Short Fringe Updates: Gym Party

I am the person who never wants to be picked out of the audience when the audience participation bit happens. I am the one who cowers in their seat hoping not to be pointed at or spoken to or even acknowledged. I am the one who wants to watch but not play. At the end of Gym Party I chose to get involved. That is how much I liked it.

There are definitely spoilers in this. Made in China change their shows constantly, so if it tours or keeps going I don’t know if the spoilers will matter. But there are absolutely spoilers of how it works in its current form.

Last year at the Fringe, when I saw AKHE’s Mr Carmen, I largely didn’t enjoy it. It was visually amazing but I found a lot of it distressing – the downing of the vinegar and the surprise penis, for example. It was like the TV show Jackass, but artsy (read: pretentious). I think because Mr Carmen, to me, didn’t seem to be exploring any themes or trying to say much, the whole gross out thing appeared ultimately futile and so I did not like it.

Gym Party also has a tendency to feel a bit like you are watching live art Jackass, but in this instance I thought it was fucking amazing. It was about something and it felt relevant and it was irreverent and funny, whereas AKHE felt like it was taking itself a bit too seriously for something with what I thought was no discernible point to make. Although, I’m not sure how much I actually believe this, and how much of it is just that I really like Made In China after seeing We Hope That You’re Happy (Why Would We Lie?) a year or so ago. My affection for AKHE is minimal and so I don’t want to see someone smoking a rose, but I’ll feel thrilled at watching three people ram as many marshmallows in their faces as they possibly can.

I wasn’t necessarily expecting to like Gym Party. Partly because of all the AKHE based reasons above, and because a lot of things I had heard about it or read about it beforehand had said the ending was appalling. As it goes, the ending was a grim, I suppose. Although unlike most shows I saw at Fringe I had read and talked about Gym Party prior to seeing it, and so I had these expectations and actually found the ending not to be nearly as upsetting as I thought it might be. It was good, though.

The ending was not nearly the most disturbing part of the show, I found. In fact I think the reason I am being so accepting of and so affectionate towards all the marshmallow-mess-chewed-up-Skittle-oranges-rammed-in-the-face-ness of the show I’d normally abhor is that Gym Party contains two of the most memorable and potentially powerful ‘scenes’ I’ve seen in theatre. The first is mentioned in Andrew Haydon’s not-review of the show: Chris Brett-Bailey under a single spot, stood on a podium, playing a melancholic tune on guitar. This follows a series of monologues about the three performers awkward 12 year old selves which are simple and quite stilted in delivery but ultimately very beautiful. The moments during which Chris sings and plays guitar feel peaceful against the chaos of the rest of the show, like the two minutes silence during a remembrance parade otherwise full of bagpipes and drumming and loud, loud speeches. The other image is Jess, who is being penalised for losing a game, stood nose bleeding, again on a podium. She has removed her wig and her clothes and is wearing nothing but her underwear. To the side, Chris speaks into a microphone and slowly lists off her physical faults. As he describes the chunkiness of her thighs and how her haircut does not suit her face, I wanted to cry because this, more than the forced almost-drowning and beating with a golf club, felt brutal.

By the end of it, despite all the competition and horribleness, I wanted to give each of them a hug because I felt sorry for them. This is pretty much completely down to that song, and those monologues and the slagging off Jess went through. I’m not sure this is the point of the performance. It’s just a performance and I know that and I even know they know that, but at the end there’s an opportunity to make just one of them maybe happy even in context and I try (and, admittedly, fail) to take it.

Let the Right One In

The National Theatre of Scotland’s Let The Right One In at Dundee Rep is beautiful and badass.

I shouldn’t have liked it because it’s about vampires and my interest in that sort of thing is limited at best. I hadn’t read the book or seen the film, so I don’t know if it was a good adaptation or even if it was supposed to be. But I did like it a lot.

There’s a boy, Oskar, and he is horrendously bullied and he’s got it a bit rough with his parents. Then there’s a girl, Eli, who is not really a girl and not at all young. They meet, and even though Oskar tells her she smells like infected plasters, they form a connection that is the fourteen year old boy’s equivalent of love, or possibly something stronger than love. However, she is a vampire. She doesn’t like to be called one, probably because of all the negative connotations. She does kill several people, mind, and many more are killed in order to sustain her, as well. On occasion, it is properly fucking brutal. I don’t want to explain everything that happens because if you haven’t seen the film or read the book it is chilling and often surprising. Especially when there’s dubstep.

There’s a heaviness to the dialogue. Words are not overused or even slightly flowery, and the chat between Oskar and Eli is mostly the word ‘OK’ uttered with varying levels of emotion. It feels raw and poetic in its simplicity, while also very Scottish and very teenage. There’s this INCREDIBLE, slightly bizarre choreographed movement that connects the characters to create this sense of the community that is being shattered while bringing a heightened sense of the supernatural (I think). Regardless of purpose, it is gorgeous. The music is equally as stunning as the movement and often makes your heart race. The set is Scandinavian inspired, with towering white trees dotted around a snowy field. Sometimes Eli climbs the trees and sits like a koala, watching events unfold from a silent distant. Though simple and rarely the focus, these are my favourite parts: there is a desperate intensity as she watches that is captivating, and when the light hits her just a little, leaving most of her small frame in shadow, it is absolutely and utterly beautiful.

