More Fringe

More Fringe shows today :-

"Tell-Tale Heart" : A retelling of the classic Edgar Allan Poe story, although not an exact rendition, it didn't mention an "evil eye" but it was presented rather well by four young guys in costume but without any props. The venue was very small and dark adding to the atmosphere and the show managed to produce a dark creepy atmosphere very suitable for the subject matter.

"Hideout" : Who knew that Aphrodite's boudoir was a 1920 jazz club called "The Hideout" and hung out there with Dionysus and Hades? Well that is how this show presented the Greek classic story of Theseus and the Minotaur. This is a really funny play which includes some musical jazz interludes as the three gods tell the classic Greek tale. The all female cast do a brilliant job and keep the humour going from the second the audience entered the venue to the very unexpected end (no spoilers, but the gods decide they don't like the traditional ending and decide to change it, they are gods after all!).

"Ada" : The show tells the story of Ada Lovelace, it's part documentary and part play, all of Ada's dialogue was in her own words evidently taken from actual letters and notes written by her. It was an interesting show but I found it difficult to follow and it was very styalised. A nice concept to celebrate a very remarkable lady, on this 200th anniversary of her birth, but I think it fell a bit short.

"Society of the Strange" : This was billed as improvised comedy of the weird, macabre and uncanny. Unfortunately I didn't find it particularly funny, some audience members kept laughing and giggling but most of the time I had no idea why! It was as if they were sharing some sort of "in joke" I was not a part of. The "improvisation" was also pretty thin, clearly the three stories they told had been thought out before hand and they just tweaked a couple minor things to include the audience provided "inspirations". After seeing "Austentatious" yesterday which appeared to be almost completely improvised, this felt like a bit of a cheat. It was well presented and acted but I feel they should probably has just done a single long story without any of the so-called improvisation.

"Animotion Show" : This show was a combination of music played by "Dame Evelyn Glennie" while "Maria Rud" created paintings which were projected onto the side of George Heriot School. Luckily the weather was good, as the entire show was performed outside in the quadrangle of the school. Everything started off very well as we listened to the live music we watched a lovely painting being created on the side of the school. To my surprise when the painting was complete it was wiped clean and the process started again with a new painting and different music. Unfortunately half way through the second painting something broke and the video projection failed! After attempting and failing to fix it Evelyn continued on her own, i.e. we got a musical show but not the painting. :-( We were told we could get our money back if we did not want to stay. At the end of Evelyn's performance we were given a free DVD of a previous performance. There is a short video here  of a previous performance but it doesn't really give a real impression of the scale (the video is projected onto the side of a 4/5 story building).

When I came out of "Society of the Strange" I found a DM waiting for me from Illegal Jack which read "8pm tonight at the new Jack's. Social media blackout requested. Hope to see you :) Best - Jack". I had planned to go to a free comedy show at 19:45 for an hour before going to the "Animotion Show". As I had not bought a ticket I decided to skip the show and investigate. I arrived shortly after 8pm to find a queue outside, who were let in just as I arrived. I was greeted and offered a beer and took a seat at one of the tables, where nachos and dips were available. A short time later we were told the food was ready, although Burritos are the most common choice I went for my old favourite of a bowl of beef chili. The chili was awesome although I was surprised at how hot spicy it was, I don't remember Jacks chili being that hot! Unfortunately I had to run out to get to the "Animotion" show so I did not see "Jack" himself (I believe he was in the kitchen, not sure if he made an appearance after I left). I did ask one of the staff if they had an official opening date and she said possibly tomorrow depending on how this evening went! 

So Edinburgh folk keep an eye out for an official announcement any day now!