Friday
On Friday after work a few of us ended up going to the National Pop League at the Woodside Social. The music is generally pretty good, they tend to play stuff I only ever really hear on my walkman. Examples being Good Thing by The Woodentops, From Such Great Heights by the Postal Service and Hefner's Hymn for the Cigarettes. However as much as I love the guy I wouldn'’t have played Elliott Smith at a disco. There was one chap bravely jumping around to Baby Britain. I would love to see the club where the floor packs when Needle in the Hay comes on. The picture is of the booklet, badge and sweet we got for being among the first 100 in through the door.
I think we all agreed that the night dipped when the DJ stuck on American Pie. Now the thing about this song is that it’s not bad in that so bad it’s quite kitsch to dance to, like say maybe the Bay City Rollers, or indeed something more crass like Black Lace. Nah American Pie is just turgid. So we left not long after.
Saturday
On Saturday I went thru to Edinburgh to see some plays. I started off with The Wrong Man written by Danny Morrison, ex-IRA prisoner and director of publicity for Sinn Féin from 1979 until 1990.
The story centres round a suspected IRA informer. There’s a brilliant bit of misdirection in the first five minutes of the play that sets things up nicely.
Chronologically that’s the penultimate scene as the play then moves back in time to reveal the story.
The performances were all good, with a couple of the cast taking on multiple roles. The staging was good too, with one scene of two separate breakfast conversations taking place across a single kitchen table at the same time.
It avoids making any judgments on which side is right or wrong, although the police aren’t painted as particularly fair players. I enjoyed it, though I didn’t feel it as electric as some reviewers did. I wanted more of the electricity between the IRA players that the play started with, but it was till a very good play.
Just cos I wanted to squeeze another show in before I had to get the bus I stopped in at C Venue and plumped for The Drowning Point, a one woman show from Claire Porter.
This was the kind of stuff that abounds at the fringe. A one woman show with movement and painful monologues. The story basically was that this woman about to turn 40 loses her husband in a drowning accident on his yacht. It turns out that he was there having an affair with her best friend. So far so clichéd.
She was a very good performer but the material lets the whole thing down. She’s not helped by the slides that move the story on, as when the husband she is so cut up over is shown it turns out he’s a wee weedy looking guy.
There was a very good moment when she takes the time to look every single audience member in the eye and holds their gaze. I left wishing that I’d seen her in something a bit better written. Here’s a pretty accurate review of it from the Edinburgh Evening News.
When I got back to Glasgow I went to see the radio adaptation of Star Wars. A play I knocked back the part of R2-D2 in. Jo, Moira and Jennifer formed ‘Tom’s Angels’ for the evening.
It was a little bit odd, a couple of the actors in the central parts weren’t very good. Though there were some funny moments. Jon Dixon made a very funny R2-D2.
Afterwards we went for dinner at Pancho Villas where we knocked back a couple of pitchers of Pina Colada.
Sunday
I made my ‘fringe debut’ on Sunday with an appearance in The Greatest Charity Show on earth. It was awful. I was greeted with the words “are you a comic?” and then when I nodded was hugged. By Saif Abu Kandil, a heavy set bearded Egyptian-Iraqi with an American accent dressed as a nun.
Before I went on I had time to see the guy before me die on his arse playing as we were to a disinterested group of Sunday afternoon drinkers. When one of my early gags, usually a slow burner, so give it a moment, was met by a vast silence I knew I was onto a loser, but still had to batter it out for another 15 minutes, although I did cut it short. I finished my pint and left. All in all I think I was in, got a drink, did my bit, finished my drink and left in no more than 20 minutes.
I went for something to eat in Bar Napoli. Nicola is right when she says the food is good but the service lousy. Since my Morgan Spurlock inspired boycott of McDonalds and other fast food chains I find that I end up spending in access of a tenner in restaurants instead of 3 to 4 pounds in fast food joints.
From here I went to the Assembly Rooms to see Jerry Sadowitz’s card tricks and close up magic show. Sadowitz is notorious for his sick humour and also renowned for being one of the best close up magicians in the world. His magic was brilliant, but what really gets you is it’s magic performed by an aggressive Glaswegian.
“Is this your card? Is this your fucking card ya cunt?”