I have a friend who worked on Let the Right One In, doing special effects. She says the amazing thing about it is that there are school groups full of kids who never go to the theatre and who, in a lot of cases, are from pretty rough backgrounds and they adore it. While I can’t say whether this is true because I am neither a teenager nor from a rough background, I can see why this would be the case. There’s this awkwardness to the main duo, and this relatability to their uncertain romance where neither of them really understand it but both know they want it obsessively. It’s both hopeful and bleak: Oskar is miserable, and Eli brings him hope and affection and fights for him, but we’ve seen the future of Eli’s relationships and it’s grim. Again, this is one of those confusingly common feelings, I think. This knowledge that things in the future will be shit if your pursue something, but the need and desire to pursue it. Plus, it’s sometimes funny and there’s loads of blood and an awesome bit with water and dubstep and strobe. When I was, like, 15 I probably would’ve been into that and I’m pretty into it now, at 21.

What I’m saying, really, is that I just thought it was a very good production. Even if it’s about vampires. That’s probably not the most interesting thing to say. There are points to be made about Scottish theatre and its future, but not here or from me. I thought about it for a long time, and how to make this write up more than just saying it’s amazeballs. I couldn’t think of anything I really wanted to write, because for Let the Right One In saying that is was just really fucking good seemed like the best thing to say. It is beautiful and it is badass and that is enough.

Anatomy #5: NO, ANYTHING BUT THAT!

The last time I went to Anatomy at Summerhall, there was a piece called Uranus. A naked man lied sideways singing ‘Nessun Dorma’ while clenching and unclenching his bare bum cheeks to make his arse look like a mouth. He pulled up his pants, then enacted a passionate sex scene using his fingers, before delivering a short rhyme about the importance of wearing contraception. He stood up, opened his eyes properly for the first time to reveal some of those creepy cat contacts, then spat into his hand and launched himself into the audience. He spent several minutes clawing his way through the crowd, writhing around and constantly proffering his spit drenched palm. I have never been more uncomfortable in my life.*

Fittingly, then, the next Anatomy I attended was titled: NO, ANYTHING BUT THAT. **

Anatomy is ‘Live Art Music Hall’. As descriptions go, it’s a little pretentious, but it’s on at Summerhall where I have yet to see anything that isn’t at least a little pretentious. Anatomy probably is a wee bit pretentious, but it’s also completely aware of it’s own ridiculousness and that makes it amazing. It’s a bunch of short pieces over the course of a few hours performed in an old lecture theatre, each piece bookended by the ever-charismatic duo of Ali Maloney and Harry Giles as compères.

On Friday, the atmosphere was gorgeous. Ali and Harry sit in chairs opposite each other and suggest performance ideas, all of which are absurd (“The Chilean Mining Disaster recreated as an immersive interactive dining experience?”). After each suggestion, the other compere will shout ‘NO, ANYTHING BUT THAT!’ This keeps going, and eventually the audience join in. The Panto tone is set. Whenever anyone utters a ‘no’ the audience erupts. This escalates, making heckling a frequent feature and giving the whole evening a slightly riotous feeling.

There is a hula-hooper, who is spurred on to complete a trick by an old man in the back row giving Yoda-like advice. There’s a film in which a woman sews through her own skin. She would stitch a bit, then the silence would break as someone squirmed and made a ‘squee’ noise, then everyone would laugh at the ‘squee’ noise, before returning to stunned silence only to have the cycle repeated again. A woman dressed as a geisha wearing a gas mask did a Burlesque style dance, complete with petals and parasol. There’s another film about a hen night that descends into a chicken-burying fertility ritual. There’s a dance called The Graceful Warrior which is charming and very simple. There’s a sound based musical thing with a lot of synth and very pretty lightbulbs that flash. There’s a person covered in tinfoil with flashing ball things coming out of his head as he writhes around a bit like one of those Chinese Dragons on parade while there is also some projection. All the while, there’s a woman hanging in a net just outside the hall covered in crickets singing as a piece of durational work. In between these things, Harry Giles gets very excited about cicadas and Ali Maloney teaches us what garlic can be used to cure.

My own personal highlight was Pubic Hair Scarf and Matching Ear Muffs for Cindy (or Similar Sized Doll) by Rebecca Green. I was not expecting to like this because it has the words ‘Pubic Hair’ in the title, but it was possibly the most charming thing ever. Rebecca made a tiny scarf out of pubic hair because her life lacked direction. There’s a PowerPoint presentation about the process involved in creating the item and a game of Bingo to win the scarf, and it really feels like we’re all totally supportive of this weird thing because it’s fun and oddly relatable. She claims it’s poignant as a joke but in many ways it actually kind of is.

I am not going to properly evaluate all the things showcased, because that seems a bit mean-spirited. Of course I didn’t like everything: Anatomy is curated to create a diverse programme of all sorts of mad shit. I don’t like all things and all styles so if I went to Anatomy and liked every single performance they’d be doing it wrong. Nearly everything I’ve watched here has elicited a strong reaction, though, and whether that’s a rush of affection, sheer repulsion or turning to a friend beside me to mouth ‘What the ACTUAL FUCK?!’, it’s an exciting event that lets you speed through so many emotions as an audience member.

Anatomy is a brilliant forum for messing about and meeting new people and seeing weird and sometimes wondrous things from emerging talent. It’s also a joy to attend, with real heart and excitement at its core: a proper gem of the Edinburgh arts scene.***

(I really wanted to end on a joke to do with the NO, ANYTHING BUT THAT! title, but I can’t think of one that isn’t terrible. If you could pretend there was some really punchy and yet hilarious pun here, I’d really appreciate it.)

