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Blog News, reviews and cool stuff from the FestBuzz team.

FestBuzz Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Posted by Domenica on August 20, 2009

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What: A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream, by the Bei­jing Film Acad­emy
Where: McE­wan Hall
When: 19:00, August 14 – 23; 14:30, August 16, 22 – 23
How Much: £10 – 12, £35 family

In 140 char­ac­ters or less: “Daz­zling the­atre spec­ta­cle fus­ing magic and tech­nol­ogy — a mod­ern and enchant­ing take on an old favourite.”

For a stan­dard, if well-loved, Shake­spearean play to stand out amidst the end­less options at the Fringe, it must cer­tainly offer some­thing spe­cial. The Bei­jing Film Acad­emy does just this by per­form­ing A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream as viewed through a games con­sole. At first glance this may seem merely a clever gim­mick, but the gam­ing motif is but one ele­ment of a richly daz­zling spec­ta­cle of theatre.

To begin, the royal fairies Tita­nia and Oberon, whose quar­rels spill over into the world of humans, are reimag­ined as gamers toy­ing with the lives and fates of Shakespeare’s hap­less human lovers, now char­ac­ters in a life­like vir­tual world. This proves an intrigu­ingly mod­ern take on the con­cept of fate and the forces that shape our lives. Do video games appeal because they allow us to play God in a world of our own cre­ation? And to what extent does tech­nol­ogy nowa­days con­trol our des­tiny? These are the ques­tions left float­ing as the actors stut­ter, jerk and bounce as though under the con­trol of an invis­i­ble thumb impa­tiently push­ing buttons.

But it is hard to focus too long on the intel­lec­tual impli­ca­tions. This Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream is also a sen­sory treat, with haunt­ing music (includ­ing a Chi­nese ren­di­tion of Scot­land the Brave) and cos­tumes that tread the line between tra­di­tional and futur­is­tic. Ele­gant dance and mar­tial arts are blended seam­lessly into the sto­ry­line and set against the already impres­sive back­drop of McE­wan Hall, which is fur­ther enhanced by ani­mated dig­i­tal imagery from the cre­ators of the open­ing cer­e­monies at the Bei­jing Olympics. This all serves to build a truly mag­i­cal atmos­phere around an oth­er­wise unadorned stage, cul­mi­nat­ing in a cap­ti­vat­ing final scene in which the building’s walls and murals them­selves come to life.

Still, it is the per­form­ers who are this show’s biggest asset. Despite sub­stan­tial sec­tions of the play being per­formed in Man­darin (and those seg­ments in Eng­lish being occa­sion­ally a lit­tle hard to under­stand), the actors all deliver such vibrant, emo­tive per­for­mances that any audi­ence mem­ber with even a pass­ing famil­iar­ity with Shakespeare’s play will be able to fol­low the gen­eral gist. Even when the com­pli­cated plot does become a lit­tle hard to fol­low, the emo­tional pathos of the lovers and enliven­ing scenes of robust phys­i­cal com­edy are still enough amply to engage the viewer. Indeed, the cast proved so com­pelling that my only regret was being unable to under­stand for the most part what they were say­ing, as their voices, expres­sions, and move­ments alone cap­ti­vated my attention.

All in all, the Bei­jing Film Acad­emy have proved with this fas­ci­nat­ing show that great the­atre tran­scends lan­guage bar­ri­ers, and that nowa­days tech­nol­ogy and art can go a long way toward replac­ing the magic miss­ing from our mod­ern world.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Domenica Goduto

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Festbuzz Review: The Early Edition

Posted by Jodi on August 20, 2009

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What: The Early Edi­tion (Mar­cus Brig­stocke and Andre Vin­cent)
Where: Udder­belly
When: 12.25pm daily until 30 August
How Much: £10 — £12.50.

In 140 char­ac­ters or less: “Brig­stocke, Vin­cent and guests bring TV panel show to life with mixed results.”

The panel show has become ubiq­ui­tous on tele­vi­sion over the last few years as Mock the Week and 8 Out of 10 Cats have blurred the line between news and com­edy with sharp writ­ing, care­fully cal­cu­lated gags and slick pro­duc­tion. It’s a com­pelling, if for­mu­laic, approach to TV com­edy, which, with a lit­tle bit of edi­to­r­ial magic, gives the impres­sion of a thirty minute bar­rage of con­stant gags. It’s jar­ring then, to see the for­mat trans­planted directly into a live envi­ron­ment, warts and all.