“How many balls do you think are in the cups? Come on just say something. It’s a magic show disnae matter what you say you’re gonnie be fuckin wrang.”
He did tell a constant stream of jokes as he performed. Some of them you could certainly say were racist and indeed homophobic. “If you have a children’s party don’t hire a children’s entertainer. They’re aw benders. There’s no punchline. Just friendly advice. Benders.” He’s well worth going to see though, if you like your magic with the constant threat that the magician might go mental if you say something wrong.
From there I trotted across town to see Demetri Martin at the George Square Theatre. About half an hour before the show I was sitting peacefully at a table outside the theatre. Demetri Martin was at the next table, guitar strapped across his back, signing autographs for a growing bunch of young female fans, when the Yin-Yang martial arts group came outside to celebrate their final show. This developed into a full blown champagne cork popping party within seconds. Causing me to flee. I’d like to think if ever I’m drenched in champagne it’ll be due to something outstanding I’ve done, not cos I happened to be sitting where a party breaks out.
Last year when I saw Demetri it was on his first night, of a show he said he subsequently changed. Due to a poor response from his first night audience I understand. This time it was his last night, so his show was really tight. The photograph is of his stage layout. To the left is a chair and on the floor, a small keyboard, a shoe and a tambourine. It became clear why these things were here as soon as he entered the stage. He came on stage with one show on, played the keyboard with his toes, tapped the tambourine with his other foot and strummed guitar while a bracelet of bells around his wrist jingled.
‘Prepare to have your asses blown’ read his flip chart as an assistant turned the pages, ‘by subtle comedy’. I found him about ten times as funny as I did last year and I enjoyed him last year. He knocked out some music while performing his jokes, the best bit being when he played the glockenspiel and keyboard simultaneously.
“All fights are food fights...if you’re a cannibal.”
“People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Shouldn’t that saying be, no one should throw stone. Unless you’re trapped inside a glass house.”
“People show me pictures of their kids. But when I give them a picture of me to show to their kid…they think I’m weird.”
“You can say you like children, but you can’t be specific about it. ‘I really like 12 year olds’. Dude, you’re sick”.
I could go on, but I don’t want to endlessly quote his lines, which I could do quite easily. He really was top drawer and never missed a beat all night. He’s a real comedic inspiration.
As I was walking back through Bristo Square I noticed a crowd had gathered and went over to have a look. It was Brendon Burns who had taken his show’s audience outside wearing nothing but his pants and socks. He had also dressed up a tramp on crutches in a PVC nun’s outfit. Ah the crazy spirit of the festival.
Monday - Bill Hicks: Slight Return
Monday was the festival’s last day and although there’s still plenty on at The Pleasance and the Assembly Rooms it’s a very quiet day. I thought I would take the opportunity to see a show that I’ve been curious about for a while. That show was Bill Hicks Slight Return. I’m loathe to refer to it simply as ‘Bill Hicks’ as the venue staff were doing. Now the idea of someone pretending to be Bill Hicks and performing material that he imagines Hicks might have come up with had he lived is an odd and potentially alienating one. I mean who is this guy anyway? In the context of a play I might be more comfortable with the concept, but co-written by Early and his director Richard Hurst, this was pretty much out and out stand up.
Chas Early is an English actor, not a stand-up but an actor and not American, so the American perspective that a lot of the show comes from is something he couldn’t get away with under his own name.
I didn’t really feel he looked that much like Hicks, which is the one thing most of the wildly varying views of opinions out there agree on. I felt with his voice he captured Hicks speech patterns and vocal inflections if not the right sound.
When people compared Bill Hicks to Lenny Bruce, Hicks said “Lenny Bruce was Lenny Bruce on stage and I’m Bill Hicks on stage. In that way we’re similar.”
The fact that this performer is doing stand up as someone else and doesn’t seem to have himself in the material was never more apparent in the one horrible moment in this show. I could feel a sense of unease throughout, but it rose to the surface when Early announced that he was doing some 9/11 material.
