It is Fringe time again, my favourite time of the year and as every year I flew to Edinburgh to spend a long weekend binging all kind of shows and soaking the wonderful atmosphere of the city. Luckily this year the weather was ok, mostly dry and no bin collection strike that really put a strain on the 2022 edition. With nearly 4,000 events and shows it may be overwhelming to decide what to watch, so here you are, my highlights from my weekend.
Fountain of You – A New Musical – Music Hall, Assembly Rooms
Fountain of You is a new musical by Tasha Gordon-Solmon (Lyrics & Book) and Faye Chao (Music), directed by Tania Azevedo and performed in partnership with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. It is a brilliant new musical, in some way a modern take on Sweeney Todd.
Kristen is a celebrated actor; however, once she reaches 35 years old, she sees all her job offers disappear, and nobody is interested in her. In a desperate attempt to regain youth and fame, she visits a spa called Fountain of You, where a new treatment has been developed to reverse the aging process (Vampire Facelift) using blood stolen from unaware men (without hurting them). After the treatment, Kirsten regains her popularity, and she is flooded with job offers, invites, and interviews. But she is not happy, she still cannot access places of real power, she wants full equality, that can be achieved only with money. She steals the secret of the Vampire Facelift and starts killing evil men to get as much blood as possible to sell the treatment as cream to other women and become rich. The men that she kills are accused of crimes against women, but while she acquires money and power the whole enterprise soon becomes unmanageable (not spoiling the ending).
This musical is a very interesting dark comedy that treats some rather modern topics: gender equality, women’s mistreatment, patriarchy, sexism, societal pressure, and so on. You will hear terms like mansplaining, and manspreading, and you will enter a treacherous moral maze, all accompanied by powerful and memorable tunes, great dialogues and characters, and impeccable acting. All were achieved on a Fringe stage with minimal scenography and special effects. It is a fun musical, that gives a lot to think about and exposes a lot of the challenges women face in modern society, without being preachy or obvious. I thoroughly enjoyed it, a couple more songs, full staging and I would love to see it debuting in London as soon as possible!
Jason Byrne – No Show – Main Hall, Assembly Hall
While I knew Jason, I had never seen him perform live, and let me say what a treat he was. It was one hour of substantially uninterrupted laughter, one of the funniest stand-up shows I have ever seen. The name of the performance, No Show, refers to the fact that there is little written down, Jason follows the flow, and there is a lot of seamless improvisation. He talks a little about his youth in Ireland and reminisces on very famous jingles from his childhood, but all the rest is just hilarious random stuff, mostly coming from interactions with the audience or from random thoughts that pop into his mind. He makes it look effortless, spur of the moment, but I am sure there is a lot of work behind it. The best way to describe the show is utter madness, an hour of high energy, riotous comedy genius, in some ways it reminded me of some Robin Williams interviews, I never knew what was coming next.
Ryan Mold – Mold: Before I Die – The Wee Tap, Laughing Horse @ The Hannover Tap
I love the “free” fringe shows, you get the chance to discover new talents and new shows, and even if not free, you pay what you think the set is worth at the end, I always try a few of them, sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you are not. Ryan Mold was a pleasant surprise: he talks about his experience growing up close to Banbury with his grandparents (they adopted him, as his mother was too young to take care of him). He talks about the generational gap with them, about the challenges of growing up with people so much older, from the not-so-exciting food (cheese sandwich every school day) to the lack of real technology in the house, to the not-so-exciting holidays in Slough. It is a set full of very funny and original jokes, a laugh-a-minute show, but also a very personal and touching tribute to his grandparents. There is a bit of audience interaction, but I liked that this was just a pretext to talk about his life and I liked the set had a narrative thread, it was not just joke after joke.
Flicker – Ace Dome, Pleasance Dome
Even if we talk a lot more about mental health issues, the average person still knows very little about all the different types of illnesses, so it is good to find shows that try to cast more light on the topic. Flicker is a play developed in consultation with OCD UK exploring intrusive thoughts, in particular violent and sexual ones. Many people are familiar with OCD, but mostly just with the quirky side presented by movies and comedians: people cleaning, people checking things repeatedly. Unfortunately, the illness is not just that, there are different versions and different symptoms.
Flicker tells the story of Jo, a lady with OCD who is overwhelmed by intrusive thoughts of a sexual and violent nature. To try to drown the thoughts she embarks on a series of meaningless one-night stands, that however do not help her. During one of these encounters, she has an accident, and she finds herself in a series of misadventures to try to hide the accident and the man from her roommate Anna whom Jo secretly fancies. There is a surreal and funny side to the play, but the most notable and interesting part is Jo’s constant fight with her intrusive thoughts and the impact they have on Jo’s mental health and confidence.
I really enjoyed the play, because it tries to get people familiar with something rather scaring and disturbing in a lighter way without however trivialising the subject matter. The dialogues are very well written and beautifully played by the cast.
Reviews by Fabio Ghiotto
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