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Welcome to the climax of festival time in the city. Tonight we | :00:09. | :00:14. | |
present dark stories, bright lights, Murakami on stage, new comedy, and | :00:14. | :00:18. | |
live performance. Coming up on tonight's review, we | :00:18. | :00:23. | |
see three of the best-selling shows of a record-breaking Fringe | :00:23. | :00:31. | |
Festival. I meet the saw authorise, Sapphire, whose follow up to | :00:31. | :00:36. | |
Precious The Kid was launched this weekent. | :00:36. | :00:45. | |
Scenes, screens and silhouettes, a theatrical adaptation of Murakami's | :00:45. | :00:49. | |
novel. Three hot tips for The 31st Foster's Edinburgh Comedy Award. | :00:49. | :00:56. | |
All that and live music from The Magnets, and more besides. | :00:56. | :00:59. | |
Joining me, sadly, for the last time this year, in this lovely | :00:59. | :01:03. | |
studio to discuss all of that, is panel that is still motoring after | :01:03. | :01:08. | |
marathon around the shows. The writer and broadcaster, Paul Morley, | :01:08. | :01:15. | |
the novelist, Denise Miner, and Marcel Theroux. First up this week, | :01:15. | :01:20. | |
as the fringe reach as finale, we have selected three top shows. | :01:20. | :01:24. | |
With more than 2,500 shows on the fringe, how do you decide what is | :01:24. | :01:28. | |
good. This week we have gone by the box-office, which goes by word of | :01:29. | :01:36. | |
mouth and the critic, we selected some of the big hitters. The | :01:36. | :01:41. | |
Sputnik, has within one of the top - the Alvin Sputnik has been a top | :01:41. | :01:48. | |
seller. The tale of a deep sea adventurer | :01:48. | :01:53. | |
sailing around the world, has used imagery and puppetry, has been | :01:53. | :02:00. | |
wowing Edinburgh audiences. An Instinct For Kindness is a | :02:00. | :02:06. | |
poignant tale of loss, told from the point of view of actor, Chris | :02:06. | :02:10. | |
Larner, who accompanied his wife to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, | :02:10. | :02:15. | |
where she ended her own life, after suffering from chronic and | :02:15. | :02:18. | |
debilitating multiple sclerosis. This moving show deals with the | :02:18. | :02:23. | |
myriad legislative and personal issues surrounding assisted suicide. | :02:23. | :02:29. | |
Are you there Allyson. My foot is trapped. I'm going to fall, you're | :02:29. | :02:39. | |
:02:39. | :02:39. | ||
right Allyson, you're there. Good evening, welcome to the Tate, | :02:39. | :02:44. | |
an evening of epic pupry, onen to of a table. | :02:45. | :02:50. | |
The Table is a puppet show from Blind Summit Theatre. It was | :02:50. | :02:57. | |
inspired by the writing of Samuel Beckett, Eve Klein, a show of three | :02:58. | :03:02. | |
parts, from a grumbling puppet called Moses, and disembodied head, | :03:02. | :03:09. | |
and the story of a fugutive told on payss of A4 paper. With a load of | :03:09. | :03:14. | |
inspiring talent to choose from, and unadult traited rubbish to | :03:14. | :03:18. | |
choose from, the fringe programme is daunting, made more confusing by | :03:18. | :03:22. | |
the star ratings, these are a handful of the most talked about | :03:22. | :03:31. | |
shows from the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe festival. | :03:31. | :03:36. | |
Let's begin with Alvin Sputnik, in the small auditorium, there were | :03:36. | :03:40. | |
children that were absolutely awe struck, were you? I found it really | :03:40. | :03:45. | |
touching, I wanted to be cynical, but overall I thought it was a | :03:45. | :03:48. | |
beautiful production. Part of the really naive illustrations he was | :03:48. | :03:54. | |
doing on the laptop. And the puppetry as well. I'm not a big fan, | :03:54. | :03:58. | |
but I thought it really worked. I would love to take children to see | :03:58. | :04:03. | |
this. What about the story of a widowed man who goes off as a deep | :04:03. | :04:07. | |
sea explorer, did it tug at your heartstrings? I didn't want to be | :04:07. | :04:11. | |
cynical, but I ended up being cynical. That was annoying. It was | :04:11. | :04:16. | |
reviewing it like a piece of food, it was too sweet. I was interested | :04:16. | :04:21. | |
it became such a best Searle. It reminded me of the things back in | :04:21. | :04:26. | |
the day of the 1960s or 1970s before the news, like Hector's | :04:26. | :04:34. | |
House, or Captain Pug Wash, it was like a palate cleanser before the | :04:34. | :04:38. | |
news. But for grown-ups I was confused. It was a cross | :04:38. | :04:43. | |
generational thing, I wanted to take my kids to it. It was utterly | :04:43. | :04:47. | |
charming. The whole auditorium was behind him. When I came out I sided | :04:47. | :04:50. | |