Some notes:

*If we’ve learned anything from this blog (and my life in general) it is that I fail to deal with intimacy and sexuality to a fairly high degree. Apparently, this performance was very good if you can handle people being near you while not wearing many clothes, but I missed the point as I was preoccupied with trying to escape from my own skin.

** props to my friend Ferny for this line.

*** I’ve spent the last week dealing with a lot of press releases. Apologies if this sounds lame and cliched, but I fear that has become my language. Please know that I do very much mean this.

Some Other Mother

I used to say I didn’t like ‘issues’ theatre.

I rarely use that sentence these days. Partly because I’m growing up good and proper now and find myself affected by more ‘issues’ and so am more endeared to theatre about them, and partly because when I really think about it that sentiment makes no sense. Some Other Mother made me process and realise this.

I’m trying to think of how to put into words what I meant. I think I always used it to mean the kind of things that beat you in the face with issues in a slightly awkward way. The way A-Level Drama handles drug abuse or whatever ‘theme’ is thrown their way that always ends up with a dance involving a lot of dramatic, slow fist clenching to dubstep. Looking at Harry Giles’ tweets, he uses the phrase ‘tragedy porn’ (to describe what Some Other Mother isn’t, but we’ll come back to that). ‘Tragedy porn’ might be the most accurate way I can think to describe what I mean.

Mess is about anorexia; Quiz Show plunges into paedophilia and sexual abuse; and Theatre Temoin’s The Fantasist deals with bipolar depression using puppets. These are some of my favourite shows from the last year, and they all deal with ‘issues’ and were amazing in the process. They are not ‘tragedy porn’ because they have enough heart, enough anger and enough relevance to real life to keep them haunting you well beyond their run time, rather than being weepy and wallowing because the subject let them write a good enough show description to sell tickets. But there are less extreme issues forming the bases of shows, because any topic can be an issue and any topic is theatrical fair game. So, I realised I must engage with issues in theatre, as this issue-y-ness is allowing theatre to engage with and reflect the world. That’s important stuff.

Some Other Mother takes a BIG issue: immigration. It is not tragedy porn.

I was not expecting to like it. I went on the spur of the moment: I had no plans for Saturday night and decided to see something. The Traverse offered me two choices, but Calum’s Road used the phrase ‘unhurried description’ in its copy so didn’t excite me. I found myself at Some Other Mother largely because Kieran Hurley was listed as part of the creative team and I think he’s ace.

I did like it, and the more I think about it the more my affection for it strengthens. It was engaging, pretty and abstract. I found it emotionally affecting, which is unusual given I normally only get upset by things aimed at children. I had to walk the long way home to give me adequate time to process why it had made me feel so melancholy.

While not an immigrant, I found all the issues umbrella’d by the BIG issue hit close to home: feeling lost, feeling patronized, feeling unwanted, feeling scared, losing your sense of identity, the mother-daughter relationship entangled with mental health problems, uncertainty and searching for escape from that uncertainty (in fact, I found it bizzarely paralleled my experience of university). If you’ll forgive the spoiler, Mama’s breakdown towards the end HURT because I felt so connected to the dynamic between the mother and daughter, built on the kind of love that is both necessary and damaging. This connection forces you to engage with the BIG immigration issue. Harry Giles puts it far better than I can: ‘you’re furious at the world they’re in, which is your world.’

If I’m honest I didn’t even understand all of it. Starr is 10 years old and lives in a rotting tower block in Glasgow. She and her mother, Mama, are waiting to hear whether they will be deported back to their own ‘broken’ country. Their difficulties are dealt with by a social worker who is well-intentioned in the slimiest of ways and a foul-mouthed Glaswegian who resides next door. There is also ‘Dog Man’ who growls on the count of three, initially introduced as a neighbour but who becomes an extension of Starr or her middle-aged imaginary friend. Their use of language and movement mirrors one another and it seems as though Dog Man often does what Starr wishes she could do or is on the brink of doing. I wondered if his erratic behaviour was supposed to reflect her frenzied mindset, or if his existence was supposed to suggest the psychological impact of living in constant uncertainty, or the need for companionship when Mama can no longer offer it. I don’t know. Starr also tells a story of an ancient albatross and its attempts to care for its young. She doesn’t remember how the story ends and so we never find out, presumably because she and her mother will be separated and so she will forget how she was cared for. Maybe. I cannot say what these things mean because I interpreted them in a way that reflected my own issues, the combination of which is unique to me. I don’t think it matters though, because the script and performances are mostly astounding and even without being sure how it all was meant to be interpreted I really cared.

Everything is an issue and all issues are a mess of other issues and our lives are just webs of issues. Some Other Mother has all the issues but is not an ‘issues’ play, because it pulls on your own problems enough to make you care about all its own issues, but doesn’t make you realise while you watch it that it is about issues and instead just feels like a solid, good show. It is personal enough to make you give a shit about wider politics without using this in a gimmicky way. It feels important afterwards but not while watching it, and it has made me excited to engage with theatre in a new way, as reflecting and responding to our world without being scared that it’s all just ‘issues’.

Amusements

I have run along a beach, I have had waves wash over me, I have ridden roller coasters and I have had sex and I have even enjoyed some of these things. I did not enjoy Sleepwalk Collective’s Amusements.

The people I watched it with did enjoy it, though. Then, I spent a while looking at reviews from its previous performances, and it seems like a lot of other people really enjoyed it, too.