The Early Edi­tion, the live descen­dant of Mar­cus Brig­stocke and Andre Vincent’s irrev­er­ent tele­vi­sion panel show The Late Edi­tion, sticks to much the same for­mat as it has in pre­vi­ous years at the Fringe. Brig­stocke and Vin­cent, along with a pair of panel guests, dis­sect the day’s news­pa­pers (“and the Daily Mail”) in front of a live audi­ence. Save a few sta­ple gags, the show is almost entirely impro­vised and audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion is actively encour­aged. Inevitably, over­all qual­ity varies some­what depend­ing on how brisk the day’s news is and on how suc­cess­fully the guest stars inter­act with the hosts.

Of the two stal­warts, Mar­cus Brig­stocke essen­tially acts as anchor­man. Not only does he keep the show roughly on track, he facil­i­tates most of the exchanges between audi­ence and per­form­ers and leads with some of the juici­est news sto­ries. As ever, he’s bit­ing and sar­cas­tic though rarely strays too close to con­tro­versy. Andre Vin­cent, on the other hand, is brash and loud and careers head­long into del­i­cate top­ics with all the sub­tlety of an enraged wilde­beast. In spite, or per­haps because of, this how­ever, Vin­cent is the only panel mem­ber to really step away from safe mate­r­ial and take risks. His won­der­fully taste­less one-liners about 9/11 and basement-dwelling Aus­trian fam­i­lies may get a few groans but they’re cer­tainly memorable.

Though nom­i­nally appear­ing as a panel guest on The Early Edi­tion, Car­rie Quin­lan has been a reg­u­lar on the show since it first ran in Edin­burgh in 2007 and is by now as much a head­line name as either Brig­stocke or Vin­cent. Quin­lan tends to grav­i­tate towards softer sto­ries and off­sets some of Vincent’s blus­ter and Brigstocke’s acer­bic wit though her brand of humour is no less inci­sive, despite the mate­r­ial she chooses to work with. The sec­ond guest slot rotates daily and has been filled by such lumi­nar­ies as Phil Jupi­tus, Stew­art Lee and Ed Byrne in the past. On the day Fes­t­buzz popped along to the show, Amer­i­can come­dian Jamie Kil­stein was sit­ting in on the panel.

Back home Kil­stein has cul­ti­vated a cer­tain level of infamy as a bit­ing left-wing comic, loudly tout­ing his athe­ism and veg­an­ism as well as rad­i­cal polit­i­cal polemics. Despite his fire­brand rep­u­ta­tion, how­ever, Kil­stein is sur­pris­ingly tame. His rebut­tal to the right-wing sav­aging of the NHS in the Amer­i­can press is cer­tainly timely but lacks real bite. Oth­er­wise, he plays it safe stick­ing to tried-and-tested rou­tines about the Bush Admin­is­tra­tion, US insu­lar­ity… noth­ing we haven’t heard before a dozen times over.Kilstein is clearly capa­ble of much greater things, beg­ging the ques­tion of why he chooses to regur­gi­tate the same kind of low­est com­mon denom­i­na­tor polit­i­cal mate­r­ial that has seen both Janeane Garo­falo and Rich Hall take a beat­ing from the crit­ics this year.

While The Early Edi­tion is cer­tainly an enter­tain­ing way to spend a lunchtime, it remains too closely tied to the tele­vi­sion panel show for­mat. At an hour, it feels overly long, as if attempt­ing to jus­tify the cost of admis­sion. While the show picks up towards the end, the mid­dle seems flabby and lack­ing in struc­ture. With the absence of an editor,the cracks in the for­mat really begin to show in a live envi­ron­ment and the audi­ence is left at some­thing of a loose end. Though The Early Edi­tion is cer­tainly worth check­ing out, it seems that Brig­stocke and Vin­cent may need to rework the for­mat before bring­ing it back for another run in 2010.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Jodi Mullen

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Festbuzz Review: Tommy and the Weeks — Wonderbang

Posted by elise on August 19, 2009

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Who: Tommy and the Weeks
Where: Pleas­ance Beside
When: 5.15pm until 31 August 2009
How Much: £7-£8.50

In 140 char­ac­ters or less: “Tom Bell and Ed Weeks are com­plete oppo­sites, but won­der­ful, beau­ti­ful things can hap­pen when oppo­sites attract.”