with Paul, I thought maybe I prefer my puppetry with harder edge. | :04:51. | :04:56. | |
of the great things I thought was he managed the puppetry, unlike | :04:56. | :05:03. | |
other production, in an understated way. It was a very crafted show. | :05:03. | :05:06. | |
Technically he was amazingly slick. He's so talented and the whole | :05:06. | :05:12. | |
production was very smooth. Montreal Comedy Festival, you would | :05:12. | :05:17. | |
have hard nosed comedy from America and the British comedy a way, and | :05:17. | :05:22. | |
the popping of balloons would come from France and Spain, I'm worried | :05:22. | :05:25. | |
it will move that way, which is interesting social logically, we | :05:25. | :05:31. | |
are looking for the escapist humour, gentle. I'm looking for...It | :05:31. | :05:34. | |
the whole message about the world warming up. Because he's flying | :05:34. | :05:39. | |
around the world doing a show about global warming, that fled the cynic | :05:39. | :05:43. | |
to me, he's flying from New York to Auckland to do the show about | :05:43. | :05:45. | |
global warming. Other things started to happen which we see | :05:45. | :05:50. | |
again and again, a few times this week we have seen a puppet do the | :05:50. | :05:57. | |
moon walk. So you start seeing similar sorts of trop developing. | :05:58. | :06:03. | |
That develops straight into the next one. There was moon walking on | :06:03. | :06:09. | |
The Table. This was Blind Summit, about the whole mean ofing of | :06:09. | :06:14. | |
existence. I thought it was a- the whole meaning of existence. I | :06:14. | :06:19. | |
thought it was amazing The Table. When you see the guys with the | :06:19. | :06:22. | |
cardboard head, you realise that make-believe, there is something | :06:22. | :06:27. | |
very magical and child like about that. Also it carries a lot of | :06:27. | :06:35. | |
insight about the body. A lot of it comes from how the body work, and | :06:35. | :06:40. | |
revelations you wouldn't have had until you see a cardboard puppet | :06:40. | :06:44. | |
moon walking. It was operated by three people, there was three guys | :06:44. | :06:48. | |
making it work, I couldn't really get over that? I felt hollow at the | :06:48. | :06:52. | |
end of it. It is a show of three parts. That part with the cardboard | :06:52. | :06:56. | |
guy on the table is quite moving and quite insightful, at the end of | :06:56. | :07:00. | |
it you just think you are very good at that. I found myself watching | :07:00. | :07:09. | |
the faces of puppet tear, trying to look for some - puppeteers, trying | :07:09. | :07:16. | |
to look for a connection. The first few minutes it is suspended into | :07:16. | :07:22. | |
existence, it is like you imagine that is how we are trapped. Very | :07:22. | :07:27. | |
quickly they themselves run out of material as comedians. The second | :07:27. | :07:31. | |
part they lost all the credit, it goes Blue Man, and the clowning | :07:31. | :07:36. | |
again. It is entertaining but it does remind me of the Spanish | :07:36. | :07:42. | |
contribution to the Montreal comedy festival, it is popping a balloon | :07:42. | :07:46. | |
and looking surprised. The third part blew you will the credits the | :07:46. | :07:51. | |
first part developed. I was entertained by it. I like the way, | :07:51. | :07:58. | |
it is an obscure art form, most of us know it from Punch and Judy, or | :07:58. | :08:04. | |
childhood things. But they were talking about the Bunraku puppet, | :08:04. | :08:07. | |
the show also becomes a lecture about the nature of that, how they | :08:07. | :08:12. | |
are working it. It does call on you to suspend your disbelief. Yeah, | :08:12. | :08:18. | |
especially since the guy is standing loud and talking away. | :08:18. | :08:22. | |
calls on you to co-operate with the illusion. You might not be in the | :08:22. | :08:25. | |
mood for co-operation. There was no illusion in the last one, An | :08:26. | :08:30. | |
Instinct For Kindness, about Chris Larner's own experience of taking | :08:30. | :08:32. | |
his ex-wife to Switzerland. This was nothing more than a chair. This | :08:32. | :08:37. | |
was a straight, hard, difficult story for the audience. Did he pull | :08:37. | :08:42. | |
it off? I thought it was brilliant. I kept wanting to be cynical, I | :08:42. | :08:47. | |
kept feeling myself emotionally engaged, and then it would cut. The | :08:47. | :08:51. | |
direction in this absolutely makes the show. Just as it is about to | :08:51. | :08:54. | |
become saccarine, he goes into a different character. His | :08:54. | :08:59. | |
performance was great, the writing was beautiful, really pragmatic. | :08:59. | :09:04. | |
seemed to me he you can seeded in bringing Allyson back to - he | :09:04. | :09:07. | |
succeeded in bringing Allyson back to life. Did you think her | :09:07. | :09:11. | |