Amusements is a pretty girl in a very pretty dress speaking in a sultry voice into a microphone. The things she says are then tinkered with technologically and played through into headphones worn by audience members. She stands before the audience on a patch of fake grass under a lovely lighting design. I don’t remember very much of what she said because very little of it resonated with me, though I do remember that at one point they did some processing on her voice so she sounded like a man, and I remember fleeting descriptions of the things mentioned in the first paragraph.

Amusements plays with your senses. There are times when it is nearly pitch black, or the light is incredibly dim which makes your eyes constantly flicker to adjust, and other times when the audience is lit which pretty much always makes me uncomfortable. Then there’s the aforementioned headphones, through which we get a sound scape which is difficult to describe using words. It’s not really music, but it’s also sort of music. It’s quite tinny. I think.

In playing with your senses, Amusements is supposed to manipulate the way you feel throughout. I assume this because in the director’s notes posted on Facebook, it is described as ‘unapologetically manipulative’. It is also said to be ‘willfully elusive’. The elusiveness comes from the constant reminder that ‘none of this is real’. We are an audience watching some theatre and we all know that.

I found it so elusive that it failed to be manipulative, though. One of the people I watched it with said that he thought the text reeled off experiences, and though you don’t identify with all of them, a few will hit home and you’ll then allow the performer to have their way with your senses and you’ll run away with the emotions of the show. Returning to the fact I did not enjoy Amusements, this would mean that none of the experiences hit home and so I was left to sit and twiddle my thumbs for 45 minutes while everyone else went on an emotional journey. But I have had those experiences, so surely at least SOMETHING should have got me feeling something?

Maybe not. This could be because I have all the sensuality of cold spaghetti, so I lack the capacity to react appropriately. It could be that my attention span is a little worse for wear, and the pace of Amusements is not exactly riveting. In fact, this is probably my main issue with the show. It could be my disengagement, but the speed of the delivery felt GLACIAL, especially when I could sometimes tell what was going to happen. At one point our knickerless narrator begins ‘These… are… the… areas… most… sensitive… to… touch…’ and then gestures to her neck, the inside of her elbows and so on. As the owner of a human body, I KNO W she is going to touch her boobs and her crotch. Because this seemed obvious, it just frustrated me that she took such a long time to get round to it. I am sure if I had any semblance of sensuality I would find her pace emoted sexiness, but I don’t and so I didn’t. It just felt slow and boring and left me feeling as erotically charged as boiled cabbage.

Unlike those I was with (I think), I had seen a show with headphones before. Maybe I didn’t like Amusements because I didn’t use my headphones in a quest to save Christmas, or maybe it’s because it had the opposite effect that 59 Minutes had on me. 59 Minutes used headphones because it includes everyone equally in the action, regardless of closeness to the performers, and so creates a group that goes on a journey together. Amusements‘ use of headphones cuts everyone off from everyone else to the point of pure isolation (if you look at Dan Hutton’s blog you can get a much better description of this than I can offer). Even this isolation feels like my failing. Partly because because I enjoy the unity of theatre a little too much to be comfortable when it’s not present, and partly because I was unable to get over my previous experience of a part of the form to fully engage with a new piece. I was waiting to be told to run, to walk in an absurd manner or at least shout to assure Solano Arana that her knickers were actually lovely, because that’s what I expected when given headphones. An emotionally charged performance highlighting my own sensual inadequacy is just not the same thing. Although, I do feel a bit of the pre-show allowed me to indulge this run-around-jump-around-shout-around expectation: a card at my seat demonstrating the brace position and telling us to enjoy the ride. I assumed this was knowledge I would need but it wasn’t. I was a bit disappointed.

So, I have all these experiences that Amusements draws on but I just didn’t get on with it. I was a bit bored and a bit lost in previous productions. But I’ve decided that this is my problem because everyone else really liked it. If everyone else had disliked it I would’ve said I didn’t like it and blamed everything on Sleepwalk Collective. But everyone else did like it so I’ve blamed myself. It’s probably great and you’ll probably like it.

Edinburgh ‘Out of Season’

Contrary to popular belief, there is theatre outside of London. You’ve probably not heard about it, given that some theatre journalists are only just making the discovery.

Mark Shenton recently visited Edinburgh outside of the Fringe. He discovered that the city lives without the Festival, and was so astonished by this fact he wrote an advertisement for the Scottish Tourist Board about what a lovely time he had. Presumably, it was accidentally published by The Stage.

I live in Edinburgh. Having been here two and a half years, I still find myself deeply enamoured with the city. This infatuation does not end over Fringe. Sure, there are posters everywhere and it takes a little longer to get places, but if you walk along the Mile it cannot be that the theatremakers handing out flyers make you miss St Giles, the Tron Kirk or the fuck off massive castle 50 metres away? I find it difficult to imagine how the supposed ‘cheap mascara covering’ the Festival brings could blind you to how stunning Edinburgh is. Fringe Edinburgh is still beautiful, albeit in a different way. Taking a moment out of being angry at the poor flyerer trying to excitedly tell you about their show (in the only way they can, given that the space for ‘hideous, disfiguring flyposting’ is taken up by those ‘same old acts’ who can afford it) and looking around properly will prove it.