As songstress Paula Abdul once so rightly pointed out, “It ain’t fic­tion, just a nat­ural fact. We come together, cause oppo­sites attract”. This is cer­tainly true of sketch duo Tommy and the Weeks, regard­less of the fact that nei­ther of them is an ani­mated cat.

Mak­ing up in gags what they lack in num­bers, Tom Bell and Ed Weeks kick off pro­ceed­ings with a good old sing-song of some eight­ies clas­sics, with the audi­ence heartily join­ing in. This is a slick show and the boys slide in and out of sketches so nat­u­rally it’s some­times sur­pris­ing to realise you’re in a new sketch.

There are some really orig­i­nal ideas in here, be it a club­bing shep­herd or a math­e­mat­i­cal faun. There’s a gen­uine sense of fun about the show, clearly demon­strated by the fact that the pair are enjoy­ing them­selves so much on stage. It’s all too easy to get caught up in the show and find your­self truly touched by the moments of pathos. Both are excel­lent actors and pull off the act of talk­ing over each other for comic effect bet­ter than it’s been done for years.

It’s hard to talk about the show with­out spoil­ing all the gags, but it’s a quotable and laugh-out-loud adven­ture. Ed Weeks exudes con­fi­dence, and Tom Bells oozes indie charm. Watch­ing their love/hate rela­tion­ship unfurl is a truly enjoy­able experience.Whatever these boys do next, it’s great to see some­one tak­ing com­edy so seriously.

High­lights include Ed Weeks solo song, Tom Bell’s worst (or best) ever date, and some really great paint­ing. See this show: you’ll be moved, amused and leave with a smile on your face.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Elise Bramich

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Festbuzz Review: Ballad of the Skull Fairy

Posted by Domenica on August 19, 2009

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What: Bal­lad of the Skull Fairy by The Stealth Fan­tas­tic
Where: Under­belly
When: 6 — 15 August
How Much: £6 — £10

In 140 char­ac­ters or less: “A rol­lick­ing phan­tas­mago­ria of mur­der, betrayal, good, evil, skulls, giant squids, arm-flailing, and obscene poems from the West Country!”

Part of the magic of the Fringe is the dizzy­ingly hap­haz­ard lay­out of the per­for­mances: the­atre for break­fast, per­haps, with a quick dose of com­edy to perk you up after work and maybe a musi­cal as the cen­tre­piece of an evening. Then there are the late-night per­for­mances, the type you some­times stum­ble into after one drink too many, and which seem like a bril­liant idea at the time. I sus­pect this was the case for more than a few mem­bers of the audi­ence at the Bal­lad of the Skull Fairy, though the addi­tion of a bit of alco­hol would no doubt help this mish­mash of silly com­edy go down a lit­tle better.

The show (for the per­form­ers them­selves openly admit that Bal­lad is not a play and was in fact mis­la­belled in the Fringe cat­a­logue as the­atre) loosely fol­lows the quest of the impres­sion­able Marc (Marc Vestey) to pro­cure a skull for his evil lord, the Skull Fairy (Will Sea­ward) in order to become a skull prince. What Marc doesn’t know is that the Skull Fairy actu­ally intends to hit him over the head with the skull, and then kill the king of China in the same man­ner and begin his dom­i­na­tion of the world. Or some­thing like that. To be hon­est, the plot hardly mat­ters, as it is so vague and inci­den­tal to the bursts of sur­real phys­i­cal com­edy and witty word­play that are intended to be the main attrac­tion. How­ever, the end result is a per­for­mance that drifts some­where between the­atre and stand-up with­out ever cap­tur­ing the best ele­ments of either.

It’s a pity, as writer/director/performer Sea­ward and his side­kick Vestey pos­sess character-acting tal­ent and humour to spare. Sea­ward is the cre­ator of the hugely pop­u­lar “Bouncy Cas­tle Exper­i­ment”, in which ver­sions of Ham­let, Mac­beth and Drac­ula were pre­car­i­ously staged on bouncy cas­tles at fes­ti­vals past. Over the last few years these irrev­er­ent offer­ings became high­lights of the Fringe. Unfor­tu­nately, Bal­lad of the Skull Fairy seems unlikely to fol­low this trend. While the per­for­mance is very funny, in a mad, slap­stick, some­times utterly ran­dom man­ner, and does con­tain the ele­ments adver­tised on the tin (skulls, tib­ias, gra­tu­itous giant squids, arm-flailing and obscene poems), the viewer is ulti­mately left won­der­ing what is the point of it all.

