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THEATRE PREVIEW Hollywood Screams Too — Talkin' Turkeys
’You must have seen Devil Girl From Mars. It's the only science fiction film set in a Scottish pub!’ Actor Michael Roberts misspent his formative years in the flea-pit cinemas of North London and is blessed, or cursed, with an encyclopaedic memory. He still mourns the passing of such tacky gimmicks as Percepto, which involved wiring cinema seats to give audiences electric shocks during The Ting/er.
Technical staff at Assembly may not be able to replicate this process, but Roberts does promise 'wonderful technology' that wrll recreate the parting of the Red Sea in The Ten Commandments.
In his second Hollywood Screams solo show, he plays a host of stars, famous and obscure, in a celebration of the worst moments of cinema. ’I‘m not really an impressionist, they’re more like incredibly tiny acting jobs,’ he claims, before lapsing into a faultless evocation of Boris Karloff as a Red Indian chief. (Rory Ford)
# Hollywood Screams Too —- Talkin’ Turkeys (Fringe) Guy Masterton Productions, Observer Assembly (Venue 3) 226 2428, 8 Aug~5 Sep,
7. 70pm, £9/[8 (£8/£ 7). Preview show 7 Aug, [5.
COMEDY PREVIEW Re: Cycling
Following Fringe successes wrth Smiley's Culture and Confessions Of A Catholic Buddhist, Belfast funnyman Michael Smiley returns with Re; Cycling.
'It's basically a day in the life of a cycle courier in London,’ explains Smiley. ’He drinks too much, takes too many drugs and his wrfe doesn’t understand him'
Himself a former courier, Smiley admits the show has autobiographical elements. ’It's the truth that sounds like a lie and a lie that sounds like the truth.’ He grins. ‘And there's a nice bit of action in the middle.’
So was it Smiley's stand-up background that led him write a play?
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Back pedalling: Michael Smiley
theatre - dance 0 comedy
THEATRE PREVlEW
Between A Rock And A Hard Placel‘l‘he Mighty Boosh
Lay aside your prejudices before seeing Between A Rock and A Hard Place. Cambridge Footlights is not just a production line for Frys, Lauries and Thompsons. insists director Cal McCrystal.
'I don't know if they'll ever completely lose that image,’ he says, 'but there’ll be no cigarette holders and boating blazers this year.’ What there will be is the kind of absurd hi-jinks that McCrystal has perfected with the highly acclaimed physical comedy company Peepolykus. whose third Fringe show, Horses For Courses, he is also directing.
Framed as a chaotic cable TV spectacular, Between A Rock. . . features acrobatics, live surgery, contemporary dance, lost underwear and a catwalk
fashion show.
Workaholic McCrystal is also director of The Mighty Boosh. an evening of surreal comedy featuring established standoups Julian Barratt and Noel
Fielding.
After training at Glasgow's RSAMD (’the best three years of my life'). McCrystal has since worked extensively in TV, radio, theatre and film. as both a writer and an actor. ‘If these three shows have a thread in common. it's that they‘re lively, vibrant, colourful and energetic,’ he says. 'They're absolutely for the delight of the audience, not that of the writer or the director.‘ Luvvies beware . . . (Hannah McGill)
a Between A Rock And A Hard Place (Fringe) Cambridge Footlights, Pleasance (Venue 33) 556 6550, 7~10, 72, 13, 16—20, 23, 24, 26, 27 Aug 6.30pm, £7(£5). e The Mighty Boosh (Fringe) Pleasance (Venue 33) 556 6550, 7~3l Aug (not 1 i) £9/f8.50/£8 (£8/f 7. 50/15 7), Previews 5~7 Aug, £43
’l'd prefer to call It SIOTytelling, urban tales,’ he Insists. 'To call it playwriting . . . well, I'll be walking around in a cravat next, talking about my "motivation". No, I'm IUSI a scumbag from Belfast who's trying to exorcise some ghosts through the Celtic art of storytelling’ (Stephanie Noblett)
fl Michael Smiley in Re; Cycling (Fringe) Calder’s Gilded Balloon (Venue 38) 226 2157, 7—37 Aug (not 77) 6.30pm, [8 (£7).
THEATRE PREVIEW Confessions Of A Justified Sinner
If James Hogg’s 19th century mindbending novel Confessions Of A Justified Sinner is one of those classics that sit impressively but dustily on your shelf, then David Mark Thomson's new adaptation may be a Godsend.
Now hailed as the fore-runner of
Scottish metaphysical writing, Hogg is owed much by writers of today's 'chemical generation’. The st0ry of a young man who believes he is the Voice Of God, and the subsequent conversron of good into evil has much to say to us now, according to Thomson. 'It's not anti-religious, but it is an anti-extremism play,’ he says. Nor does he worry about its 'difficult' reputation. ’Catch the voice,’ he says, 'and you get drawn into a brilliant, gothic detective story.’
With live music and a set designed to match the book's visionary ambitions, this stage version promises a feast for the eyes, ears and mind.
(Graham Dickson)
a Confessions Of A Justified Sinner (Fringe) Brunton Theatre Company, Brunton Theatre (Venue 191) 665 2240, 13—29 Aug (not Sun) 7.30pm, £7.50 (£3.50). Matinees 22 & 26 Aug, 2.30pm, £4.50 (£3.50).
Sauchiehall
- Street
Watcrstonc 5 Glasgow
will be reading from his novel
FILTH
at The Arches WEDNESDAY 12TH AUGUST from 7.30pm
Guest DJ CRAIG SMITH
DRINKS PROMOTION
TICKETS £4 (with £2 off the book) WATERSTONE’S
153 - 157 Sauchiehall Street 0141 332 9105
6—13 Aug ‘I'IIE usr 57