Edinburgh: Day 4
I purposefully kept today’s schedule quite clear when I was booking tickets, partly because Thursday is an important day in MY NEW RUNNING TRAINING PLAN (yup), partly because I knew that, by day 4, I would be in need of a square meal at some point in the afternoon, but mainly because I wanted to be able to see some of the amazing things that my scouts (ie, everyone on twitter) had discovered on my behalf.
If today has taught me one thing, it’s that the word of twitter is sacred. If today has taught me two things, it’s that the word of twitter is sacred and I REALLY can’t be trusted to choose shows for myself.
After my HARDCORE RUNNING TRAINING SESSION BEFORE BREAKFAST (I’ve developed a helpful technique whereby I do the whole thing in slow motion - makes it much more manageable and I can pretend to be in a Rocky montage), I kicked things off with 101 at C soco. It’s an interactive thing, and apparently they rotate different scenarios. Today it was some trust experiment featuring a gimp-man who was exactly like this rubber fetishist vigilante murderer from an episode of CSI I saw a few weeks ago. It all got very relentless and drama-schooly very quickly, when the gimp-man singled out his future love (NOT me I might add, although I got down to the final five - STORY OF MY LIFE *sigh*) and we had to decide whether we wanted her to open a door or not. As a trust exercise it was interesting, and it had potential to really test an audience’s blind faith, but oh my God they were so shouty. At one point I wondered if I should start a coup and ask everyone to raise their hands if they wanted the bloody chaperones to shut up. Also, I made a joke about Jaws that nobody got. Or they didn’t find funny. Bunch of losers. Pfft.
Next up was Penny Dreadful’s Etherdome, another one that I’d chosen. I think I had hopes that it would be some kind of nightmarish cabaret thing like The Red Shoes by Kneehigh. The programme said something about live bluegrass music. DON’T LISTEN TO THEM IT’S A CON. I felt like I was trapped in a Hammer Horror film for the longest 70 minutes of my life. Even worse, it meant I missed the Who’s Who Of Twitter interactive theatre panel discussion taking place at Forest Fringe. I bet everyone made new friends apart from me and they’ll all be like ‘Meg? Who’s Meg? She wasn’t at the interactivity panel, WAS SHE?’ and I’ll be left out of all the fun stuff till FOREVER. Fucking Etherdome fucks.
I went for a nap after that.
And then, tra-la-la-la-laaaaaaaaaa!! I was reinvigorated, refreshed, full of positivity and, importantly, going to shows that had been recommended by twitter. Aaah, twitter… How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…
The Adventures Of Alvin Sputnik is amazing. Amazing amazing AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING. Absolute number one top favourite bestest (IDST). It’s maybe saying something when my two favourite shows of the year so far (see also: 1927’s The Animals And Children Take To The Streets, coming to Edinburgh in a few days) have both been built upon the interaction between live performance and animation, but whereas the 1927 show was dark as fuck, Alvin Sputnik was just the sweetest, loveliest, most charming thing ever. Centre-stage was a large white disc which was used for projections, and this amazing fantastic AWESOME puppet moved from one side to the other as Alvin Sputnik journeyed to the bottom of the sea to save the world by following the soul of his dear departed wife. I’m actually in pieces just thinking about it. The whole thing was so beautifully made and so wonderfully performed. You could hear other people in the audience whispering “this is so good” to each other. I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT. Everyone in the whole world should see this show. We basically can’t be friends anymore if you don’t.
Last up was La Putyka Circus at Zoo Southside. If I remember correctly, this was recommended by someone who’s working at the Zoo venues, and you can never quite be sure you’re not being fed a line. I’m also a bit of a circus sceptic. The physical feats involved are always impressive, but my experience (little) tells me that if you’ve seen one acrobat, you’ve seen them all. NOT SO. I have been so very foolish. The La Putyka show had a real narrative, with a bartender trying to clear out his bar at the end of a messy night, and all the acts varying degrees of drunkeness. The best bit was probably the couple who start this sensuous tango, have particularly aerobic sex on a trampoline (glitter orgasm, oh yes) and then have a domestic that takes three of their fellow drinkers to break up. And the finale is just the most beautiful bit of movement I’ve seen in a long time. I don’t want to spoil it because when I realised what was going to happen I actually did an involuntary “wow”. It was just stunning.
And, now that I’m TOTALLY FIT AND A RUNNER AND EVERYTHING, if no-one wants to be my friend because I didn’t go to the Forest Fringe interactivity panel, I can learn the trapeze and join the circus! :D
