On the edge of the Edinburgh cliff, we went to see the warm-up for Tom’s new show which he’s performing 23 times in the festival. He’s shortened it by a few minutes since I saw it last time, and it’s energy level is threatening to cross the red line. I don’t know how he’s going to manage the full month. I wish his audiences luck and enjoyment as they are trapped in the goldfish bowl of his dream for just over an hour.

Mayfest started off with a bang, some splashes and lots of screaming last night with the Forest Fringe Microfestival at the Bristol Old Vic. We arrived in time to see Little Bulb Theatre performing Formality, a musical in which the camera guy gets hit by lightning. I’m not sure that he was expecting that treatment.

Nigel Barrett also did a bizarre musical piece called Mussolini and Walter Raleigh.

I first saw Search Party a few years ago at Pilot in Birmingham, so it’s good to see they’re still going, giving audiences a chance to see them getting very wet and covered in salt. There must be some reason.

We got to be inverted in a very big chair and fly into space thanks to Tinned Fingers. I’m not sure that chosing Walking on the Moon by The Police was such a good idea, though.

Katie got to hug a hoodie thanks to Swansea based Shellshock. She even got to keep the hoodie (though I think the poor reception staff at the Old Vic are now wondering what to do with it).

Action Hero wrapped up by continuing their examination of alpha male performers with a work in progress of their new show, Frontman.

And here’s Light Bulb’s last song:

…you’re sure of a big surprise. Well, not tonight actually – a few weeks ago. But Chris has just uploaded a nice looking video he made of Jane Packman’s latest project:

The Woods from Jane Packman on Vimeo.

Finally, the much anticipated (by me) Avon Calling happened last night at Warwick Arts Centre. Lou did an amazing job, having written the show, to perform in a really honest, direct way. I use the word perform, but it was more like a theatrical therapy session (appropriately, as she is a dramatherapist). This was the first showing of the full show, and I hope they work on it some more, and perhaps take it onto the road.

They were sharing a double bill with Kings of England. Lou had done her show about her Mum, who for reasons that are obvious from the show, could not be there. The chap from Kings of England invited his Dad to perform with him on stage, and we learnt all about life in a way that tried to show that past, present and future aren’t all that different.

Sunday morning started with Land Without Words, a solo performance in which an artist wrestles with the suffering she witnesses in Afganistan. It was a powerful piece – hard to follow with dense text, lots of emotion, clay and soil being spread over the artist’s body.

Barflies by well known Edinburgh-based group, Gridiron was performed in a pub (a real pub), and even better, we got a pint out of it (mine was a Guinness). The stale air hot air combined with watching the show from a bar-stool was hardly the most pleasant way to watch a show, and this show featured few pleasant characters: a misogynistic alcoholic writer, and his cohort of women all played by the same actress. It was a little like watching a Leonard Cohen song.

Beachy Head by Analogue Productions told the story of a widow coming to terms with her husband’s suicide. It never wallowed in depression; there was little time for that in a slick production where the set flew around the stage on casters, video cameras and mobile lights were deployed with dizzying speed and performers were wheeled around on four foot metal plinths.

In the afternoon between art gallery (stuffy; unfriendly staff) and museum (bright; happy staff) we had a madcap trip to Leith intending to see the sights. The only sight we ended up seeing was the concrete plant.

Following on from recent tradition of blogging from public transport, I now write from the train from Birmingham to Edinburgh for the Fringe. In the meantime I’m listening to a girl telling a story in French (at least I think that’s what she’s doing); something to do with a coat with big buttons. It’s on an excellent album from Cats in Paris.

Near Newcastle a big group on Scottish squaddies join the train and proceed to set up a night club in the bike storage area, drinking a kind of moonshine called Buckfast. It’s mildly entertaining/annoying until we have to get our bikes ot at Edinburgh. Having accomplished that feat, we’re let down to discover that the tyres had been, well, let down. Cheers guys, now I know why you shook my hand as I left the train.

Kursk was the name of a Russian submarine which tragically ended up in the news for sinking to the bottom of the barant sea. It is also the name of Sound and Fury’s latest production set on board a fictional Royal Navy Trafalgar class nuclear submarine in the area at the time of the disaster. Strangely the performance wasn’t too concerned with the Kursk itself; more by the onlooking submariners, their family isolation, the secretive nature of their work and how the cope The script could have been better, but you’ve got to give it to the set designer, erecting the inards of a submarine in a drill hall was pretty impressive.

Now it’s Saturday morning and I’ve been spending my time backie on Katie’s bike seeking out a bicycle woods valve. Despite the fact that Batavus sell millions of them each year, I’m told by all the bike shops that they’re obscelete. Now I’ve given up and asked one of the four shops to replace the whole inner tube. If ony the lad that let the tyre down had just thought to replace the valve after letting the air out…

In The After Show Party Party, Michael Pinchbeck is joined by his dad who helps him move stools around the stage, but more importantly, tell the story of how his parents met while putting on an amateur dramatics performance of The Sound of Music. My favourite moment was while getting bored of watching Michael and his dad running around in circles, his mum steps in to announce that the pair of them had run out of ideas so she gad been asked to come on and fill the time.

Icarus 2.0 by Camden People’s Theatre gradually revels a rather strange relationship between a hirsuit mad professor dad and his possibly cloned son. You’ve got to love the Fringe. Even the more sensible shows sound wacky when you write them down.

Iris Brunette featured one female performer, a compete blackout, and a slightly opaque storyline that felt to me a bit like 1984 (the book, not the year). Arranged in an oval looking into the stage area, individual audience members were picked out by the lights and asked choose-your-own-adventure questions by the performer. Quite an engaging, intimate experience. I’m just glad I wasn’t quizzed.

I was wondering what the title, STAY! referred to in Hawaiian-born Stacy Makishi’s show, billed to me as ‘bonkers but funny’ by Katie. The show features Stacy and her partner in a sado-masochistic relationship. When I tell you that other half of the couple is a woman called Jack Russell, and that it was inspired by painter Paula Rego’s Girl and Dog series (in which a sick dog is cared for by a girl who feeds, shaves and lifts her skirt to the poor animal), I think you get the idea. The shaving scene in the show features lots of shaving foam, an opened feather pillow and, rather alarmingly, a kitchen knife, helping to put the show at the experimental end of experimental.

I’m afraid to say that I probably probably would have laughed more at the Pyjama Men had I not been struggling to stay awake…

Goodbye old blog theme, hello new blog theme. This new look blog isn’t just a skin change, things have changed behind the scenes too. The old articles are now available at archive.edshome.co.uk. The old site was made with a CMS called Drupal, which I philosophically agree with, but for blogging (and much else), WordPress is quietly taking over the world, so I thought I’d let the tide sweep me out to sea. Hopefully the warm comfortable fur of WordPress will draw me in to posting more. I’ve adapted this blog theme myself, based on one called Bluebird, with inspiration from greyscalegorilla.com. As for the content of the posts, don’t expect much to change, there will still be lots of incoherent rambling on subjects with which I have no authority; don’t take anything too seriously. I’ve also stuck a twitter gadget at the side. Please subscribe, though, because it’s much easier that way. The link is here.

The picture at the top is me taking a picture of me in Morocco with an Olympus Trip.