Shenton manages to address theatre a little. Taking a trip to the Traverse, he caught Quiz Show. Quiz Show is incredible, and yet so little is said of the show. It is given three adjectives. This is just one adjective more than the number used to describe flyposting in the same article. Quiz Show in itself deserves more than that, but it is one of many shows I’ve witnessed at the Traverse that have been excellent, as it is a venue producing some of the most exciting work in the UK. It deserves to be celebrated. Yet here it is being patronized, congratulated for simply existing beyond the Fringe. It is as though London’s theatre is Caravaggio, Picasso and Seurat, and the Traverse is a shitty drawing of a unicorn using a rainbow as a slide created by a seven year old: Shenton sees the effort of the latter but can never consider it in the same league as the former. He is looking at the Edinburgh theatre scene and going ‘D’awwww’. Even Quiz Show is validated by Shenton only in context of the creator’s success in transferring a show to The National. The National is in London, so we must care more about Drummond’s work when it is on there, obviously.

Edinburgh has a smaller theatre scene than London, but it is also a far smaller city. Shenton hasn’t even begun to scratch at the surface of what is on offer. Although, like a one stand night stand purely for satisfaction and not at all for emotion, there’s no intent to pursue the interest further. We’ve learned theatre happens without London and shall leave the conclusion there, only to return to the city when Fringe is there to be complained about.

But the conclusion should not be left there. Pointing out that ‘Edinburgh is different without the Festival’ is not an adequate exploration of its brilliance. Though at least Edinburgh has the Fringe to bring it yearly attention. Many other regions lack such a gift, and so don’t even get a patronising column in The Stage to remind the rest of the nation culture can be found outside of the M25. Wondrous things are happening in the Arts across the country, but we aren’t dedicating the same coverage to them. This creates the impression that London is the be all and end all of creation, implying that London is the place to be noticed and the place best to build your career, and it is this attitude that allows articles like Shenton’s to be accepted: regional theatre is part of a nice wee holiday but not something to be dwelled upon. Therefore many fledging theatre makers all up and head to London, meaning there’s less regional theatre to write about in the first place, and less means it is less worthwhile to send journalists out to cover it. There’s less coverage and it seems like less of a big deal soon. By inspiring the idea that London is where everything and anything must happen, we force more theatre there and soon London actually is where anything and everything must happen. London’s really very expensive and I’ll be lucky if I can ever afford to live there, so I’d rather this didn’t end up being the case.

To refer to Edinburgh without the Fringe as ‘Out of Season’ in itself implies it is not at its best without the Festival, but Edinburgh has a rich and exciting mix of theatre throughout the year. You’ll find even more if you make the 40 minute journey to Glasgow. If we paid more attention to goings on outside of London, there are beautiful discoveries to be found, and in the process of finding them and sharing them, it might be possible to inspire the generation of more regional theatre. London is a big city with a lot going on, but there’s plenty to find beyond it. Plus, there might be hills to climb or lakes to look at. That’s always nice, too.

Deadinburgh

The Lazarus pathogen is spreading through Edinburgh and people are starting to behave like zombies. Summerhall is a sterile zone, and the uninfected have flocked there. The army and the scientists assigned to deal with this problem have 3 options: cull the PALPs (that’s ‘People Affected by the Lazarus Pathogen’ for you non-zombie-fighting muggles), find an antidote to the pathogen or sacrifice the city, annihilating the problems with a fuck tonne of bombs, for the good of mankind. They cannot reach a decision, and so invite the plebs who have wandered into the safe zone to assist. They have one hour to make a choice and inform the UN. If the UN receive no information, they will terminate Edinburgh.

The first 20 minutes of Deadinburgh build tension enough to let you think it could get amazing. Soldiers are patrolling and bringing tension up, there’s an atmosphere of the unknown and a really exciting sense of group confusion amongst the 200 strong audience. The infected break into the Summerhall courtyard where we are congregated, and we rush indoors to escape. Inside, the situation is explained through a short and well performed scene, and we are assigned our task, along with two soldiers for protection. The mission begins.

In a group of about 20, we race through Summerhall’s labyrinthine layout until we get to a classroom. Then, a slow lecture spends 20 minutes chipping away at the tense atmosphere until it lies dead and cold upon the floor.

We have 3 lectures in total. In each, scientists explain what they believe to be the cause of zombification, and what the solution may be. Between each lecture, we take a supposedly perilous walk to the next destination. In my first lecture, the possibility of using modified 3D printers to print new organs using stem cells to replace those of the infected is explored. In my second, an incredibly adorable woman hypothesises the hunger for human flesh is an eating disorder and the zombies need cognitive therapy. Finally, a group of 3 people who can’t project sit in a very echo-ey room and discuss the definition of zombies and how the infection might spread; they believe an inoculation can be developed but it will require draining the zombies completely of blood, killing them and unsubtly forcing us to consider the moral implication of our decision.

Deadinburgh‘s team emphasise in their online copy that the scientists are real. At University, lectures were the thing I most loathed, finding them static and disengaged. An unfortunate thing about academia is that in depth knowledge is not necessarily coupled with charisma. In 2 of the 3 lectures, I found this the case. Learning through theatre has the potential to be inspiring because it can explore inventive ways of teaching, making it a bizarre decision to pass on vital information in a fairly uninspiring fashion.

Deadinburgh‘s trailer is full of running and fear and at the end a guy is SHOT IN THE FACE. Their tagline, ‘Will you make it?’, implies that there is a possibility you won’t. Their design uses colour schemes and fonts similar to Dawn of the Dead, and even more similar to Shaun of the Dead’s brand identity. It builds excitement and then leaves you disappointed when you aren’t cornered by a zombie and left to beat the shit out of it with a cricket bat. Marketing needs to function in that tickets need to be sold, and in order to do that it needs to be grabbing and exciting. However, it is also important that marketing materials actually reflect what they are selling otherwise you’re misleading audiences into spending money. It implies that the selling of the tickets is more important than the reason you want people to see your work in the first place. They do mention the science elements, but not that things take a lecture format for the majority of the production.