The show is akin to watch­ing a pair of very clever drama school stu­dents goof­ing off in the high school cafe­te­ria – enter­tain­ing and amus­ing, but aside from the odd one-liner, hardly mem­o­rable. The audi­ence gig­gled and guf­fawed aplenty, but I sus­pect many even­tu­ally grew a bit weary of the out­right silli­ness of it all. If the show had been struc­tured and pre­sented as stand-up or even comedic sketches, or else pinned more securely to a well-crafted plot, Sea­ward and Vestey’s abil­i­ties would have found a bet­ter show­case. As it stands, how­ever, Bal­lad of the Skull Fairy is best left as a late-night bit of fun to fin­ish off an evening’s mer­ri­ment, with­out too many expectations.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Domenica Goduto

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Festbuzz Review: Idiots of Ants

Posted by elise on August 19, 2009

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Who: Idiots of Ants
Where: Pleas­ance Over the Road 2
When: 8.15pm, daily until 31st August 2009 (not 24th)
How Much: £8.50-£10

In 140 char­ac­ters or less: “The slick indie band of com­edy have noth­ing left to prove– except their identity.”

I knew I had noth­ing to fear in the capa­ble hands of pop­u­lar sketch group Idiots of Ants: these boys leave noth­ing to chance and their tim­ing is almost per­fectly sculpted. How­ever, as I looked down through the rail­ings in the venue (Pleas­ance Over the Road 2), the feel­ing of being removed from the per­for­mance was unavoid­able. With a strong use of mul­ti­me­dia (music stings, video, pho­tog­ra­phy and other audio-visual trick­ery) this does occa­sion­ally feel like watch­ing a show on TV. The boys have ami­able per­sonae and they are not with­out their oblig­a­tory young female fan base in the audience.

How­ever, not every­one is con­nect­ing with them.

Idiots of Ants’ sketches lib­er­ally ref­er­ence every­thing from sci fi to war films, from pop cul­ture to video games, though this some­times becomes a lit­tle unwieldy, with laughs from dif­fer­ent areas of the audi­ence at dif­fer­ent times. While this shows a broad range of appeal, it isn’t mas­sively cohe­sive and raises the ques­tion of who they are aim­ing their show at.

The strongest sketches lie in unpre­dictable moments: the video game sketch in par­tic­u­lar is a real treat, and the only point when the audi­ence inter­ac­tion really works. It also is invalu­able to see the boys riff­ing off each other in a slightly less rehearsed way. Though the thor­ough rehearsal and strong tim­ing can be appre­ci­ated the­atri­cally, the lack of abil­ity to come fully out of char­ac­ter and engage the audi­ence is what mars this oth­er­wise bril­liant performance.

This is a great hour of excel­lent enter­tain­ment, and it’s both visu­ally excit­ing and most impor­tantly funny. While the finale lacks a really good the punch­line, the energy level never drops and there’s never a lull in proceedings.

Every­one can hope to look for­ward to great things from Idiots of Ants: they are a tight knit group, and if they can just let their fans in a lit­tle bit more and let them find out who they really are, they could go stellar.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Elise Bramich

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Festbuzz Review: Rich Hall

Posted by elise on August 19, 2009

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Who: Rich Hall
Where: Assem­bly Rooms
When: 10.30pm, daily until 31st August 2009
How Much: £13-£16

In 140 char­ac­ters or less: “Morose, witty and acer­bic: you’re in safe hands with Rich Hall– per­haps a lit­tle too safe.”

Rich Hall is per­fectly happy in front of a crowd of some 600 peo­ple, and they seem pretty damn happy to sit there as well. This show isn’t loaded polit­i­cal satire, but as Hall points out, he lost a large chunk of mate­r­ial with Bush out of office.

Despite his rise to fame in a char­ac­ter act, Hall has become a panel show stal­wart in the last few years and is well known for his gruff bark and his abil­ity to play the wit­less naif in the face of odd British cus­toms. In tonight’s show he is repeat­edly dive-bombed by an assort­ment of moths and flies: he con­fi­dently riffs off this and even man­ages to briefly catch one of his insect per­se­cu­tors, a handy metaphor for his quick wit and sharp instincts.

