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Telephone Booking Fringe 0131 226 0000 International Festival 0131 473 2000 Book Festival 0845 373 5888 Art Festival 07500 461 332 SOPHIE BLACK A character show with little in the way of actual characters ●●●●●
Stumbling onstage in the guise of an overly ambitious street sketch artist/ex-con, Sophie Black’s solo character-based show never quite finds its feet. The cartoonist offers the inevitable poor drawings and grandiose ideas of her own ‘art’, but the more interesting aspects of a seemingly dark past are never explored enough to make this character matter. It’s a similar problem for much of the performance as Black delves into the already well-explored minds of hot-shot Hollywood producers and bitter late-night DJs, only touching on ideas outside the stereotypical associations these personas have already gained in other reincarnations. Black is still a fine performer though, recreating this garish assortment of unfortunates and unlikeables with enough dramatic aplomb to keep an audience interested, but aside from a rather fabulous homage to Band-Aid, which will have a certain poignancy for media students everywhere, the narratives just fail to deliver. Black clearly has the talent to make a character-led show work, she just needs the characters. (Thomas Meek) ■ Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, until 30 Aug, 4.30pm, £7.50–£8.50 (£6.50–£7.50).
CARL BARRON Restrained idiocy from Aussie manchild ●●●●● Carl Barron is not big (rude people point it out to him all the time, apparently). He’s not clever (or so he’d have us believe with his slow- schoolboy schtick). Lucky for him, then, that he’s very funny. The jolly, just-a-touch dopey Australian comic is not funny in a tricksy, high-concept, show-within-a-show kind of way. He just makes good gags about the sillier moments in life. Like when his dad’s attempts to correct young Carl’s
grammar just left the lad thinking he always wanted to be part of the fun: ‘Troy and me are going to the beach,’ says little Carl. ‘No, Troy and I are going to the beach,’ insists his dad.
Or when country singers announce a song that goes ‘a lil’ something like this’. ‘Why don’t you just play it exactly how it goes?’ he shrugs, with a trademark look of utter confusion. A stating of the obvious features heavily in his act, as do memorable physical gags like his ‘tiptoe hands’, and a scene-stealing whooping cough impression. Restrained idiocy, from a calm and capable pro. (Claire Sawers) ■ Assembly Hall, 623 3030, until 29 Aug (not 26), 8.20pm, £14 (£13).
CHARLIE TALBOT Gag-free life of a decent man ●●●●● Charlie Talbot insists that when he’s out doing his comedy on the circuit, his act is nothing but knob gag after toilet joke after rude quip. He promises something much different here, essentially the lie-free story of his life, a tale of semi-failure and stunted ambition, a road which has led him to deliver one of the most likeable but anaemic hours on the Fringe. Among
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his ‘achievements’ are winning a Blue Peter badge, getting jiggy with a girl called Charlie Talbot, having a bad poem published as a kid, being the bass player in a band called Finger, following Chelsea Clinton for a year at Oxford to write a Telegraph column, working in the City, and last year fronting Oompah Brass for a heavily- acclaimed show about the credit crunch. To many that might sound like not a
bad life, but on stage it turns out as one which fails to carry any comedic weight whatsoever. It’s always a good laugh to look at photos of people as their younger self with dodgy hair and dodgier dress sense but we could all sit at home and do that. Someone Better Known is a perfectly inoffensive way to spend a fiver at the Fringe, but a few more knob gags and a bit of truth-bending might have made it more memorable. (Brian Donaldson) ■ The GRV, 226 0000, until 29 Aug, 4pm, £5.
HELEN ARNEY Sweet songs with a tender heart ●●●●●
For Helen Arney, love is a many tentacled thing. Two centuries ago, there was ‘less choice, more farming accidents’ while now we’re never too sure whether the grass will turn out to be greener on the other side. For her own part, she seems to have a pretty awkward love life, given that her bloke resides in Australia. In this second full Fringe show, her slight, ukulele-led tunes take in morris dancing, life in Stoke Newington and ‘making love like animals’. There’s a distinct feel of a home crowd in The Caves, some of whom holler their appreciation at the very mention of names such as Ben Folds Five and Divine Comedy, two of the bands she idolised as a youth, while no doubt penning odes to love in her poster-riddled bedroom. Next door, fellow lo-fi geekette Josie Long ushers in a large capacity crowd, with Arney awaiting the nightly thunder through the walls which interrupts her own set. It’s a tough call whether Arney is destined to simply maintain a devoted yet streamlined following or whether she has that streak which is required to step up to the next level. (Brian Donaldson) ■ The Caves, 556 5375, until 29 Aug, 7.35pm, £8 (£7).
Festival Comedy FISH OF THE DAY
Arthur Smith banned all reviewers from his show unless they agreed to juggle kippers. Comic Stuart Goldsmith (pictured) used to be a street performer, so we sent him along. Did it all turn fishy? Goldsmith reports back Arthur Smith is the funniest and most honest comic of his generation, and has no need for reviews or critics. He nobly decided to ban them from his performances in the Pleasance Courtyard but, in the spirit of goodwill, let there be a single exception: any critic who could juggle three kippers onstage would be entitled to print a review.
I am that critic. Well, I was for an hour. The
cunning people at The List asked me to have a stab at it, knowing that half a life street-performing stood me in good stead. I waited in the wings, kippers quietly stinking beside me. I breathed through my sleeve during a performance by The Segue Sisters, the funniest and most honest comic singers of their generation. While Arthur read witty and disarming passages from his autobiography, My Name is Daphne Fairfax, I tore open the packets containing my honking props.
As an ex-circus school student, for me the kippers held no fear. I’ve juggled most things in my time: balls, clubs, burning torches, machetes, bottles, cannonballs. What had I to fear from mere fish? Well, the fact that they were very flappy, for one. And wet. And upon rotation would partially disintegrate, spraying fishy butter into the audience.
But I stood firm in front of a
fantastic backdrop created by Ali Day, the funniest and most honest stage manager of her generation, took a deep breath and went for it. And I bloody nailed it. I’d forgotten I enjoyed juggling that much. Little time for it nowadays, what with my new career as a stand-up comic, but I’m pleased to say that Arthur is as much of an inspiration on that front as he is in his devilish pursuit of the love of mischief. ■ Arthur Smith’s Cobbled Up Shambles, Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, until 28 Aug, 4.30pm, £10–£11.50 (£8.50–£10.50); Stuart Goldsmith, Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, until 29 Aug, 7.30pm, £8–£9.50 (£7–£8.50). Extra show: 28 Aug, 10.45pm, £9.50.
26 Aug–9 Sep 2010 THE LIST 19