Edinburgh Fringe Reviews: Ten Thousand Hours, Cirque Kalabanté & Playing Love

Ten Thousand Hours, performed by the Australian acrobatic troupe, Gravity and Other Myths, is the most extraordinary thing I’ve seen at the Fringe this year, says Frankie Reason.

★★★★★

It’s not just the apparent ease of the feats (and somehow these performers do make it look easy), but also the choreographed falls, faults, stumbles. 

A glimpse of just how difficult these manoeuvres really are – just how strong you have to be – just how talented are these athletes. 

GOM doesn’t rely on any rigging. The height they achieve is solely bodies upon bodies. The acrobats spring from one pair of shoulders to another, and throw one another into waiting arms, four metres off the ground. 

The troupe is excellent at engaging the crowd, and invites members of the audience to call out the names of animals and themes which they incorporate into routines. 

Halfway through the show they invited a young woman to draw a number of gravity-defying formations that they might arrange themselves into. The sketches were crude, but the athletes willing.

GOM’s dynamic use of space, breathtaking momentum, and easy stage presence is a winning formula. I would give it six stars if I could.

Ten Thousand Hours runs until 24 August at Main Hall at Assembly Hall.

Cirque Kalabanté: WOW (World of Words) is about difference and mutuality, Frankie Reason says. 

★★★★

At the outset of the show, a long, coarse rope divides the stage between two groups of performers, one in orange, the other blue. 

Their movement is distinct. Those in blue sit with their backs to the audience and drum their hands against the stage while those in orange advance from the wings like amphibious creatures, bellies low to the ground. 

Over the course of the show the rope slackens, binds the two groups, and then disappears altogether.

The strength of the performers is immense. They spring on to one another’s shoulders, dive to the ground, and throw themselves through the air, all in one fluid movement. 

Contortionist, Mohamed Ben Sylla, is a highlight. His wry grin as he twists himself into extraordinary shapes is a winning touch of comedy. 

The show is still new, and the aerial hoop routine could use some refining, as well as the crowd work, but overall a thoroughly enjoyable show.

Cirque Kalabanté: WOW (World of Words) runs until 25 August at Main Hall at Assembly Hall.

There’s much to like about Playing Love. An Episcopal Sex Comedy, says Richard Bath. 

★★★

The premise of this farce from St Andrews University sees four young theologians, who are about to be ordained, caught in a desire-fuelled fandango of deceit and devotion.

The plot revolves around a student flat in which the practically perfect Matilda (Emily Christaki) and effete, relentlessly ineffectual Jeffrey (Jonathan Stock) are in a relationship, only for it to become clear that both are also simultaneously carrying on with feckless charmer Philip (Geordie Coles), creating a dysfunctional throuple.

A fourth character, Celeste (Tatiana Kneale), is also infatuated with Matilda, and while that love is doomed to be unrequited, she is a useful device through which to bring simmering tensions to a head.

The premise and pace of this hour-long play are decent, while all four actors give energetic and assured, if occasionally over-wrought, performances.

Aidan Monks’ dialogue is well-structured, although the relentlessly Woosteresque flourishes and curious 1950s verbal tics ground my gears more than a little. Yet as a play which explored themes around faith, devotion, sex and luck, there was much to like here.

Playing Love. An Episcopal Sex Comedy runs until 10 August at Theatre at Bedlam Theatre.

Read more Fringe Reviews here.

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