How­ever, this show is slightly dogged by the lack of struc­ture to the hour. Though Hall rarely seems to get off track, there’s no obvi­ous thread to his train of thought, and while the gags are strong, there’s not much sub­stance. Hall is best when he’s rail­ing against the world and its mis­takes, and he seems far more con­tent with life now than per­haps a few years ago.

Per­haps the nicest moments in this show come from his sto­ries of rural life in Mon­tana, deal­ing with prairie dog pests and fear­some locals. His irri­ta­tion at these irk­some crit­ters gets him more fired up than in most bits of the show: though he never lets this rant get unwieldy. Unable to really mock Obama (the clos­est he gets is point­ing out The Audac­ity of Hope is a some­what mean­ing­less title) in the cur­rent cli­mate, he turns his gaze on Bill Clin­ton which makes the mate­r­ial feel a lit­tle out of date. How­ever, he’s clearly still clued up about polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tions and I’m dis­ap­pointed that in the ques­tion and answer sec­tion all he is quizzed about it whether he enjoys QI.

Despite some forced moments of audi­ence inter­ac­tion, Hall has a large back cat­a­logue of sto­ries and jokes to draw from, and it’s great to hear him when he gets fired up at some odd inter­na­tional news story.

There’s no bite to this show, but it’s slick, ratio­nal, well paced.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Elise Bramich

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Follow the Twitter Comedy Event Live!

Posted by Jennie on August 14, 2009

News­flash!

You can fol­low the live twit­ter com­edy event — kick­ing off in just 10 min­utes — through our spe­cially con­structed sites: the ‘twit­ter­fall’ that updates in real-time, or if you’ve missed a gig, try the ‘recap’.

Of course, you could always be bor­ing and use Twit­ter Search instead!

(Note: We’re expe­ri­enc­ing some time­outs with the Twit­ter Search API tonight, so you might do as well. Typical!)

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Win Tickets with FestBuzz for Photographs

Posted by elise on August 14, 2009

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Fes­t­Buzz Photo Com­pe­ti­tion: Show us your Festival

For each day one week we’ll be giv­ing one lucky Fes­t­Buzz Face­book fan a pair of tick­ets to a show of their choice (sub­ject to avail­abil­ity) for send­ing us the best pic­ture that sums up their festival.

We’re allow­ing 3 pho­tos from each user every day, so to enter sim­ply join our Face­book group (search Fes­t­Buzz in the Face­book to find us or click the link below), and upload a photo.

We want pho­tos that sum up your fes­ti­val expe­ri­ence– regard­less of where or when in Edin­burgh that’s hap­pen­ing. Fes­t­Buzz is cov­er­ing all the Fes­ti­vals, not just the Fringe, so if you’re enjoy­ing the Art or Book Fes­ti­val let us know about it by tweet­ing about it using the tag #fes­t­buzz or upload­ing a pic­ture to our Face­book group.

Not only will the best pic­ture win the pho­tog­ra­pher a pair of tick­ets, but we’ll also fea­ture it on our blog as well at http://blog.festbuzz.com

We’re not wor­ried about high qual­ity images, though it would help if we can tell what the pic­tures are of, but the sub­ject can be any­thing Edin­burgh Fes­ti­vals based, so be creative!

Get snap­ping and get uploading!

But first: Become a fan!

Fes­t­Buzz on Facebook

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Live Twitter Comedy — tonight!

Posted by Jennie on August 14, 2009

Tonight, we’re host­ing Scotland’s first live twit­ter com­edy event smack bang in the mid­dle of the Offi­cial Fringe Party, the “Twinge Party”.

At 7pm, you’d bet­ter be tuned into Twit­ter, as a lineup of top come­di­ans will be deliv­er­ing a series of jokes… in 140-character bites. By fol­low­ing the event’s hash­tag (to be released later today) you’ll be able to tune into the buzz and the backchat, but if you want an unin­ter­rupted front-row seat, tune into our spe­cial Twit­ter Com­edy web page to see nowt but the jokes.

At the Twinge Party itself, one screen will project the come­di­ans’ sets and another will show the crowd’s responses to their jokes, about the party and other acts. It will be a great chance for peo­ple to get a taste of what’s on offer this year at the Fes­ti­vals, whether they are at the party itself or just log­ging on from home.