character was well drawn? It is essentially a mantleing a really | :09:11. | :09:15. | |
tragic story. By the very nature - a man telling a really tragic story. | :09:15. | :09:19. | |
By the nature of it, you come out thinking someone has told you a | :09:20. | :09:23. | |
story, but you have lived it. It is a northern story, there is a lot of | :09:23. | :09:28. | |
that going on, Manchester, York shirk you get a sense of that place, | :09:28. | :09:32. | |
you get a sense of somebody being paralysed in life, and then making | :09:32. | :09:36. | |
that enormous decision. I did think he did it wonderfully well. It is a | :09:36. | :09:41. | |
tough one, it is a tough one, not least because clearly at the point | :09:41. | :09:46. | |
where all the decisions were being made, and they are in Switzerland, | :09:46. | :09:51. | |
and his son in his 20s, and he called and told her not to do it, | :09:51. | :09:57. | |
and she didn't take the next call. He doesn't shrink from that. There | :09:57. | :10:01. | |
is the impact of the son that doesn't want his mum to die. He | :10:01. | :10:06. | |
managed to, even in that moment he manages to put humour in, he | :10:07. | :10:13. | |
manages this clearly not much comedy in the tragedy. She decides | :10:13. | :10:18. | |
not to floss her teeth. There is so many interesting observations, | :10:18. | :10:22. | |
about someone's last night. doesn't need her dental hygiene | :10:22. | :10:26. | |
today. Even as a member of the audience you are hoping she will | :10:26. | :10:30. | |
some how not go. It is very true the idea when somebody commits | :10:30. | :10:34. | |
suicide, I have personal experience of it, so it was moving for me, it | :10:34. | :10:41. | |
is the last thing, the last meal, the last joke, the last book, it is | :10:41. | :10:45. | |
beautifully told. You have all the legal stuff, and then they are on | :10:45. | :10:50. | |
holiday, and they go out. enjoys herself. After being shut | :10:50. | :10:55. | |
down in the house in York shirk she experiences Switzerland. It is | :10:55. | :10:59. | |
interesting, it is funny. A lot of the other so-called comedians are | :10:59. | :11:02. | |
not funny. They have ability, and talent, and they can move well and | :11:02. | :11:06. | |
do this, that and the other, they lack this ability to tell a really | :11:06. | :11:10. | |
great story. He has a great story. It is an amazing story. You want to | :11:10. | :11:14. | |
know every detail. If you want to catch that the details are on the | :11:14. | :11:19. | |
website. Precious, the film of the novel, Push by-election the | :11:19. | :11:24. | |
renowned US author, Sapphire, was one of the shost shocking and | :11:24. | :11:28. | |
talked about movies at the moment. A no holds barred of the abuse | :11:28. | :11:33. | |
delivered on a young African girl in New York, the saga has continued | :11:33. | :11:36. | |
and it is no less harrowing. It is 15 years since we were introduced | :11:36. | :11:41. | |
to the character, Precious, who transgressed her upbringing to be | :11:41. | :11:47. | |
something she never had, a loving mother. The story was turned into | :11:47. | :11:50. | |
an Oscar-winning film, and now the author, Sapphire, continues the | :11:50. | :11:56. | |
novel, with the new novel The Kid. It starts with the funeral of | :11:56. | :12:01. | |
Precious, we know her son's life will never be the same. Snatched | :12:01. | :12:06. | |
from his mother by the AIDS she contracted through her own father. | :12:06. | :12:10. | |
She's passed through the foster home system, into the care of his | :12:10. | :12:19. | |
great-grand mother as a teenager. Hate is my friend, hate killed God, | :12:19. | :12:24. | |
hate killed revenge. My body was grown, swollen, I'm a whale with a | :12:24. | :12:30. | |
rash, a rash that begins behind my knees, creeps up my thighs and into | :12:30. | :12:35. | |
the creass where my arm breaks at the elbow and breaks into hives and | :12:35. | :12:39. | |
boils and puss that smells like a dead rat trapped in a wall, and it | :12:39. | :12:44. | |
feels like ants stinging when I sweat. What you create is a most | :12:45. | :12:50. | |
hugely likeable child. He's full of love and wonder. And then you | :12:50. | :12:55. | |
create this world for him where he's just completely at the mercy | :12:55. | :13:00. | |
of others? I wanted to show the strength of a single mother, what | :13:00. | :13:06. | |
she's able to create for him. That by the age of nine years old this | :13:06. | :13:09. | |
kid has an almost magical existence, far different from what Precious | :13:09. | :13:14. | |
had. She's broken the cycle of abuse. She's literally provided him | :13:14. | :13:19. | |
with a family, that is her, and without her he is cast at the mercy | :13:19. | :13:24. | |
