Sunday Culture
The Fringe is Fringeing. Half of the main street running through the city is still closed several weeks after a fire in a listed building. People dander about like it is their first day on Earth. And there’s an argument to be made that the Edinburgh festival (and all its variants) is merely another London transplant and not an Edinburgh thing any more. And the residents are mad.
But there’s an international celebration of art on my doorstep and I can’t be too mad at that. I like to dip in then retreat to my quiet (for now) street. Yesterday, I saw someone transport a Stratocaster in a buggy down Leith Walk and it made me laugh. Baby elsewhere, priorities. That doesn’t happen everywhere.
What I’ve been watching
I’ve caught three different shows this well, all by comedians I’ve been dying to see live. Sadly their runs have been brief and are complete but keep an eye out if they tour near you.
Zara Gladman (@zanyzaz) has been doing a side splittingly niche character bit on the ‘gram since lockdown times called ‘West End Mum’ in which she plays a Glasgow mother called Aileen. If you’ve ever lived in and around Hyndland in Glasgow it is so sharply observed. Think D4, Morningside, Malone Road, Richmond. She took Aileen to the Fringe for one night only and I was in stitches.
Aoife Dunne’s long awaited storytelling piece ‘Good Grief’ had me soaked in gorgeous tears. She tells her story hilariously and poignantly, recounting her own reckoning following the death of her mum. I have no fear that our oral tradition in Ireland is dying out when I hear someone with Aoife’s talent hold us in her palm for a whole hour. (@aoife_is_never_dunne)
And a Derry woman has to support another Derry woman- Serena Terry gave us an experimental one woman play about cognitive resetting that was deeply personal to her own experience. I could feel the audience resonate as she took us through it. Known for her Instagram sketch pieces and stand up, this was a bold departure and I’m grateful I got to see it. What do we erase if we forgo all the hard bits of life that have shaped us?
What I’ve been listening to
I’ve been consumed by Les Mis this week as there was a celebratory performance at Radio City Music Hall featuring many past and present cast members. It is the greatest musical ever written, I cannot be swayed from this. The Valjeans get all the glory but ‘Stars’ is the highlight for me, sung impeccably here by the incomparable Philip Quast. Often in musical theatre there is a tendency to oversing that I struggle to enjoy, blast the voice, overdo vibrato as a shortcut to sell ‘good’ technique (Hugh Jackman, is that you?) but listen to this power. Restraint and control, sublime.
To the week ahead.
GRMA for reading.
