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Edinburgh Festival, August 2009

simon — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 21:33:59 +0000

Shows, shows, more shows… Is there any better place to gorge yourself on culture high and low than Auld Reekie in August?

My highlights this year included Daniel Kitson’s Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church at the Traverse, Phil Nicol’s manic A Deadpan Poet Sings Quiet Songs Quietly and stunning “multimedia opera” St Kilda at the Festival Theatre.

Spent even more time at the Books Festival than normal, particularly enjoying talks by Anthony Giddens, Nicholas Stern and Griff Rhys Jones.

Rain Man at the Apollo Theatre

simon — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 22:15:02 +0000

Out to the theatre tonight to see Hollywood stars Josh Hartnett and Adam Godley reprise the movie roles made famous by Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman. The film is a distant memory, but I remember it fairly cracking along (it was a road movie after all). Sadly, Dan Gordon’s updated version of the screenplay strips it of all its energy, leaving a ponderous play criminally lacking in drama. Hartnett attempted to lively things up by rushing through his lines: he had to repeat more than a handful. While there was certainly humour in the film, here I felt uneasy laughing at Godley’s severly autistic Raymond. And I learned more about autism from the leaflets handed out outside the theatre, than I did from the play. An uncomfortable evening.

Wet, wet, wet: Edinburgh Festival

simon — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:00:27 +0000

Dunno if it’s the Credit Crunch or the weather or I’m just fatigued, but I found Edinburgh distinctly dispiriting this year. Of course there were highlights: best of all was devastating airline crash drama Charlie Victor Romeo, which brilliantly utilised black box transcripts to bring home how little pilots can do to avoid most air disasters. Comedy wise, I struggle to raise a laugh. Reigning champion Brendon Burns ticked the boxes, Ed Byrne – playing to packed houses in the Fringe’s biggest venue – was his usual professional self, Scott Capurro didn’t quite push the envelope by not quite wanking on stage. The endless rain didn’t help. It was fugging dreich. All in all, pretty demoralising stuff.

However, every cloud, blah blah blah, and rather excitingly, I got stuck in to the fantastic Fabhatrix hat shop in the Grassmarket. So now I’m the exceedingly proud owner of an exceedingly beautiful felt fedora.