sebastienne, shortcipher and I went to David Bann on our last day in Edinburgh. My overall verdict: interesting and tasty, but nothing I couldn't identify and nothing I'm not confident I could (work out how to) make to equivalent standard, and nothing so utterly baffling I'd never have considered putting it together and was astonished by how well it worked and how much I liked it. I'd happily go again and enjoy myself, but it's not something I'm going to spend time thinking about starry-eyed and dazed in the same way I do Vanilla Black. Which is an unfair yardstick, because by any other measure it's very good!
(At this stage, I'm afraid this is going to be brief notes rather than anything more in-depth, in a slightly desperate attempt to get it done before I forget everything. Sorry also for the terrible phone camera photos; still very much suspiciously getting the hang!)
In front: hot peach and vanilla tart with raspberry ice cream At back: "Whole raspberry jelly served on thinly sliced caramel pineapple topped with rum coconut sorbet. Served with Amaretto soaked figs."
Feminasty; Megan Ford. Stand-up, and definitely the show I liked best of the ones I saw (if one treats Hearts of Folk as distinct from one- or two-person stand-up). We were clearly not quite the target audience (in that we know what an intersectionality is and it was clearly an outreach-and-education show); HOWEVER it came with badges and a ZINE and wigs and a song and a willingness to engage thoughtfully with "are you aware that this specific thing you did is a little ideologically unsound". So! I grinned a lot and enjoyed it, and this is not an unmitigated recommendation but it is a recommendation.
Lying, Cheating Scoundrels; Morgan & West. I had not seen this show before! Gambling-focussed sleight of hand, for a very small audience (it will happen until the end of the Fringe run, after which they are apparently getting rid of the specific table because they no longer have storage space for it); I got called Isembard a lot, which very predictably made me very happy. Statistics, how to cheat at cards, ridiculous topological and physics-related tricks, and a very warm room that made the cards exceedingly sticky. Not one of their shows I had previously got to see, and I was delighted by it :-)
And then as we were leaving to catch a cab to the station (I write this on the Caledonian Sleeper), I finally caught (instead of just hearing) evening fireworks at the castle. Lovely lovely end to trip.
Shout-outs:
lunch @ David Bann, which gets its own write-up (to follow)
Frisky Froyo kind of epic (mango popping boba on froyo = best idea) in that we went there twice for mid-afternoon snacks between shows (yes I'm sorry I'm awful)
Transreal is a speculative fiction bookshop on Candlemaker's Row with a pretty excellent and clearly carefully-curated stock; f'rex one of the items on the shelves was a Subterranean Press edition (1241/1500) of Unlocked, and it was beautiful and also the first time I'd seen a SP edition in person, so that was very exciting; and he'd also got misc Nnedi Okorafor, HURRAH.
Today's bonus shout-out goes emphatically and unequivocally to Over Langshaw Ice Cream and in particular their stand at the top of Grassmarket. They insisted I try a spoonful of the pink peppercorn & heather honey-flavoured ice cream before they'd serve me a scoop, and it was phenomenal and merely served to confirm that I absolutely wanted it. I don't know what their raspberry sorbet was like, because there were enough other flavours I desperately wanted in my face that I didn't get THE THING I ALWAYS GET if it is available, but I have no doubt it would have been fantastic; as it was I got a scoop of the thing mentioned above (and you could taste the heather, and there were occasional bursts of pepper, and it was glorious), and a scoop of the Cranachan (whisky, honey, rasperries, toasted oats), and this was absolutely the correct decision. And it turns out that Over Langshaw farm are the suppliers of eggs to yesterday's creme brulee van...! (Azz, the website has photos of their hens.)
Endings. I was in the middle of a really bad pain flare for this on so was mostly staring blankly into space while waiting for the painkillers to kick in. Two-person sketch show.
MC Escher exhibition. This was the thing I really wanted to get to; it's a collection of almost 100 works (including very early pieces) plus bits and bobs of correspondence, and in addition to better understanding how his most famous works fit together (many of the early sketches played with perspective and perception in Italian landscapes, and clearly informed the very-very-different-to-the-foreground backgrounds of Waterfall and Belvedere) I've acquired some new favourites: Phosphorescent Sea (1933), Porthole (1937) (entirely made up of diagonal lines!), Still Life and Street (1937), Puddle (1952). Additional mentions to Magic Mirror (1946), Other World (1947)Dewdrop (1948), Three Worlds (1955), Snakes (1969). Beautifully curated; I absolutely recommend this if you get any chance at all to go.