of the state. But he falls into the hands of paedophile Catholic priest, | :13:25. | :13:30. | |
in the most horrific way? As is happening as we speak. He begins to | :13:30. | :13:34. | |
imitate the behaviour of his abusers who have power. We | :13:34. | :13:37. | |
literally hear one of the Catholic brothers come to him and say show | :13:37. | :13:41. | |
me some love, and begin to abuse him. A couple of pages later Abdul | :13:41. | :13:45. | |
is creeping down the hall to a little child saying the same thing. | :13:45. | :13:52. | |
Show me some love, I'm your father. He thinks that old slavery days his | :13:52. | :13:56. | |
old grandmother is a piece of dirt. He's totally appalled by her, also | :13:56. | :14:01. | |
by the past. But she is the first person to reach him, to | :14:01. | :14:07. | |
breakthrough the layers and layers of denial and anger and hatred. And | :14:07. | :14:13. | |
that is kind of the beginning of his regaining his humanity. Do you | :14:13. | :14:16. | |
think young African-American men are completely disadvantaged? | :14:17. | :14:23. | |
the people pan handling are African-American or Hispanic men, | :14:23. | :14:32. | |
most of the homeless shelters are filled with this population. We can | :14:32. | :14:37. | |
come back to a little bit of what is in The Kid, a disproportionate | :14:37. | :14:43. | |
amount of children who end up homeless or in prison come out of | :14:43. | :14:47. | |
foster care. Sapphire is such an amazing success with Push, then | :14:47. | :14:52. | |
years later it was made into the film, Precious, do you think that | :14:52. | :14:57. | |
success and because it was such an extraordinary film, has been a help | :14:57. | :15:01. | |
or a hindrance moving on to the story of her son. I thought the | :15:01. | :15:06. | |
success of the first book weighed on her and the film. Her writer's | :15:06. | :15:11. | |
natural desire to write a called big book. There is the pressure of | :15:11. | :15:15. | |
being a spokesperson, perceived as a spokesperson for an African- | :15:15. | :15:20. | |
American community. In the end I wasn't sure what this book added to | :15:20. | :15:25. | |
what I had read in Push. Push was a welterweight of a book, that was | :15:25. | :15:31. | |
none the less, it was very moving, and it had sentimental moments too, | :15:31. | :15:37. | |
this was dark and kind of relentless, and I'm not sure in the | :15:37. | :15:42. | |
end what additional things it added. She opened it up with an | :15:42. | :15:44. | |
extraordinary moment when you have this nine-year-old, fairly innocent, | :15:44. | :15:48. | |
by the time he's 13, he's being corrupted and he corrupts others, | :15:48. | :15:53. | |
and you still like him? You still like him, it is interesting. What | :15:53. | :15:56. | |
she's trying to do is take fractured narratives of people, | :15:56. | :16:01. | |
which haven't been heard. If you are taking a predatory paedophile | :16:01. | :16:08. | |
that is being abused, and abusing, is a voice we haven't heard. In the | :16:08. | :16:11. | |
book she's trying to show the redemption through dance t doesn't | :16:11. | :16:17. | |
come through the proz. The book Coming Through Slaughter, does that | :16:17. | :16:21. | |
with jazz, the prose demonstrates the form. That just felt like | :16:21. | :16:25. | |
everybody was raping everybody all the way through. About two third of | :16:25. | :16:30. | |
the way through I thought this is numbing, you just get to the point | :16:30. | :16:35. | |
you are numb and you don't care.'S A smart child, there is dance, and | :16:35. | :16:40. | |
his life is dreadful and he hears the beat and finds his way into the | :16:40. | :16:43. | |
dance studios, there is dance teacher in the studio that takes | :16:43. | :16:48. | |
him home and abuses him? flickering story of the redemption | :16:48. | :16:51. | |
through art is there all the time, dark and drenched in abuse, there | :16:51. | :16:54. | |
is always this flickering idea that he will recover himself through | :16:54. | :16:58. | |
dance. Wherever he goes it is just as bad. I kind of thought it was | :16:58. | :17:03. | |
interesting that she had to follow up what is a popular success, and | :17:03. | :17:08. | |
she's deeply uncompromising, and it is like that in the book. It comes | :17:08. | :17:13. | |
alive, she really means it. It is like this incredible story of a big | :17:13. | :17:18. | |
black guy filtered through Dostoevsky, Dickens and Jena, in | :17:18. | :17:22. | |
those moments it comes alive. The point is it is not necessarily | :17:22. | :17:26. | |
about redemption. If there was a redemption and she took it further | :17:26. | :17:32. | |
forward that wouldn't be true to the black story, the truth is it | :17:32. | :17:35. | |