There is minimal running and no cricket-bat wielding, but there were certainly people expecting this, which might indicate the marketing was a misfire. A few people in the audience also had a fair whack of science knowledge behind them. Immersive performances are the internet forum of theatre: they are open to massive amounts of trolling. If emotions were running high and you were given minimal chance to think things through, the gaping holes in the logic on display in Deadinburgh wouldn’t be as easy to spot. But every now and then there’s a sassiness and an aggression to the tone of questions posed that implies a dissatisfaction amongst the crowd (at the end of each lecture and just before the vote we are allowed to ask questions which may aid our decision). People can not only find lack of logic, but they can point it out to everyone else in the room. Question time in general is uncomfortable, especially when no one has a question and so a minute of silence deadens the sense of emergency. Scientists are interrogated on why we are draining the zombies of all blood, and not using smaller amounts like blood donations, and why we are referring to it as a pathogen if we think it may be psychological, or, mainly, WHY BOMBING THE ENTIRE CITY IS EVEN CONSIDERED A VALID OPTION.

The soldiers leading each group are exceptional, though. The brief amounts of time between lectures are fun, though not as terrifying as you’d hope from a scene putting you on the undead’s door. Each duo has the immense task of bouying up the atmosphere once a lecture has left it limp, and it’s one hell of a fight but they turn in a valiant effort. Summerhall’s dressing is excellent, too, with well designed warnings plastering the place and signs of struggle from the captured infected, which make the setting more realistic than the actual situation. There’s a zombie zoo at one point: a corridor lined with caged PALPs. Like the soldiers, they put on a good show and are unbelievably energetic, but it’s just not enough to rescue things. Further efforts to heighten the feeling of impending doom are just fucking illogical, thoug; zombies and soldiers make sense in the scenario but why, when you ask the audience to make their way to the back of a room to vote, would you play bass driven music and start flashing a load of lights like it’s some sort of apocalypse disco? It is difficult to be immersed in crisis when the atmosphere is so up and down it constantly brings the believability into question.

One of the absolute joys of immersive theatre is that it allows you to find interest in the rest of the audience as well as the performers. We don’t even get to do that. Lectures take the form of end on theatre and so don’t allow new relationships to form and develop or let you see the reactions of others. Everything out of a lecture involves being in line formation with just your buddy (who you inevitably know) which doesn’t promote banter, either. If question and answer was replaced with debate we might be able to get a bit of passion, or one of the trolls might fight tooth and nail for sacrificing everyone and make it interesting. But no, everyone else in the audience might as well be as character-less as the zombies infecting the city in which you inhabit because you aren’t getting any chat from them.

HOWEVER. Deadinburgh does have a BRILLIANT ending. The crowd I was part of voted to cure the diseased PALPs. When the outcome of the vote was announced, everything went dark and from the back of the room we hear grunts and groans and zombies emerge onto the balcony. Then the lights start flashing, music blasts out and the zombies start dancing. It is hilarious: a truly gorgeous shift in tone.. A party begins and the audience celebrate the end of the world.

Deadinburgh has elements that are well executed well, but it makes little sense at times which is exacerbated by its slightly ill targeted marketing. It seems to care more about its image than its content: it is an odd show that finds the perfectly branded beer  for its final party (Zombier – see what they did there?!) but doesn’t come up with answers to inevitable questions such as ‘right, so why can’t we contact anyone?’. Immersive theatre is one of the kinds of theatre more likely to get your heart racing, but Deadinburgh‘s lecture driven format make it an odd candidate for the style, as it means it rejects many of the real pleasures of attending an immersive show as well as damages the atmosphere so key to its own success.

It is, though, exciting to see Summerhall being used with more frequency and for more experimental things – while Deadinburgh may not be great, immersive theatre is not commonplace in Edinburgh and the more people who start to play in Scotland the better.

(Additional note: I fear I may have been a little harsh on Deadinburgh, and I worry this is down to a few things that may have biased me. In the interest of balance, I will explain my bias so you can decide whether you feel these factors have coloured my impressions of the show.

 Firstly, I am not especially interested in zombie related things in the first place, so I might not be the ideal audience member.

 Secondly, my ‘buddy’ was part of the creative process behind Deadinburgh. This means I had some existing knowledge of the experience, which may have lessened its impact. I also knew a number of the people playing zombies, one of whom was my buddy’s girlfriend. It’s difficult to fear zombies when you know the person assigned to protect you is sleeping with one of them.

 Thirdly, we are randomly assorted into groups. As I sat down in my first lecture, an early question was asked by an oddly familiar voice. I turned around and, randomly, I had been placed in a group with someone I used to go out with. We each caught the other’s eye and it was SO AWKWARD. We didn’t end on brilliant terms (fortunately, we also did not end on bile-spewingly bad terms, either), and we had not seen each other since we ceased to date. It is very difficult to concentrate on learning about fictional zombies when you are focusing on getting to a seat that is far away so as to avoid unnecessary conversation without it seeming like you are deliberately avoiding someone. It’s just not ideal that you’re first discussion post-break up is about whether sacrificing Scotland’s capital is the solution to stopping the apocolypse. Quite frankly, unexpected zombie-banter with an ex would make sacrifice seem a much more appealing option.)

