Murray Bramwell
The Fringe is back and, as someone once said, it’s like a shoebox full of grasshoppers. The program numbers are up again. This time organizers are proclaiming they have broken the 500-shows-listed barrier – with 293 of them Australian premieres. Whatever all those new shows might actually mean. Some will be brilliant and we will tell our friends, some will be just good enough and maybe we won’t. And some will be fascinatingly execrable and linger in the mind for days.
That is the Fringe experience – uncurated, unexpurgated, unexpected. But, if you don’t want to take a chance, there are plenty of familiar warhorses returning who offer fun and no surprises. It is an extraordinary collective expression of the human impulse to perform and entertain and, for those who participate, the Fringe has an encompassing halo effect rarely apparent when small companies bravely offer their work at other times in the year.
A quick count of the listings shows cabaret with 44, theatre and circus with 75 and, while my brain fused on the final comedy total, it was around 115. This is multitudinous and, although we will have our marked out choices, dozens more will escape us until the star ratings, the buzz and the ‘bugger-I missed-it’s register in the mind.
Among the theatre events there are some interesting prospects. At the Fringe Factory, based this time at the Queens Theatre precinct, Adrian Mattiske’s Macbeth adaptation Blood Will have Blood opens on Feb 28 and Binka Boo productions’ A View of Concrete, by Victorian writer Gareth Ellis, opens on March 10. Also, Edinburgh Fringe regular Guy Masterson is back with Jo Hartstone for David Mamet’s Oleanna.
The Holden Street Theatres are having a busy time with the Edinburgh transfer The Tailor of Inverness, written and performed by Matthew Zajac, and (HST Director) Martha Lott’s own production Scarborough, a seaside drama by Fiona Evans. Also at Holden Street, Beckett’s Rough for Theatre, Mark O’Connor’s verse narrative Planting the Dunk and crazy Japanese Theatre Group Gumbo returns with JP.
At the Bakehouse, Feast director Daniel Clarke is directing After the End by Daniel Kelly, featuring Nick Pelomis and Hannah Norris it opens on Feb 28.
Also cooking are Bad Company’s Adventures of Jim and Jally Productions’ Mediocrity. Others on my list to see include Make Me Honest Make Me Wedding Cake from IsThisYours? at The Stables, House of the Holy Afro, APA’s South African music spectacular at the Masonic Centre, Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Her Majesty’s and John Wood in A Stretch of the Imagination.
Once again the earth is moving at The Garden of Unearthly Delights with various venues including the Spiegeltent. It’s already bopping with the Tropfest screening and early openers such as Company of Strangers, a delicious burlesque gala featuring Paul Capsis, Lady Carol and Le Gateau Chocolat. There is plenty more to come with Die Roten Punkte, the Wet Spots, and singers David Bridie, Renee Geyer, Redhead and Stephen Cummings. And for comedy – welcome back to Dave Hughes, Otis Crenshaw (with guest doppelganger Rich Hall), Charlie Pickering, Fiona O’Loughlin, Greg Fleet and Arj Barker. Also look for Mark Trenwith and Damian Calllinan at the Rhino Room, and 1000 Years of German Comedy at Caos.
The Adelaide Review, No 349, February 2009, p.25.