goes spinning backwards. She said this isn't just a story, a simple | :17:35. | :17:39. | |
story, this is the story of many. We have had the paedophile priests, | :17:39. | :17:44. | |
the point is by the time he was 14, six feet tall, people didn't think | :17:44. | :17:48. | |
he was young, he got completely lost in the system? It is hard to | :17:48. | :17:52. | |
feel any sympathy with it. The thing about his mum, Precious, | :17:52. | :17:56. | |
she's vulnerable, she expressed some vulnerability through the | :17:56. | :18:03. | |
course of it, she cares for him. He's predatory, as Denise said. | :18:03. | :18:08. | |
He's so vulnerable. I think he is. The point is, this is what he has | :18:08. | :18:15. | |
been taught, this is how he survives, it is his language. | :18:15. | :18:19. | |
Sheehy Kuwaits being black with sexuality, that is an outsider's | :18:19. | :18:25. | |
point of view, he doesn't seem to have any interactions that aren't | :18:25. | :18:29. | |
sexual. There are barely any interactions in the book that | :18:29. | :18:34. | |
aren't sexual, they are to the point of absurdity. Next time | :18:34. | :18:37. | |
someone sodomised, you think is anyone else going to do something | :18:37. | :18:42. | |
different in the book. The idea of what she's doing, as well, as you | :18:42. | :18:48. | |
say, fractured narratives, but also the pat wa, the different stories, | :18:48. | :18:51. | |
is there too much going on in the book, in the way she's navigating | :18:52. | :19:00. | |
his story? I think so. I think that she is, she uses monolougue a lot. | :19:00. | :19:03. | |
There is dreams and nightmares? Then there is another Monday logue, | :19:03. | :19:08. | |
then slavery days. She tells an amazing story, the old grandmother | :19:08. | :19:13. | |
of coming to New York and ending up working in a brothel. It feels like | :19:13. | :19:18. | |
a short story that is found its way into this novel and we have lost | :19:18. | :19:21. | |
the central narrative. In the end the ability to get inside this | :19:21. | :19:25. | |
character, the ability to express the speed of thought is in the end | :19:25. | :19:29. | |
quite transcendant, that might be the message itself. If you can face | :19:29. | :19:34. | |
the trauma for yourself, I think it is well worth it, The Kid was | :19:34. | :19:37. | |
released across the UK this week. You can see the full interview with | :19:37. | :19:42. | |
Sapphire on the website. One of the cultural dividends of devolution | :19:42. | :19:46. | |
was National Theatre, first came the National Theatre of Scotland, | :19:46. | :19:49. | |
then the National Theatre of Wales was formed. Both companies are | :19:49. | :19:56. | |
performing at the Edinburgh Festival this year. So far we have | :19:56. | :20:00. | |
had theatre from Australia, China and Korea, now closer to home. The | :20:00. | :20:03. | |
National Theatre of Scotland and Wales, both have several | :20:03. | :20:07. | |
productions here. We are raising the curtain on two of them. The | :20:07. | :20:16. | |
National Theatre of Scotland, the Prudencia, it is a folk balance | :20:16. | :20:24. | |
land, academic, who despairs at her colleague's postmodern approach to | :20:24. | :20:33. | |
folklore. Working-class folklore is X Factor, it is being on YouTube, | :20:33. | :20:43. | |
:20:43. | :20:44. | ||
it is less Tamsin and more SuBo. was Greig's passion, he felt almost | :20:44. | :20:50. | |
overlooked as a pocket of Scottish literature a slightly unfashionable | :20:50. | :20:56. | |
man. Sometimes seen as twee, we thought they weren't that at all, | :20:56. | :21:00. | |
they are incredibly gutsy, and they have fantastic stories of death and | :21:00. | :21:04. | |
love, with this wonderful supernatural element shot through | :21:04. | :21:10. | |
lots of them. You can't just throw ideas together through intellectual | :21:10. | :21:16. | |
fruit salads, I'm real, you're real and we're in hell Prudencia, not in | :21:16. | :21:20. | |
a border ballad. I think the National Theatre is responsible | :21:20. | :21:25. | |
about asking what stories we have in our DNA, how do we find way for | :21:25. | :21:30. | |
those stories to carry forward into the future in way that is relevant, | :21:30. | :21:35. | |
and not nostalgic, but can teach us about something in the future. | :21:35. | :21:40. | |
National Theatre in Wales is only going a year-and-a-half, and it is | :21:40. | :21:47. | |
the first visit to time in Edinburgh. | :21:47. | :21:51. | |
Gwyn Thomas is an extraordinary Welsh writer who very few people | :21:51. | :21:58. | |
know about these days. He writes these really messy anarchic stories | :21:58. | :22:01. | |
about the South Wales valleys with every cliche you would expect, but | :22:01. | :22:05. | |