Quiz Show

There were two joyous things about my trip to see Quiz Show at the Traverse Theatre. The first: the man sat next to me was brilliant, laughing and clapping along like he was having the best day of his life. Since the first third of Quiz Show turns the theatre audience into a live studio audience, making you feel implicit in all that is about to take place, having someone ready to go for it and lead the rest of the theatregoers in the whooping and cheering was amazing. The second: Quiz Show is the only piece of theatre I have ever seen that managed to make me jump out of my fucking skin. In a good way.

Because of that, though, trying to write about Quiz Show is really difficult because anything I write could potentially ruin what’s so amazing about Quiz Show. Very rarely have I seen a show which kept me so utterly on edge throughout, which gave me pretty much no idea of what was coming next and which haunted me for quite so long after. It’s not that it’s especially brutal to watch, because it’s not. Not really. It’s that it plays with narrative structure and jumps between genres in an unpredictable but completely watchable way. It’s that it starts out as the most ridiculous pastiche but in the process is drawing you right in to the palm of its hand. It’s that the set and lighting are appropriately and deliciously tacky. It’s that it’s making a vicious and poignant point and you don’t really realise until right at the end. It’s that it’s fucking great.

Even telling you it’s great seems wrong; I’m building expectation that you are better off without.

Drummond acknowledges he can’t do anything completely original. But he can push boundaries, which is what he’s doing this production: in terms of structure and ‘unexpected juxtapositions’. He’s also experimenting with what he creates, moving on from solo shows to ensemble pieces that didn’t involve him throwing himself around in a wrestling ring for the better part of a year. His focus is not searching for originality, but ‘honouring those who have gone before and taking their gifts and making them relevant to your situation, borrowing, adding, changing and then hopefully leaving enough for the next lot.’ It’s the Traverse’s 50^th anniversary. Arguably one of the most exciting venues and producing companies in Scotland, it would be easy for them to spend this year backtracking, wheeling out old successes and shouting about all the best things they ever did. That’s not really the Trav’s style, though. They are instead supporting new(ish) artists in new(ish) endeavours and taking calculated and exciting risks. In a few years time, newer artists will look at Quiz Show, and they will borrow, add and change things, and hopefully they’ll manage to make something as exciting. It’s shows like this, coupled with audience members like the one I got to sort of share it with, that make me give such a shit about theatre. And that’s pretty fucking exciting.

Romance and Creative Careers

I started writing a post about Valentine’s Day and how, as a ‘singleton’, I bloody love Valentine’s Day and all its couply-lovey-dovey celebrations of caring about another person enough to piss away £5 on a card scented with roses that sings a Tom Jones song. I also enjoy all the anti-romance stories that suddenly get dusted off and put back into anecdotal repertoires for a few days, like when my mum bought my dad a Toblerone, ate it, then wrapped up the box and gave it to him anyway.

Now Valentine’s Day is long gone. But that wasn’t really the point of what I was going to write so I’ll soldier on regardless.

Recently, for the first time in a while, I went on a First Date. I will not create any suspense and tell you now this didn’t work out, in case (like a surprising number of people) you give even the slightest shit about my love life. It didn’t work out because I am awkward, have no chat and find the non-ironic use of wink face emoticons in text messages largely disconcerting. But, I digress.

The First Date revealed something that I had never realised before: liking theatre is a bit strange. To say ‘I really like theatre’ is fine and normally about as far as it will go. Unless also deeply enamoured with the performing arts, the other person in the conversation will perhaps ask you about a few West End musicals or what you reckoned to David Tennant as Hamlet, and then leave it at that. But if you’re making a vague attempt to establish some sort of connection, the exchange will deepen, and you can watch your First Date partner getting uncomfortable.

I like alternative and experimental theatre which adds difficulty to the situation. A lot of things I see aren’t based on classic scripts and, unless you’re following the theatre scene, probably aren’t really in the domain of common knowledge.

So there’s that point where you mention that you saw this GREAT puppet show about HITLER that had this WEIRD FIGURE OF DEATH in it who did MAGIC TRICKS and it was just SO interesting but also had some flaws that altered the plays message beyond what seemed to be intended.

Your First Date partner’s eyes have widened now. You’ve mentioned Hitler and you’ve mentioned puppets. Then you’ve over analysed. That’s a string of massive turn offs right there. The conversation has died and it was you that killed it dead. Finish your dinner in silence and fuck off as politely as possible.

But liking theatre is like being from Peterborough or having size 10 feet: I can’t change it. I could try, but pretending to be disinterested would crush my soul in the way that wearing a daintier size 6 shoe would crush my monstrous ladyfeet. Because I don’t just like theatre, which is the real problem. Trying to put into words how much I really do love it is a challenge, and explaining a slightly nerdy passion to its full extent while still trying to be ‘alluring’ is even more challenging still.

So because this is an element of me that I cannot and would prefer not to change, what does this really mean? If I was dead keen for a relationship, would I be doomed? Or would I have to wait until someone equally mad for folksy-puppet-storytelling or verbatim theatre about the issues of children finally presents themself? To be honest, those people are already in my life, forming my immediate friendship group, cushioning the paranoia that society is judging theatre makers. If any new people fitting this criteria pop up, chances are I’ll be more interested in collaborating with them than fucking them.

