Sweet Venues – International 3 @ the Apex International Hotel
£9/8
16.00
31 July – 24 August (not the 11th or 18th).

Making her UK debut  has brought her tale of adolescence to the Fringe. Her one woman show,  Love. Guts. High School. takes you though 10 years of awkward, confusing, fun, painful and very real experiences of being a teenage girl, a teenage girl in love.

Based on her own adolescence and written using exerpts from her own diaries, Jeanette’s one woman show explores how her first love impacted her as a teenager and also shaped her as an adult.  It is a tale of school crushes, first kisses, losing inocence, and the web of emotions that we wend our way though in life, oh, and Love.

Walking into the small, dark room Jeanette greets you, up close and personal.  Using very few props, she takes you straight back to the days of her 13 year old self fantasising about kissing boys and gossiping about who has a crush on who at school.  As the years pass by we share her experiences of flirting with boys,  denying her crushes to her friends, and what happens after friendship becomes sexual.

The show was brilliant.  She captured with real depth, the experience of being a teenager, morphing in to adulthood.  There were many points of cringeworthy empathy where she captures those teenage experiences of working out how to relate to boys and takes you back to your own experiences of teenage love. THREE STARS

Reviewer : Nina Jones

Summerhall

£10-£12

18.30

6-24 August

In this centenary year of the outbreak of WW1, there are plenty of Great- War related offerings on offer in Edinburgh… but O my god, this is a piece of abstract theater that left my senses literally numbed into submission as I left the cellars of the Summerhall & stepped blinking my astonishment into the evening sun.

The stage is a cellar of the Summerhall, & the audience are gathered around a table or leaning against the brickwork, with the two lovers – a soldier & a nurse – either talking to each other when the soldier is on leave, or communicating through letter-like monologues.

The story is based upon a real life tale, in which the great aunt of  Badac theater’s Steve Lambert lost her lover to the war, & never went with another man for the rest of her nine decades on earth.

What left me stunned, however, were the scenes in which the soldier recreated his assaulting the trenches, shouting & ducking to the machine-gun effect provided by the nurse chopping the table with a knife.

Another marvel is the script, where short & snappy staccato lines are repeated hypnotically over & over again as we follow the characters slightly manic, war-obsessed & love-begotten trains of thought. I shall leave you with an example – with the nurse attending to her wounded lover;

So much pain. So much agony. My hands. Covered. Covered with blood. His blood. Watching the pain. I love you. I tell him. I lov you. I’ll fix you. Still. each stitch. Screaming. Each cut. Screaming. The insanity. The insanity. In my head. With each scream. The insanity.

A worthy FOUR STARS

Reviewer : Damo Bullen

Assembly George Square Studios

5^th– 16^th

August £19

18.30

Who, indeed, is Torsten? We are introduced to this tragic character and his grossly elongated and broken life as he explodes onstage, breaking into dramatic, theatrical monologue, to uncover the black sadness of the transience of true love he has long endured. His rich, lyrical prose and powerful lingering notes hang by the throat like some bizarre sex game, whilst he relaxes, elegant, camp and defiant, smoking in an Elvis armchair and dinner suit and begins to unfold his tale.

Effortless and oozing skilled, professional stage presence, all-too-obviously gained from his charismatic ‘Pop’ years, Andy Bell portrays his alter-ego, backed by choice retro film projections and accompanied by keyboards n sax, which add without distraction from his enigmatic presence.

He unfolds his story with each song covering another broken, black chapter of a troubled, seedy & colourful life, but which is punctuated with glittery, sparkling camp humour. Cold, cheap sex, emotional abuse and superficial party whores flavour and colour each song in a riot of sensory overload as they are intensely ejaculated over the eager audience one after another in a seemingly endless stream – with little time to bask in the satisfaction and glory of the previous. His poetic, powerful prose carried by an undoubtedly superb vocal range deliver a breath-taking punch to the gut as his dark story unfolds.

‘Songs are postcards from the hotspots of memory’

An unashamed display of love, heartbreak and the bleakness and futility of transient love and life. FOUR STARS

Reviewer : Teri Welsh

Summerhall
1st to 24th August

20:15

£11-£13

Lesson learned for this show; always consult the blurb before attending. Expecting a piece of scripted theatre and perhaps a disappointingly morose look at sex work and sexuality from this performance, I was rather astounded at what turned out to be a fearless, boundary pushing piece of live performance art.

Not for the faint hearted or indeed those below 16, this show contains full nudity and acts of a sexual nature. Not for gratuitous purposes, but rather to make the spectator think about the norms of what we sexualise, how we change from a time when being naked just meant childish innocence, and attitudes towards non-heterosexual relationships and working in the sex industry.

Not an easy task to cover these important subjects in one hour, but Amy and Rosana Cade manage to do so with aplomb, leaving inhibition at the door and drawing you in to their life experience using audience participation, imagery, true life experiences and honest self examination.  A strong, feminist and forceful production which was both the most unsettling and fantastic event I’ve seen so far… An excellent FIVE STAR

Reviewer : Antoinette Thirgood

Aug 1-10, 12-18, 20-24,

16.35

£7

Susanna Hilslop is a rather talented lady – with acting, writing & directing all feathers in her belt. Combining all these skilss she has brought a show to Edfinburgh in which she channels the spirits of Margaret Thatcher, Virginia Woolf  and Marilyn Monroe onto the stage. This, incidentally, is found in the Red Lecture Theater of the majestic Summerhall. The dialogue itself is carved from the diaries & letters of those three women of status, & gave us tantalising insights into their ‘real’ lives.