done in a completely outrageous way. They are cruel, these people who | :22:05. | :22:13. | |
stand above us and kick our sorry lives into any shape that pleases. | :22:13. | :22:21. | |
They beat me, they sucked me dry, so there will be no grand revenge | :22:21. | :22:29. | |
on my behalf. Although I will do one thing. So small it is pathetic | :22:29. | :22:38. | |
really, but...Say I'm not going to pay for any more coke. For us we | :22:38. | :22:41. | |
wanted to, by instinct, make a piece that was a very universal | :22:41. | :22:44. | |
piece, that was steeped in Wales, but actually an international piece | :22:44. | :22:48. | |
of theatre, so the issues that Thomas is talking about are | :22:48. | :22:52. | |
relevant, all over the world, not just to Wales, he's telling us, | :22:52. | :22:56. | |
things are about humanity, particularly humanity in desperate | :22:56. | :23:01. | |
moments and in desperate situations. With humour as well. Always with | :23:01. | :23:11. | |
:23:11. | :23:13. | ||
humour. Through humour. The Dark Philosophers, first of all, | :23:13. | :23:17. | |
complex stage, Lodz of wardrobe, the Welsh valleys and the terraces, | :23:17. | :23:21. | |
a huge amount of energy and a lot going on. Was it too many things | :23:21. | :23:25. | |
happening at the same time? I think the staging in this is fabulous. | :23:25. | :23:28. | |
The wardrobes represent the terraced houses, for me, I felt | :23:29. | :23:32. | |
that the stories focused on the wrong parts of his writing. I don't | :23:32. | :23:37. | |
know his writing, but the stories felt old and familiar, and there is | :23:37. | :23:42. | |
abuse there, and people dying of poverty. It felt tired, and then | :23:42. | :23:51. | |
there is a Parkinson's sequence. Michael Parkinson. Yes a bit where | :23:51. | :23:54. | |
he comes on as Michael Parkinson, it was dated and made it feel not | :23:54. | :23:58. | |
relevant to me. I didn't feel it worked that well. It was | :23:58. | :24:02. | |
beautifully staged, with a lot of energy. I think it suffered from | :24:02. | :24:07. | |
the fact that Gwyn Thomas is not, I'm not sure if I should feel bad | :24:07. | :24:12. | |
for not having read his work. Welsh authors with a surname of Thomas, | :24:12. | :24:21. | |
he's down the line a bit. It did suffer from what denies said. It is | :24:21. | :24:25. | |
novellas, it is hard to find a centre. They tried to make him the | :24:25. | :24:29. | |
centre and make it a play about his imagination and how he's endo | :24:29. | :24:39. | |
:24:39. | :24:41. | ||
youing these characters with life, they could have pushed it further. | :24:41. | :24:44. | |
It is a shame, the next one, Prudencia, it would have been nice | :24:44. | :24:50. | |
to see Thomas being treated like that. The Michael Parkinson scenes | :24:50. | :24:55. | |
hint at how nice it would be to make him alive. The point was to | :24:55. | :25:02. | |
make him one of the great Thomass, like Dylant pushed him out by being | :25:02. | :25:05. | |
so grotesque, because at the heart of it there was something | :25:05. | :25:09. | |
tremendous going on. It was hard to fathom, because it was so full of | :25:09. | :25:19. | |
:25:19. | :25:19. | ||
beserkness. Let's talk about Prudencia Hart we | :25:19. | :25:23. | |
are sitting Round Tables with whiskey, sitting like you would on | :25:23. | :25:28. | |
a Saturday night, it was a magical lock-in, were you transported? | :25:28. | :25:31. | |
thought it was fabulous. When the Scottish National Theatre get it | :25:31. | :25:35. | |
right they get it so right. They wrong footed the audience by not | :25:35. | :25:39. | |
putting the lights down. It is people telling you a store, it is | :25:39. | :25:46. | |
all in mime. That made - a story, it is all in mime. That made it | :25:46. | :25:52. | |
amazing you conson trait. The action scenes are great. Did you | :25:52. | :25:58. | |
like Prudencia, she was very earnest. She's the academic. Some | :25:58. | :26:04. | |
extraordinary thing. The fact it is set in a post, post-structuralist | :26:04. | :26:09. | |
seminar is a great thing. I thought I was hallucinating, The Idea of | :26:09. | :26:12. | |
Perfection you have a piece about almost the source of popular music | :26:12. | :26:16. | |
n way, going back to the 13th century and the Scottish ballads | :26:16. | :26:21. | |
which you can take through to where it eventually ends up, Kylie | :26:21. | :26:27. | |
Minogue Cannot Get You Out Of My Head, I have written a book about | :26:27. | :26:32. | |
that, and I could write another book. It is extraordinary with the | :26:32. | :26:36. | |
borders to taking music so seriously and people who take it as | :26:36. | :26:39. | |
simply fun, and managing to tell that story really well in the | :26:39. | :26:45. | |