The Twinge Party, spon­sored by Infor­mat­ics Ven­tures, is being run by Edin­burgh Fes­ti­val Fringe.

The first Twit­ter Com­edy event, organ­ised by up-and-coming stand-up Tier­nan Douieb, went live in June this year, and was highly suc­cess­ful with thou­sands of “view­ers” log­ging on from around the world to watch, read, laugh and tweet heck­les back at the acts. The Twinge Party will repli­cate some of this com­edy buzz with a short series of Twit­ter sets, with the acts tweet­ing live from the party to the world.

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Festbuzz Review: Dylan Moran

Posted by Jodi on August 14, 2009

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Who: Dylan Moran
Where: Play­house
When: Mon 10 and Tues 11 August
How Much: £20

In 140 char­ac­ters or less: “Dylan Moran: a slightly unhinged genius walk­ing the fine line between mad­ness and comic brilliance.”

After nearly a year and a half on the road in sup­port of his lat­est show, What It Is, Dylan Moran finally returns to his adopted home­town of Edin­burgh for a two-night stand at the Play­house at the height of the Fes­ti­val. Yet antic­i­pa­tion and excite­ment are tem­pered by appre­hen­sion after a slew of mixed reviews for the cur­rent tour. The Irish­man has recently been accused of look­ing dis­in­ter­ested on stage, dis­con­nected from his audi­ence, of giv­ing the impres­sion that gigs are an ordeal to be endured, a tire­some dis­trac­tion between glasses of wine.

Not so tonight. Whether invig­o­rated by the energy of a home­town crowd or sim­ply feed­ing off the buzz of the city dur­ing the Fringe, Moran is elec­tric. Elo­quent, intense and engag­ing, he seizes on audi­ence cues and impro­vises freely. A cough, a heckle, the sight of cam­er­a­phone set him off on mean­der­ing tan­gents. The ad-libbed sec­tions never feel out of place though he sheep­ishly con­fesses to los­ing track of the script on more than one occasion.

As ever, Moran’s stage per­sona is an amal­gam of Bernard Black, his cel­e­brated Black Books char­ac­ter, and a dis­il­lu­sioned exis­ten­tial­ist philoso­pher, neatly pick­led in wine. Rather than rely­ing on jokes and punch­lines, the Irish­man blends the mun­dane with the sur­real, his astute obser­va­tions bal­anced by won­der­fully absurd mixed metaphors and witty word­play. And while his yarns rarely hold up well to re-telling, every so often a sin­gle phrase reduces the audi­ence to tears of laughter.

Nowhere is his sub­tle brand of humour bet­ter show­cased than his Scottish-themed mate­r­ial, appar­ently writ­ten spe­cially for the brace of Edin­burgh shows. He gen­tly probes the rivalry between the cap­i­tal and Glas­gow. How­ever, rather than falling back on the Glaswe­gian stereo­type per­pet­u­ated by the likes of Frankie Boyle, Moran instead cel­e­brates the virtues of the West Coast city before coyly inform­ing the audi­ence that, “The dif­fer­ence between Glas­gow and Edin­burgh is, well, Edin­burgh is like the begin­ning of a wed­ding. Glas­gow is what’s left afterwards.”

Moran is well capa­ble of hold­ing his own against other per­form­ers when it comes to pol­i­tics, sci­ence and other sta­ple top­ics but is at his best when deal­ing with more human issues — plea­sure, pain, life, death, love, sex — and lift­ing the veil on his per­sonal life. His comic threads are spun from whimsy and anec­dote and weave a colour­ful tapes­try that exposes the deeply-buried, and often hilar­i­ous, truths about human rela­tion­ships and behaviour.

Yet for all his post-modern, decon­struc­tivist blus­ter, Moran’s ram­bling tales are ulti­mately life-affirming, under­pinned by a gen­uine warmth and a sense that, in spite of all else, love, fam­ily and guilty plea­sures are at the heart of what makes us human and are to be cher­ished. While the main set peters out rather than com­ing to a sat­is­fac­tory con­clu­sion, a superb encore more than makes amends for any short­com­ings. In a show last­ing an hour and a half — half as long again as the stan­dard What It Is set — Dylan Moran is a con­stant delight, a slightly unhinged genius walk­ing the fine line between mad­ness and comic brilliance.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Jodi Mullen

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