Fringe: 3, 2, 1… you’re back in the room

Call me a spoilsport, but I’ve always been a little sceptical about anything involving mind readers and hypnotists. Quite frankly, I can’t decide if a night with a Ouija board would make me want to run away screaming in fear or just make for a good night of entertainment among friends. So when I was…

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Fringe: Refreshingly clean comic to make you laugh

The world is divided into two types of people, according to the likeable 26-year old comedian Ben Pope: those who are punctual, and those who are late. He falls into the latter category, as witnessed by the fact that he arrives in a newly bought Edinburgh t-Shirt and his PJ bottoms. The Punctuals are saddos…

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Fringe: The art of satire is far from dead

Satire is defined as the ‘use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticise people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.’ Melinda opens the show by describing herself as a satirist, there was no need as that was apparent from the first verse of the…

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Fringes: They can be Heroes – just for one day

Heroes is a production aimed at families with an engaging tale told by Beverly Grant and Tony Mills. A production aimed at children is certainly one of the most difficult to pull off as children are a very discerning audience and if bored are prone to twitch, yawn and chatter. None of these happened, the…

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Fringe: Alzheimers and war in Ivory Wings

Ivory Wings is good drama – very good drama. Ivory Wings is a sibling production from Susie and Anna Coreth. Susie is both the playwright and sole actor whilst Anna provides the music. The underlying story is the therapeutic and beneficial effect music can have on Alzheimer sufferers. Susie plays Virginia who at various stages…

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Fringe: Discover radio’s hidden gem Fags, Mags and Bags

One of the best kept secrets on radio, Fags, Mags and Bags, is currently shopping for laughs at the Fringe. While many shows have made the move from radio to TV, for some reason, the quiet genius that is Fags, Mags and Bags has somehow not made the transfer. Fags, Mags and Bags is a…

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Fringe: No place to Hyde in a great one man show

Michael Tonkin-Jones is a busy performer – in this one man show,Hyde and Seek, he demonstrates considerable skill, playing all the characters, he sings, is a puppet master and dances too. The play is based on Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and narrated by Albert, the stage door manager of a theatre who is…

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Fringe: Going coco-nuts for improvised fun and laughs

I’m not usually a fan of improvised comedy, it can so easily retreat into crudity or banality. Not from this cast of five, they are intelligent, fast, fun to watch and very funny. A word is thrown out from an audience member and they are off. How they manage to navigate from ‘somewhere in Europe’,…

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Fringe: An early show that’s worth getting up for

White Girls is one of the earlier shows of the day and well worth setting your alarm clock to make sure you go. The show tells the tale of naive voluntourism within the Calais Jungle refugee camp. This could have turned into a political rant at the incompetence and uselessness of global governments. It wasn’t,…

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