IdeasTap, along with their IdeasMag, have explored this a bit. One is a discussion, which draws some pretty grim conclusions: living as an artist will lead to you planning your sex life around what your parents are up to, and your relationships will suffer from a constant sense that you’re inadequate, for example. I’d like to add that, for those who really are super-fucking-obsessed with this theatre thing, you are probably not great at talking about things that are not theatre. At least, that’s what it seems like my group of dysfunctional, aspiring theatre-maker friends. Plus, there’s all the advice and info that comes with selecting a future in the arts: one of which is inevitably ‘say goodbye to any hope of romance’.

Perhaps, then, I’ve said my goodbyes and accepted my fate. I shall die alone in a pile of budget spreadsheets and ticket stubs. I’m ok with that, I suppose. But that’s probably because I love theatre quite so much.

In all honesty, I just wanted to discuss this. To explain what theatre means to me and what it means to have it mean anything at all. To wonder how this affects the (admittedly few) non-theatre elements of my life and to wonder why.

I’ve not drawn a conclusion. Apart from that I really like puppets.

59 Minutes to Save Christmas

I am a 21-year-old on the cusp of some semblance of adulthood, currently sat in pyjamas drinking a beer and watching a Stephen Fry show at nearly 4am; I am not the target audience of Slung Low’s 59 Minutes to Save Christmas, my age meaning I lack the innocence to truly believe in the magic. However, it is a magical experience nonetheless– though not in the fairy-dust, glittering, anything-is-possible way, but in a unifying, simple way.

Had I seen it age 9, I would’ve adored it. I adored it anyway, but not in the same way.

59 Minutes is panto-simple in plot. We are recruited, along with Jack, to the 1^st Royal Christmas Brigade, on an adventure to stop Professor Meanwood from sapping away all the Christmas spirit from the Barbican Centre and beyond. Of course, we succeed.

At age 9, I would’ve been excited by the engaging and charming characters, and keen to be at the forefront of all the action. No doubt that my younger self would’ve been shouting the loudest to tell Fairy La-La she’s a stunner, and laboured to ensure that her Christmas tree decoration looked as good as could be. There was running around and plenty of spectacle and silliness to keep little Rosie from getting bored, but enough storyline to feel like there was always a goal in sight. Plus, there was pink smoke and the adults accompanying me would’ve been made to do a silly walk for the best part of an hour, adding to the entertainment.

So, 59 Minutes is joyous at its most basic level for its target audience. It’s tough to suspend my disbelief enough to believe that there’s really a military operation to save Christmas going down in the Barbican, though, and so I found entertainment and magic elsewhere. Unlike a lot of shows, Slung Low are doing very little to pander to the adults; 59 Minutes isn’t drenched in double entendre or full of hidden meanings. It is nearly purely for children, but in being so is for adults.

Bear with me a tangent. When I was about 6 years old, my parents took me to Disneyland Paris. I was (and still am) a lover of Disney, and back then, without any knowledge of Feminism to distract me, I worshipped the Disney Princesses like goddesses. In the magnificent parade, there was one shimmering, shiny, aggressively pink float with all of the Disney Princesses aboard, waving like the royalty they might as well have been. Apparently my face was so full of sheer delight, that both of my parents started crying.

That’s not dissimilar to what Slung Low are doing with this show; they are giving parents the chance to watch their kids enjoy themselves, which is enough entertainment in itself.

Ok, so I didn’t go with a kid. I’m not even the sort to be broody, but the energy and elation of the children was infectious. I was so interested to see how the children reacted, and the conviction with which they believed in the magic. I’ve waded through enough after-school specials and Disney movies to know that it was going to end happily ever after for the Royal Christmas brigade, but I felt all the tension through the children, helped along by some really lovely performances.

That’s not all there is for the slightly older generations to enjoy, though. As pointed out in a promotional video with Slung Low’s Artistic Director, Alan Lane, the Barbican is populated by a lot of ‘very empowered people’. Those involved in 59 Minutes don headphones, and scuttle about the Barbican for all to see. The headphones are used to prevent actors from shouting all the time, because, as the programme puts it ‘it’s more interesting when they don’t have to shout all the time’: and it is, because it gives these lovely moments where the cast comment on those around you, calling them ‘infected’ as Professor Meanwood’s pink smoke sucks out their festive spirit. There’s never anything mean, but it feels just gossipy enough to be exciting. As the actors aren’t shouting, it means the ‘infected’ people around you may not always know exactly what’s going on, which, again, creates some really excellent points. You are treated to the sight of the Barbican’s ‘empowered’ punters reacting to a snowman in an orb on the loose and a Christmas tree attached to a remote control car, and their bemusement is hilarious and delightful. In addition, some of the settings have incredible detail – especially the toy making room, which is full of presents with individual hand written labels, so even though a lot of it is in a very orange foyer there’s still visual interest.

Really, there are a lot of flaws in the show. The plot isn’t exactly mindblowing, the pacing can feel a little off as the group has inevitable stragglers, etc., etc… none of that really matters. Because to focus on those things is to kind of ignore the point.

The programme rightly points out that ‘Christmas is brilliant’ because it ‘makes you pay more attention to the really magical things in life’. The really magical things in this production are that it makes you feel like part of something really special; that it sparks an enthusiasm in little people and thus brings joy to those around them; that it makes you laugh and that it means that, even at age 21, I get to go home and give my mother a homemade Christmas tree decoration and a certificate with my name on and see the nostalgic, proud smile on her face.

It took me a couple of attempts to get this review-type-thing down in a way I was happy with. I am relatively new to this writing thing, so if you have feedback, do let me know!