My First Edinburgh Fringe

I am no longer a Fringe-virgin, I managed to add three days of Edinburgh before a business trip …

Here are the highlights of the shows I watched, skimm’d during my flight from Edinburgh to London.

• Urinetown, The Musical – Great High School cast for a satirical comedy musical. And can you spell coincidence? The Harker High School that presented it is within a mile of where I live.
• Limbo, The Twelve – It’s 12 Angry Men with a twist. A jury of 12 people who’s live she has touched is assembled to decide whether a drug addict lives or dies. Made me think … and the music is great!
• Scream Phone – Fun, catchy. A parody of the movie Scream, with elements of High School popularity story lines. Very entertaining, enjoyable, not much thinking required nor intended …
• American Idiot – The Green Day classic with some fun production elements like a group of “faceless” dancers. Having seen it a couple of times with a band on stage, I was missing the “live” element. However, watching Johnny, St. Jimmy and Whatsername from first row kinda made up for it!
• Cruel Intentions, The 90s Musical – Amazing Shakespearean experience in the mirror tent. Definitely ready for the West End or Broadway. The cast fit perfectly – Kathryn is as sexy as she is mean …

And that was just Friday, right off the plane from California. On Saturday I had figured out some of the other festivals, added in tickets from the Assembly Festival:

• Thirteen, The Musical – Fun, catchy, instructive too for me as a father of a 14 year old. And the cast was AWESOME at such a young age. The future of musical theatre is nothing to be worries about.
• John Accardo: Method to the Magic – Magic in a box. A blue box. Literally, a blue shipping container. Holds an audience of about 50, I am with Charlie Sheen on this one who said “looks like real fxxxing magic”. One of the magic tricks went wrong and the engineer in me totally sympathizes, one audience member didn’t count the envelopes right. That made it even more real 🙂
• A Story About Paul Simon – Great tribute to Paul Simon and his music. Very, very fun hour and I learned items about Paul Simon’s life that I didn’t know about. The closest thing to a real Paul Simon concert one cloud imagine.
• You and I: A New Musical – I am returning my Echo and Roomba. I want a AI named Robert for my house too. Thoughtful musical with a very, very talented young cast.

• Choir of Men – They brought down the house. Well, the assembly of the Church in Edinburgh actually. Quite ironic. Pure fun from an acoustic version of “Teenage Girl” to crowd pleasers everybody could sing along to. Great voices – a must go!
• Trump, The Musical – Well. It’s kinda hard to make satire out of something that would often be considered too unrealistic if written as fiction. Very catchy and fun to watch, just hope that that when you wake up next morning reality hasn’t out-satired what you have seen.
• Paris de Nuit – Dance and trapezoid artistry in lingerie, again, ironically, in the churches assembly, but that’s the Fringe for you. Beautiful, catchy, amazing artistry. Some French chauvinism that may rub some the wrong way. And don’t even think about trying this at home, kids, I am happy to get up a pole when it is fixed in the ground, here you can see it being done up and down wheel it is swinging. Wow. Perfect, fun way to close a perfect stage-day, until you realize that there is another show of something starting when you leave close to midnight. Who needs sleep anyway.

Good thing that I had a late flight on Sunday, because at also could it in three more shows:

• Legally Blond – An amazingly professional production, great voices and performances. Great Live Music (I think – I saw the Director on the screens) and definitely entertaining,
• Judas – Definitely made me think, great performance by a three person team. Set in a fictional modern Islamic state, a man from the desert rises and is heard by a growing number of people. How would a Judas-Scenario play out? Would a martyr cause an uprising? Can that be planned? Some of it is hard to watch from first row where I sat – but it was brilliantly done and thought-provoking,
• Rust, The Musical – From the production team that did bring us SiX. Tough topic – 28 days in rehab – but really, really well performed by a very, very talented cast. Lola in her “I am a happy-go-lucky ray of f@#$ing sunshine” shirt was amazing in her performance of “I am on fire” in a group therapy session. As tough as the topic of addiction is, it presented thoughtfully, really hits home with the audience and is set to a great score.

Fifteen shows in three days breaks my previous record of six shows in NYC (if I am counting the Birdland and BlueNote night-closers). My first Fringe was complete and utter craziness, I am exhausted, but in a very, very good way.

Off to London I am on for a business trip, will update the details as I get to them in the next weeks.

And here are the details:

As I am enjoying a Gin & Tonic at “All Bar One” at the Edinburgh Airport I am exhausted but in a happy sense. Is lost my Edinburgh Fringe virginity, with 15 shows in three days. All I am thinking is that air need to come back for at least a week next year. I am hooked.

Traveling from the San Francisco Bay Area, I arrived on an early flight in Heathrow and with FlyBe connection from United made it to Edinburgh by 11am. I lucked out, the friendly concierge at my Hotel – the Kimptom Charlotte Square – checked me in early and I was able to take a shower before my first show at 13:00. I lucked out!

I haven’t been in Edinburgh in about 10 years, but it was easy to get my bearings given that the Edinburgh castle is a great anchor point for orientation. Picking up my tickets was like an arcade experience – swipe your credit card and get about 5ft of tickets in exchange.

The first show I had booked was “Urinetown – The Musical” presented by The Harker School in San Jose , CA. I did not know this in advance – but I literally live within a 1 mile radius of the school. What a coincidence! The cast did a wonderful job with this satirical comedy, set in a (hopefully fictional) future in which water has become so valuable that one has to pay to go to the bathroom as private toilets are prohibited. Little Sally was my favorite character, made the audience laugh musing about the satire in the musical and its unattractive title. Turns out I had watched the opening performance. Great job, Harker! BTW – I loved the team cheer at the beginning of the performance 🙂

I am off to my flight back to London … will provide more thoughts on the shows skimm’d above over the next couple of days.