An Hour Long Sinister Wink. Two-man cabaret; largely competent though tuning on the cello was a little shaky. Ended up triggering me really very badly, which is to say that I don't particularly feel like talking about it in more detail.
Me, delightedly holding out a tiny takeaway raspberry-meringue creme brulee in my cupped hands.
Not Disabled... Enough! Accessible venues are a lie. Charming in parts & the performer was a sweetie; my main take-home, though, was that I really should get my act together to write a comedy show to take to Edinburgh next year.
Women's Hour, by Shit Theatre. YES YES YES. Content notes galore, but handled excellently and respectfully and it made me laugh a lot; the venue gets a solid 3.5/5 for accessibility, and the performers get a 5 as far as I'm concerned. Music-singing-physical theatre; we are contemplating designating Friday afternoon For Repeats and doing this again then along with Black.
Hearts of Folk. I was self-flyering for this one -- I was amused by the image and assumed it would be a bunch of folk music that the useless ex and I would quite enjoy and sebastienne would tolerate for the sake of watching our faces. ... IT WAS NOT FOLK MUSIC. It was, however, an excellent and loving pastiche of vicious music-scene gossip and folk in general. Absolutely delightful. Adored it. A+ self-flyering, would self-flyer again.
Rent (from New York). Holy SHIT I had never seen Rent before and was familiar with only one of the songs (and a filk of it at that). I. I. I started fucking bawling my eyes out (in the best possible way) partway through the first half, and continued bawling my eyes out all the way through the second, to the extent that enough of the actors noticed it that I was deemed In Need Of Hugs when they were going off after final bows. I. It was amazing. Beautiful singing, beautiful physical work, band in the pit jamming misc other shite during intros and breaks, beautiful set design given the constraints of the Fringe, yes yes yes fucking yes, maybe I will be more coherent about it on another occasion but basically yeS YES Y E S.
Saucy Jack & the Space Vixens. Right around the corner from where we're staying, and it had loud bass and brightly coloured lights and lots of glitter and was pleasantly mindless and pleasantly unabashedly cheerful and was a good way to wind down (provided not paying too much attention, ha) after the above, which, yeah, BAWLING. (I have decided I can only manage one show that makes me cry that much per day.)
ADDITIONAL SPECIAL BONUS MENTION TO Chapter 1 of Ancillary Mercy, which arrived in my e-mail today and which I read in the foyer while waiting to be let in to Rent, and promptly flailed about to anyone who would listen (vass, reply to come when it's not way past my bedtime and I am actually situated so as to have internet xx)
A Matter of Life and Debt. Entertaining physical theatre, excellent use of minimal props, somewhat incoherent story but it gave the impression of being designed to showcase as many different Things Each Actor Could Do as possible... in the format of a bureaucracy montage. Think Jupiter Ascending meets Wizard of Oz (in that everything was green and occasionally velvet). I was kiiiind of uncomfortable with one scene's handling of disability and some language in general, but pleasant enough.
Le Gateau Chocolat: Black. SEE THIS IF YOU POSSIBLY CAN. I WAS CRYING BY NOT VERY FAR IN AND THEN JUST... KEPT CRYING. I INTEND TO SEE IT AGAIN BEFORE WE LEAVE IF I CAN POSSIBLY SWING IT. Pro tip: the level-access entrance to this venue is up the fucking hill from the main entrance, and bears a sign which reads FIRE EXIT NO ENTRY. Autobiographical one-man cabaret; trigger warnings for racism, lynchings, gender policing, homophobia, homophobic violence, abuse, abusive relationships, sizeism, depression, suicide, and probably some other things I'm forgetting -- but it was brilliant, and it is important and it matters and on top of that it is absolutely stunningly gorgeous, and I am absolutely serious about wanting to go back and see it a second time. Or, you know, every day.
Plus two I didn't much care for, which carry all the trigger warnings. (Yes, this is a trigger warning for trigger warnings.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sebastienne, 