Unfortunately, sleep deprivation was taking its toll on Divine and I was struggling to keep my eyes open, before finally succumbing to the sleep that was taking over me. In a moment I was abruptly awakened by a screaming Margaret Thatcher demanding that I wake up and pay attention. Of course I paid attention. Dennis her husband was scowling at me in the corner.

So… Susanna Hilslop is a very fine talent who eloquently summons this certain set of personalities back to life. Interesting, but not astounding, Divine gives this show three stars.

Reviewer : Mark ‘Divine’ Calvert

Summerhall: Dissection Room

Aug 1 – Aug 24

£5.00-£11.00

5.20pm

“Any form of intellectual or mental insight or anything which resembles cohesion is quite

unintentional,” so reads the disclaimer on the projection screen which serves as a backdrop to

this slice of absurdist chaos. Imagine what a piece of theatre would look like if David Lynch

and David Byrne met in a pub then used a Ouija board to channel the spirit of Samuel Beckett

and Cabaret Voltaire. Klip is a movement-based, theatre piece of BIG, disparate ideas and in

the true spirit of Theatre of the Absurd there is no clear narrative. At one point, a grown man

irons himself and then tries to persuade the iron to come with him for a walk. Leeks are used

as weapons of assault. Colanders are worn hat-like on heads. A leg of ham is suspended

from the ceiling. A soliloquy is performed on the topic of, “What goes on in a chicken’s

head?” A man is suspended upside down from a harness and stays silently hanging there, as

the audience leave the venue.

Through all the chaos, there appears to be an underlying message conveyed about the

fragmentation of society. In one segment, a man croons a moving ditty over a cacophony

of arguing voices and you can’t help but feel that on some level, there is a nod being made

towards current global conflict versus the smokescreen of light-entertainment shows such as

The Voice and how they are used to distance and pacify us. Intellectual insight achieved.

Company director, Pete Livingstone’s original music is excellent, as is his voice and

soundtracks many a moment of playful madness through the course of proceedings.

Performed by a lesser theatre company, this show might have descended into ‘Legs Akimbo’

style Cringe Fringe, but Livingstone’s Kabinet execute it all with great style and conviction.

As you might have surmised by now, this show is not to be recommended to anyone other

than the seasoned theatre enthusiast and lover of all things wonky, quirky and oddball. It’s

shows like this however, that are the beating heart of the Edinburgh Fringe and embody the

variety-filled spirit of it all. Its 5 stars are richly deserved.FIVE STARS

Reviewer: Gill Monaghan

Assembly George Sq

12.25

3-25 August (not 11 & 12)

£10-£12

I was given a ticket to review this show on Wednesday, while cutting a rug at the Spiegeltent’s first erected outing in Saint Andrews Square.My first Mumble Mission. To review The Edinburgh Festival Magazine’s opening party. Brandon Carter liked my moves.

So, I arrived at the venue 12,25 am on Thursday. The Show opened with a dance sequence of body popping excellence, this really stoked my fires. Preparing me for the ride that was to follow.

This play takes us to an America, where the stink of Apartheid still leaves its aroma,a reminder of a not-too-distant past where people were hung from trees because of the colour of their skin and cultural background.Man’s inhumanity to man expressed by a passive aggressive statement.Three nooses are found hanging from the branch’s of a Tree in the school playground. A statement that opened a seeping wound of social injustice. Enough to add insult to the injury caused by the past brutalities of white mans fear,ignorance and racial intolerance.

A part of America that would prefer the uncomfortable truth to remain under the carpet. A nation that has been built upon the Pain Of Slavery. Is it any wonder White America is worried. There is a bleeding wound that is still in need of Healing.

Blood At The Root, has a message that is relevant and deeply moving & yes, guys, another five star review. Well deserved. 

Reviewer : Mark ‘Divine’ Calvert

Assembly George Square

2-10, 12-25 August

16.10

£11

It all takes place in the bedroom. Two realities, one called Innocence and one called Maturity. Innocence is called Leah and is 15 years of age. A girl maturing into a Lady, excited about the cherry she will pop with the fittest lad in school.

Maturity’s name is Georgie, a thirty-something example of how the grief of experience, if left unresolved, makes one dysfunctional. Having recently lost her Dad, Maturity uses the unenlightened methods of coping. Sex Drugs and Rock n Roll. Throwing inhibition to the wind, without a thought of how her actions are compounding the shadow of her unresolved experience.

Innocence explores a girl’s world where none of Maturities neurosis exist an age before heart break and loss. Leah is at the beginning of her journey; pretty, clever and a clearly loved fifteen year old. So much so there was not a heart that didn’t melt in the audience.

Maturity and Innocence work it out together.

With a beautifully written script and an immaculate thespian presentation, we were invited into the brilliant mind and subconscious of the author. Bruntwood prize winner Anna Jordan.

This a five star show and am sure Anna will be receiving a lot more awards before the end of this festive season. Again, This will be a sell out. Its only a tiny theatre & like the performance it houses, it is all very Intimate.

Reviewer – Mark ‘Divine’ Calvert