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Festival Theatre JACOBITE COUNTRY Ramshackle action in the Pictish Free State ●●●●●
Haggis McSporran (no, that’s his real name), who may or may not be the greatest standup in Scotland since Craig Ferguson/Frankie Boyle/delete as appropriate, is conflicted. He’s spent much of his 27 years trying and failing to understand the relationship between the Scots and the English, and it may, or may not, have landed him in a mental asylum, where his diagnosis is ‘Scottishness’. This raggedy comic bender around the Highlands (and northern identity) has a lot going for it. The all-female cast (playing mostly male parts) are charismatic and mad for it, bagpipes and country dancing are used to cheeky and occasionally unsettling effect, and Haggis, as played by an on-form Sarah Haworth, is a worthy successor to the Big Yin.
However, the story is rather missing in action and the script feels unfinished: it would have been interesting to drop the rather stilted asylum scenes and use these characters (especially Annie Grace’s lobotomised, bagpipe-clutching militant nationalist Uncle Angus) more coherently. The meatiest discussion of identity comes in Haggis’ stand up sets: perhaps Haworth should consider taking him on tour. Fringe 2011? (Kirstin Innes) ■ Udderbelly’s Pasture, 0844 545 8252, until 30 August (not 16), 3.50pm, £12–£13.50 (£11–£12).
WHENEVER I GET BLOWN UP I THINK OF YOU Rich, lyrical personal account of the 7/7 bombings ●●●●●
N N Y L G C M Y L L O H
Molly Naylor’s candid autobiographical show about her experiences as one of those affected by the 7/7 bombings in London takes the form of a verse monologue. At times chatty and natural, at others more lyrical, and occasionally building to a rhythmic climax of internally rhyming half-rap, it’s pacy and varied throughout. There is a pleasing honesty and light
humour to her story, a highlighting of little familiar quirks of thought and the way certain normal rules still apply
74 THE LIST 12–19 Aug 2010
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even in the most extraordinary situations, like when she is satisfied to find out in the immediate aftermath of the bombing that the woman across from her was, as she guessed, Parisian, or when, months later, she looks at a picture of ‘her’ bomber and finds him rather handsome. But there are bigger issues at stake here too – with five years’ distance it’s become a story about growing up as much as it is about a personal account of a national event. Naylor’s first solo show as writer and performer is simply staged, linguistically rich, and sensitively balanced between light and dark, humdrum and lyrical. (Laura Ennor) ■ The Zoo, 662 6892, until 30 Aug (not 17, 24), 1.55pm, £7.50.
SOAP! THE SHOW Water-logged circus show leaves the crowd open-mouthed ●●●●● This bathtub-themed circus show comes to Edinburgh after a two-year run in Berlin. The German production
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team, Circle of Eleven, has assembled a very bendy cast of performers – Masha Terentieva contorts herself seductively around a trapeze, Nata Galkina shows off the weirdly hypnotic art of foot juggling, and Michael Lanphear (who performed with Britney’s Circus tour before doing this) does impressive things while suspended upside-down by leather straps. It’s a staggering show, which leaves the crowd catching flies for the most part, as we stare slack-jawed at finely honed acrobats back-flipping and hand-standing over bathtubs. Fernando Dudka’s rubbery water acrobatics, in particular, are a perfect balance of strength, precision, and wet muscles.
A goofy clown character (Marie- Andrée Lemaire) adds mime and comedy interludes, which will no doubt keep kids entertained, but for adults who prefer an edgier, more louche cabaret tone, it adds a sickly- sweet slapstick edge to the show. (Claire Sawers) ■ Assembly Hall, 623 3030, until 30 Aug (not 16, 23), 7.15pm, £15–£20 (£14–£16).
PEDAL PUSHER Physical theatre show takes on the Tour de France ●●●●●
This very, very physical theatre piece does justice to the toughest sporting event in the world, the Tour de France, with a muscular production that’s quite exhausting, in a good way, to watch. It tells the story of the decade-long battle between top cyclists American Lance Armstrong, Italian Marco Pantani and German Jan Ulrich. The action takes place from the early 1990s on into the new millennium, when the Tour suffered a crisis over a series of ‘doping’ scandals that saw many riders barred from the competition for taking illegal performance-enhancing drugs. The play opens with the death of Pantani and
thereafter cuts forwards and backwards in time to key scenes involving the star riders, plus other competitors and commentators, detailing the participants’ personal motivations as well as the de-motivating effect the doping scandal had on them. Armstrong’s astonishing comeback from testicular cancer to win the Tour not
once but twice, is, of course, well known, while Pantani’s story, being lauded as Italy’s great hope and his subsequent disillusionment with the event, is less familiar. But because Pantani’s trajectory is the tragic antithesis of Armstrong’s experience it is, if anything, more dramatic. The cast of four fit players do a great job of leaping
between characters and nationalities (accents all fine), and the way in which they dramatise, with minimal props and some impressive contortions, various stages of the various Tours is nothing short of ingenious. And splitting the narrative commentary among the characters, so that you get, for example, Ulrich commenting on why Armstrong should not have given a stage away to Pantani, is a stroke of genius. It’s a strategy that takes you right inside the riders’ heads. And that, really, is what Pedal Pusher is all about. You don’t have to be a Tour fan to appreciate that. (Miles Fielder) ■ Zoo Roxy, 662 6892, until 30 Aug (not 15, 22), 4pm, £12 (£10).