Fringe Air Con

Upstairs in the Counting House attic as we listened to US stand-up Carmen Lynch. L and I were doing the Fringe for a day.  After collecting our tickets from the self-service machine at the Playhouse we started with another stand-up, Michael Legge, at The Stand, as he 'brought whimsy back to the Fringe'. Engaging character, in a small space, talking about being a 48-year-old man and the death of his dog. Our next tickets were for a show at 5:15 so we headed to George Square to sit on the grass astroturf and have a drink. Sadly major-fail in the gardens as the only coffee stall we could find said their coffee machine was broken. We headed back outside and found another stall, with a working machine and sat amidst the mayhem for a while. So many young people milling around in venue tee-shirts, handing out flyers, 'working' in some vague way. I wonder how many of them are getting paid to 'work'? Suitably refreshed we headed for the Counting house to see if there was anything on there in the Free Fringe. Hence Carmen Lynch in the attic. Interesting to compare a woman stand-up with the earlier man, in terms of content and delivery. They seemed to fit the stereotypes I might have guessed before I saw either of them. Next we were off to Surgeon's Hall for a show called Unwritten - three memoirs of disability delivered as intertwining monologues. Interesting stuff - I particularly liked the woman, Sasha's, stories of life in London, and one of the guy's tee-shirt - "Dundee Saved My Life"! From there it was a quick walk across town, food from the Piemaker on  the move, no time to stop and chat with M on the Bridges, to The Royal Scots Club, for a Grads double-bill. First off was Volpone - a new adaptation, changing the gender of some of the characters and setting it in the nineteenth century. Our friend Vee was excellent as Volpone's wily servant Mosca, at the heart of the play's complex schemes. Sadly there wasn't enough stage time for the trio of judges who were very good when they were on. I wondered why the adaptation only brought things forward to the nineteenth century. Could it not have been possible to bring it right up to date and a modern setting? It often strikes me when watching older plays - should they be brought up to date or be kept in an historical context and let the audience make the connections with contemporary issues. In contrast to a play that is more then four hundred year's old, Beauty is brand new. A play about a photographer, struggling to produce the pictures he needs for his new exhibition. There is the whiff of scandal about him, both in his past and his latest project. Obviously the subject matter was of interest but personally I felt a more Aristotelian structure would have helped as the scene changes seemed to interrupt the flow of the story. Maybe the whole play could have been about a single photo-shoot in the studio, rather than the multiple scenes presented. It would mean fewer characters but in that particular space the audience have to cross the acting space to get to their seats so if the photographer was there as the audience arrive he could look to take photos of some of them as part of his quest to find what he is looking for, before the arrival of the model at the start of the play itself. Always interesting to see new work performed and a good way to round off our day at the Fringe.