An American woman rose to her feet and announced how dare he attempt that as her son was “two blocks away.” She made to leave before turning and announcing “you’re not Bill Hicks you’re an asshole.” He dealt with it fine, he told her that ‘these are jokes’ and that she was taking things too seriously. Bill Hicks on the other hand, well Bill Hicks would have had no problems with calling her a cunt. Rightly or wrongly. He may well have taken her to task and had her explain her point of view. Doug Stanhope just lives for that sort of thing happening to him and would have pounced on it. As I could see it her son is still alive and well, he just happened to be working nearby when the Twin Towers were hit.
That’s where he falls down. The essence of Hicks was he was himself on stage and he believed in what he was saying. I’m not sure Early does. He did a bit about 9/11 (and a funny bit like how ‘9/11’ has become every bit as much of a brand name as Nike or Coke) because Bill Hicks would have. Bill Hicks said that he and certain other comics like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin who came before him and his contemporaries like Sam Kinison were “A breed of individuals who believe in their art and love it and want to evolve it.” Chas Early isn’t doing that. He’s an actor doing stand-up while pretending to be an edgy and legendary comedian and that’s why it doesn’t work as a whole.
Early made a joke out of the potentially show-ruining situation and carried on his routine. Didn’t seem phased by the incident and even referenced it another couple of times gaining a laugh each time. However it just highlighted that he’s in no way Bill Hicks come back to save us all.
No there’s no Bill Hicks around to give us his opinions on 9/11 on Bush and the War on Terror. He’s dead. We do have Doug Stanhope, we do have David Cross, if you dig further there’s Lewis Black and there’s one of my new favourite comics Patton Oswalt. We don’t really need anyone attempting to out words in the mouth of a dead guy.
Why stop at Hicks, why not imagine if Jesus came back as a stand-up and see what he’d say about the Israeli – Palestine conflict or American foreign policy. “Lenny Bruce is alive and he has 40 years worth of shit to get off his chest!”
I think it sounds like I hated it. But I didn’t. The material itself was quite good. Very good in places. I did laugh out loud a few times and a lot of it could have stood on its own merits, if Early had chosen to perform it as himself. Of course had he attempted to perform it on its own merits he wouldn’t have had sell out audiences for three weeks.
There was no time I thought, ‘nah Hicks wouldn’t have said that,’ he got the areas pretty right but then again internet porn, the Bush twins, gun control, who didn’t see that coming? A million hack comics do that material. But he did do it well.
It still doesn’t quite sit right with me. It nestles in an uncomfortable area. It’s not a play, so you don’t see the performance in that way – here’s a guy portraying Hicks. It’s not even a tribute act. Imagine a Jimi Hendrix tribute who goes, “Well you can hear all the records. Here’s the songs I think that Jimi would have written had he lived.” That show would have existed for about the time it took the audience to clear the room at the sound of the first note.
Certainly as a comedian I’m offended. It’s a giant shortcut to his own stand up show. Something that myself and a lot of other comedians would have a long slog to do. To build up that material and that audience. He’s written a decent hour of material, some of it is straight lifts from Bill Hicks. Another thing no self respecting comedian would do. It’s a nice wee angle for him that I’m sure he’ll ditch when he gets the acting offer the show was obviously set up for.
The Trap and True West
After that I went to see The Trap a sketch show. I had read a little bit about them on the forums of Chortle and the people who posted there seemed to indicate that they were shit hot. Well…they didn’t seem to do sketches as such, just wheeled on comedy characters. At least 5 of whom were some sort of rubbish entertainer.
To be honest I’m getting fed up of the ‘I’m rubbish and I know it, look how funny it is’ style of comedy. To be fair to them though they did have a couple of clever bits. One of their rubbish double acts did their terrible act backwards, which was then funnier, but was still about saying ‘your mum’s a slag’ etc. There was a little too much talking to the audience for my liking and one of their ‘clever’ sketches seemed like something that would have been on The Two Ronnies 20 years ago.
I finished off my evening and indeed the festival by going to see True West, a play by Sam Shepard that was on at the Zoo venue, which is about 200 yards from the Pleasance.
It was performed by the Distillery Theater Company from America. It was an excellent show, the two actors created a nice dynamic between the feuding brothers.
When Phillip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly did this play in 2000 they alternated playing the brothers each night. Douglas Taurel and Foster Davis did this too on this production. Had I not seen it on its last night I would have went back to see it with the roles reversed. Anyway that was my weekend if you’ve read this far, at least you’ve killed half an hour at work.
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