Fringe 2 - because Kat asked for them
Sep. 19th, 2013 12:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slemslempikeDomestic Science
Domestic Science is Helen Arney and her real life partner whose name eludes me. Alice and I went to see Helen's "Voice of an Angle" last year and enjoyed it very much, so I thought I'd like to see this. They have bits of sketches, and a guest, and an audience participation event about colouring noodles that didn't quite come off. A nice morning show.
Hannah Gadsby - Nakedy Nudes
This was great! Alice had seen Hannah's art show last year, which was about representations of the Virgin Mary, so I was keen to see this one. It's an amusing art history lecture, but it's mostly about the art, not the jokes. Unsurprisingly, given the title, the subject was nudes in art, and she showed us her favourite examples, talking about the different kinds of nudes, like the venus, the prostitute, and the heroic nude. It was great, and I'm very glad it's had good reviews.
Comedy Death
This was a free fringe show with comedians coming to talk about their worst gigs. It wasn't doing routines about them, though they were funny, but describing the circumstances, what they did about it on stage, what they did about it off stage. I found it really interesting. I liked John Robertson's story about the time he drunkenly accepted an offer to open for a British comedian in Australia, then when he woke up thought he'd google the name as he didn't know the guy, and found out exactly who Jim Davidson was. I sadly can't remember the name of the last guy, but I giggled a lot as he claimed that he would decide to throw gigs and die at them on purpose if he did't like the audiences. There seem to be several TV/radio/live shows on this sort of topic at the moment, I'd like to see some of them.
Sarah Campbell
I'd read a review saying that she was good, and as she was another free fringe act we popped along. The show was about fun, so I was a little bit braced to be unable to enjoy the show because I was too busy enjoying my own massive wankery, but it was great! At the beginning we all had to write down on bits of paper what we thought was fun, and then she played a sort of live guess who to find out who had written them. She also talked about how much she liked reading Trip Advisor reviews, and I hope she knows about Tripadvisaargh, which is brilliant. I would really like to see her again. (I feel guilty, because while we were queueing for Sarah's show, Jessica Fosteskew flyered us, and I told her I would come the following week and I really did intend to, but by the time I got around to it her run had ended.)
Mark Thomas
This was billed as a return to activism after his previous show, which was about his relationship with his dying dad, and opera. I don't like opera so I didn't go, but that turns out to have been a mistake, as apparently it was brilliant. Anyway, I was a bit disappointed in this. It's part of his commitment to perform 100 acts of minor dissent within a year. Minor is part of the description, but I just found most of it rather petty and ill-aimed. There were bits about sticking stickers on books, which will just end up being taken off by the bookseller, and I've been that bookseller, and unless you're VERY careful about the glue on the stickers, that's going to be a complete pain of a job. And there was another one about putting pictures of Margaret Thatcher's face onto bodies in pornographic magazines and then putting the magazines back on the shelf, and a throwaway comment about "is this misogynist", to which the answer is YES. (The answer he came up with was "no".)
Turns out I saw 53 shows altogether this year.
Domestic Science is Helen Arney and her real life partner whose name eludes me. Alice and I went to see Helen's "Voice of an Angle" last year and enjoyed it very much, so I thought I'd like to see this. They have bits of sketches, and a guest, and an audience participation event about colouring noodles that didn't quite come off. A nice morning show.
Hannah Gadsby - Nakedy Nudes
This was great! Alice had seen Hannah's art show last year, which was about representations of the Virgin Mary, so I was keen to see this one. It's an amusing art history lecture, but it's mostly about the art, not the jokes. Unsurprisingly, given the title, the subject was nudes in art, and she showed us her favourite examples, talking about the different kinds of nudes, like the venus, the prostitute, and the heroic nude. It was great, and I'm very glad it's had good reviews.
Comedy Death
This was a free fringe show with comedians coming to talk about their worst gigs. It wasn't doing routines about them, though they were funny, but describing the circumstances, what they did about it on stage, what they did about it off stage. I found it really interesting. I liked John Robertson's story about the time he drunkenly accepted an offer to open for a British comedian in Australia, then when he woke up thought he'd google the name as he didn't know the guy, and found out exactly who Jim Davidson was. I sadly can't remember the name of the last guy, but I giggled a lot as he claimed that he would decide to throw gigs and die at them on purpose if he did't like the audiences. There seem to be several TV/radio/live shows on this sort of topic at the moment, I'd like to see some of them.
Sarah Campbell
I'd read a review saying that she was good, and as she was another free fringe act we popped along. The show was about fun, so I was a little bit braced to be unable to enjoy the show because I was too busy enjoying my own massive wankery, but it was great! At the beginning we all had to write down on bits of paper what we thought was fun, and then she played a sort of live guess who to find out who had written them. She also talked about how much she liked reading Trip Advisor reviews, and I hope she knows about Tripadvisaargh, which is brilliant. I would really like to see her again. (I feel guilty, because while we were queueing for Sarah's show, Jessica Fosteskew flyered us, and I told her I would come the following week and I really did intend to, but by the time I got around to it her run had ended.)
Mark Thomas
This was billed as a return to activism after his previous show, which was about his relationship with his dying dad, and opera. I don't like opera so I didn't go, but that turns out to have been a mistake, as apparently it was brilliant. Anyway, I was a bit disappointed in this. It's part of his commitment to perform 100 acts of minor dissent within a year. Minor is part of the description, but I just found most of it rather petty and ill-aimed. There were bits about sticking stickers on books, which will just end up being taken off by the bookseller, and I've been that bookseller, and unless you're VERY careful about the glue on the stickers, that's going to be a complete pain of a job. And there was another one about putting pictures of Margaret Thatcher's face onto bodies in pornographic magazines and then putting the magazines back on the shelf, and a throwaway comment about "is this misogynist", to which the answer is YES. (The answer he came up with was "no".)
Turns out I saw 53 shows altogether this year.
