Human instinct to categorise and label everything and everyone extends to drawing boundaries and borders around bits of land, dividing the world up into distinct nations with names and cultural features. They’re arbitrary really, and Daniel Bye channels obscure, near-mythical performance artist Edward Shorter to challenge them.
by guest critic Tom Brocklehurst
The Hub has got its glad rags on for this one!
Meow Meow’s return to Edinburgh (now part of the International Festival, dontcha know!) is as spangly, feisty and marvellous as anyone might expect. This time she’s taking on Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid. And please, nobody mention the Jamaican crab.
How do I, a white woman from the world’s wealthiest country, voluntarily living in the world’s fifth wealthiest country, who is educated and working in the arts, evaluate a show about a black British woman’s experience of travelling slave trade routes?
‘The revolution is childcare!’ proclaims Busty Beatz from the top of her honeycomb mountain. The revolution also honours people from First Nations around the world, respects women of colour and escapes the constraints of imperialism. It’s owning your body, your sexuality and your race. It is Hot Brown Honey, the radical feminist cabaret from Australian women of colour.
Two men glide around the floor on small wheeled platforms. Like children, belly down on skateboards, they relish the speed and inability to control their paths. There’s a sense of freedom and joy in their movements, but collisions soon turn happiness into hostility. The fights increase in aggression, and the audience is made complicit. No one is innocent here.
by guest critic Jo Trainor
Is there a style of comedy that Steen Raskopoulos hasn’t mastered? Having found the Australian comedian as half of improvisation duo The Bear Pack, I knew how quick witted he is, and how absurd some of his characters are but it turns out he can throw all these skills together and create side-splitting sketches too.
A British Pakistani Muslim tries to reconcile his faith and family with his love of men and clubbing.
A gay guy and his straight female bff share a flat, a mutual adoration for classic films and the occasional man.
Liver & Lung Productions’ two new plays, whilst needing further development, look at two issues that queer men of colour face. Submission is the stronger of the two works, though Sarah, Sky and Seven Other Guys includes a mix of serious and light-hearted material.
by an anonymous guest critic
To honour the 50th anniversary of his death, this is the first time we get to see Orton’s original version of the script before the Lord Chamberlain censored it prior to the 1966 production.
Harry receives a children’s book manuscript from an unknown writer, Heather Eames. Impressed, he wants to discuss an advance, rights and making her book the Next Big Thing, but Heather’s based outside of London, heavily pregnant and ill. It doesn’t really matter that they can’t meet in person, so they move forward with negotiating. Three books, several films and endless merchandise later, the public are desperate to meet this mysterious author. But she still refuses to meet her publisher or her fans. Harry pushes and pushes until the truth is revealed.
Though the fringe is still often gloriously lo-tech, more shows and venues are embracing and exploring the role technology can play in live performance. New Zealand-based Zanetti Productions’ Jane Doe and China Plate’s The Shape of the Pain are powerful, challenging productions that use tech in different ways from each other, but it is essential to both and enhances the productions’ impact.
The Play's The Thing UK 