s Life bears some resemblance to David Mamet’s Sexual Perversity In Chicago. Korder, one of Mamet’s acting protege, has produced a play which deals with the ruthless business of the sexual mores of young American men.
For all its use of colloquial parlance, and its concentration on the subject of how men act while on a shagfest, however, the play does develop a different voice and structure. Korder allows his females to bite back, while the play’s episodic structure creates a sketch- by-sketch narrative style all of its own.
The men behaving sadly in the life of the title, go to increasing lengths to hide the horn with various women, ultimately demeaning themselves as much as their prey. Director Matt Tauber, who impressed at last years’ Fringe with The Spirit, returns with the Great Jones company for this UK premiere. (Steve Cramer)
I Boy’s Life (Fringe) Assembly Rooms (Venue 3) 226 2468, 8—30 Aug, 2.35pm, f 8/£ 7 (£7/f6).
THEATRE PREVIEW The Diviners
’When we were looking for something to bring overseas, we wanted something very American so that we c0iild take a little piece of Americana with us,’ says Edmond Guay, director of The Diviners, Avondale High School, Michigan’s contribution to this year's American High School Theatre Festival. With a cast of seventeen in front of the curtain and 30 working behind, the Michigan contingent is the largest group of this year's 22 AHSTF productions. The Diviners, by Jim Leonard, is set in a farming community in Depression-era Indiana, and centres on a young water- diViner, who also happens to be hydrophobic. This makes him both a gift and an outcast, as he’s never been baptised. Enter a fallen preacher from Kentucky, Just when the town needs one, who develops a bond with the boy. ’lt’s a wonderful little tale about trust and love, but it also has a very tragic tWIst.’ (Alastair Mabbott)
I The Diviners (Fringe) American High School Theatre Festival, Youth International at St Oswald ’s, Montpelier Park (Venue 728) 346 7405 or 229 5562, 77, 73, 75Aug, 2.10pm, £3 ([2); 73 Aug, 70.40pm, [3 (£2).
COMEDY PREVIEW Tripterranus
Comedy Cafe Roadshow can't promise you a rocket ship to ride around in while watching Rock Thrust battle the Thorquons of Zaarg, but they have come up with an imaginative way of Simulating the bumps and swerves of Flash Gordon- style spaceflight. The sci-fi spoof Tripterranus takes place inside an old Safeway lorry converted Into a snazzy AO-seat theatre, which whisks the occupants off to Uranus (actually Arthur's
Seat) and brings them safely back.
It’s the maiden voyage of Star Rambler 2, and brings with it a whole new set of problems to overcome. Such as the danger of a 75-minute show being stretched by heavy traffic. ’We’ll be improvising madly,’ laughs Charlotte Palmer, who plays the intrepid lanet Maynard. ’Mike Hayley’s a fantastic improviser, and we’ll be linked up with the cab, so they’ll be cueing us with coded messages about meteor showers.’ And rain? ’We’ve got a contingency for that as well,’ she answers, ever the reassuring space-farer. (Alastair Mabbott) I Tripterranus (Fringe) Comedy Cafe Roadshow, C liar/es Street, by Fringe Club, 0470 456669, 74-30 Aug (not Suns) 2pm, 4pm & 6pm, f 7.
THEATRE PREVIEW Mae West: All Of Me
’She put across sex in a really raw way, but looked like a lady all the time she was doing it,’ enthuses Pene Herman- Smith, enjoying a bit of a dirty laugh herself. Herman-Smith tiUIckly became enraptured With Mae West after landing the role in this one-woman show, and a multi-faceted role it turned out to be. West Insisted on writing her own dialogue — so all those classic lines were her own — and was a prolific writer of fiction too, often drawmg on her own experiences. Indeed, one of her characters, Diamond Lil, was to become her persOna. For all her raunchy image, says Herman-Smith, ’she didn’t allow any itIICy gossip. It's very hard to find out the other side of her.’ Lovers were very tight- lipped, so the ’real’ Mae West presented In Ayshe Ralf"; play is largely (ODJCCIUTC. 'She talks in the play of the dedication It takes to be Mae West -- she worked at it 24 hours a (lay' (Alastair lvlabbott) I Mae West: All Of Me (Fringe) Home Is Where The Art Is, Pleasance (Venue 33) 556 6550, 8—30 Aug, 2.05pm, [550/156 (MSG/[5).
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'Come up and see me sometime.’ Pene Herman-Smith immerses herself in the role of Mae West