middle of a seminar. You are in Kelso, and the devil is out in the | :26:45. | :26:51. | |
night. The idea of heaven and hell, you think that Prudencia ends up in | :26:51. | :26:54. | |
a library, you would imagine it is her heaven but it turns out hell? | :26:54. | :27:00. | |
She ends up in a ballad. A lot of it is rhymed. She ends up | :27:00. | :27:06. | |
cataloguing the devil's collection of ballads, which, it's funny, it | :27:06. | :27:10. | |
is transporting and there is a great, it is a great twist that | :27:10. | :27:15. | |
suddenly time passed so quickly, she finds herself...It Is very | :27:15. | :27:18. | |
relaxed, extraordinary, the five characters just seem they are part | :27:18. | :27:23. | |
of us, the way they mingle amongst us, sit back amongst us. You do get | :27:23. | :27:26. | |
a sense particularly in the Highlands, that you would be in a | :27:26. | :27:30. | |
lock-in, that would be crazy, and people quite drunk. Because it is | :27:30. | :27:34. | |
about borders it about things in the imagination as well. It is not | :27:34. | :27:39. | |
just geographical borders, it is borders about something and nothing. | :27:39. | :27:43. | |
There was an uncompromising amount of joke about post structural. A | :27:43. | :27:49. | |
14-year-old boy across from me with his head on the table, every time | :27:49. | :27:53. | |
they made that joke he was down. He probably had too much whiskey. | :27:54. | :27:59. | |
are really good books, the things about the borders of the | :27:59. | :28:03. | |
imagination. It was in the Scottish accent. Did anyone find the romance | :28:03. | :28:07. | |
between Prudencia and the devil moving. I thought it was serving, | :28:07. | :28:12. | |
what you have is the trapped soul, he was the trapped person, he was | :28:12. | :28:17. | |
trying to trap everybody else with him. There is something in the book, | :28:17. | :28:22. | |
in the end she sings Kylie and back out in the pub, it is as if time | :28:22. | :28:26. | |
hasn't move. In the end, in this great book, you have, she is the | :28:26. | :28:31. | |
one with the smoke coming out her eyes, and the red eyes, actually | :28:31. | :28:36. | |
she's death isn't it. That didn't come out really particularly in it. | :28:36. | :28:43. | |
Did you read it? I didn't get that. Now it's a downbeat ending. | :28:43. | :28:49. | |
have to go see it. She's not maybe death, she has smoke coming out of | :28:49. | :28:55. | |
her eyes. Both those plays are part of the National Theatre of Wales | :28:55. | :29:01. | |
and Scotland's repetoir. Now before Murakami, we have the first musical | :29:01. | :29:11. | |
:29:11. | :29:13. | ||
break. The singers who sound, like # Well woman and children | :29:13. | :29:16. | |
# There's not man in the life I know | :29:17. | :29:20. | |
# I've been called the minstrel # Take back what you said | :29:20. | :29:23. | |
# Little girl # While you're at it | :29:23. | :29:27. | |
# Take your sound back too # I'm tired of sitting around | :29:27. | :29:37. | |
:29:37. | :29:49. | ||
# I'm thinking about the door bell # When you gonna ring it | :29:49. | :29:53. | |
# I'm thinking about the door bell # When you gonna ring it | :29:53. | :29:58. | |
# I'm thinking about the door bell # When you gonna ring it | :29:58. | :30:03. | |
# I'm thinking about the door bell # Oh well | :30:03. | :30:12. | |
# Oh # You don't seem to come around | :30:12. | :30:22. | |
:30:22. | :30:30. | ||
# You don't make a sound # Oh | :30:30. | :30:40. | |
:30:40. | :30:55. | ||
# Make a sound and make you feel # Nobody caught me waiting | :30:55. | :31:01. | |
# I'm coming to to you # You strike me to try to be kind | :31:01. | :31:05. | |
# But you are so true # Then again I know you feel good | :31:05. | :31:09. | |
# You tell me you want me again # I don't need any of your pity | :31:09. | :31:15. | |
# I can depend on my own friend # I'm thinking about my door bell | :31:15. | :31:19. | |
# When they gonna ring it # I'm thinking about my door bell | :31:19. | :31:24. | |
# When they gonna ring it # I'm thinking about my door bell | :31:24. | :31:29. | |
# When they go gonna ring it # When they gonna ring it | :31:29. | :31:39. | |
:31:39. | :31:47. | ||
# I'm thinking about my door bell If you find yourself attracted to | :31:47. | :31:50. | |
The Magnets, they will be performing at the Assembly George | :31:50. | :31:53. | |
Square until Monday. Haruki Murakami is a cult writer, who also | :31:53. | :32:01. | |
manages to be a best seller, it is not too grand wois statement to say | :32:01. | :32:04. | |
he revolutionised Japanese literature. | :32:04. | :32:09. | |
He set about transforming his book to the theatre. We went to see the | :32:09. | :32:17. | |
results of eight long years of work on the drama. This week Edinburgh | :32:17. | :32:25. | |
hosts the debut of the adaptation of the novel by Hurst hur. It is a | :32:25. | :32:33. | |
spectacle that tries to get to the heart Haruki Murakami, it tries to | :32:33. | :32:37. | |
get to the heart of the human kin decision. It is the story of a man | :32:37. | :32:42. | |
who falls into a state of confusion following the disappearance of his | :32:42. | :32:47. | |
wife and cat. As he struggles with loss and loneliness, he is | :32:47. | :32:52. | |
contacted by a string of callers, including caller who knows intimate | :32:52. | :33:00. | |
details of his wife. His wife's brother a sadistic politician, and | :33:00. | :33:04. | |
May a schoolgirl who confronts him with his inadequacies. I'm the only | :33:04. | :33:07. | |
one in in the world who knows you are down there. You have no boss, | :33:07. | :33:11. | |
no wife, all you have is me. All I have to do is walk away and you | :33:11. | :33:15. | |
will die. You want to kill me. want you to suffer, in a cold dark | :33:15. | :33:20. | |
place, completely alone, where no- one cares whether or not you are | :33:20. | :33:26. | |
alive. The quest to reconnect with his wife and tept her home from her | :33:26. | :33:30. | |
mysterious exile, is an examination of how much any of us knows about | :33:31. | :33:34. | |
those closest to us, and the loneliness of a contemporary city. | :33:34. | :33:40. | |
As well as being a portrait of a marriage in crisis, and part | :33:40. | :33:44. | |
Chandleresque detective story, the play explores wider issues, | :33:44. | :33:47. | |
reflecting Japan's war time horrors, and questions its place in the | :33:47. | :33:51. | |
world today. This notion that the Japanese should apologise for | :33:51. | :33:58. | |
simply being human has led to what I call the emmass laigs of a nation. | :33:58. | :34:08. | |
:34:08. | :34:10. | ||
- Emmass cull laigs of a nation. - the story is told through film, | :34:10. | :34:14. | |
dance and puppetry and live action. His style is all about the layers | :34:14. | :34:19. | |
of reality and the way the genes are infused with the reality. I | :34:19. | :34:22. | |
wanted to use the different elements to support that idea, | :34:22. | :34:32. | |
:34:32. | :34:33. | ||
whether film or puppetry. That was our big story with the piece is how | :34:33. | :34:38. | |
to break down the layers and represent them with theatrical | :34:38. | :34:43. | |
elements. Seven years in the making, it is distilled into two hours of | :34:43. | :34:48. | |
action. Did the theatrical treatment of the search for the | :34:48. | :34:52. | |
wife and the struggle within self strike a chord with at least our | :34:52. | :34:56. | |
audience. Paul, did you feel you were taken into Okada's world? That | :34:56. | :35:02. | |
he was trapped in his world? It is interesting, the book is so | :35:02. | :35:05. | |
complicated, it is very interesting that manage to reduce it, it is | :35:05. | :35:10. | |
like all the vegtables and reducing it to the stock cube, and thrown it | :35:10. | :35:14. | |
in water and some how the flavour came across. It is impressive, I | :35:14. | :35:17. | |
didn't think they could do it. All the things that are logical and | :35:17. | :35:21. | |
strange about the book, that could fall apart on stage, don't fall | :35:21. | :35:28. | |
apart. You are as engrossed with the performance as with the book. I | :35:28. | :35:33. | |
loved that, as much as there is the middle distance the Chandleresque | :35:33. | :35:37. | |
element, what came across more is this is exactly the way I would | :35:38. | :35:46. | |
like to see a film version of Kafka and Philip Dick. We were talking | :35:46. | :35:51. | |
about too many layers and too much stuff, in a way, did you not think | :35:51. | :35:54. | |
this was incredibly elegant the way so many different things, the fish, | :35:54. | :35:59. | |
maybe not the puppets, the screens? Even the puppets worked, I think. I | :35:59. | :36:03. | |
haven't read the book, but I love Japanese horror movies, I thought | :36:03. | :36:08. | |
it was very much like a Japanese horror movie, like The Ring, or | :36:08. | :36:12. | |
Dark Waters, there is the recurring theme of water and the well, | :36:12. | :36:16. | |
stagnation. Even the colour schemes are very like Japanese horror | :36:16. | :36:19. | |
movies. I found it absolutely mesmerising, and all the different | :36:19. | :36:23. | |
elements that could be too much are handled so lightly. There is dance, | :36:23. | :36:27. | |
stuff you didn't see in the clips there. Extraordinary music there. | :36:27. | :36:31. | |
When you call come into the theatre she's playing away elegantly and | :36:31. | :36:36. | |
quietly, then she underpins the whole performance? I thought she | :36:36. | :36:43. | |
was doing washing up, but she was refilling the Tibetan music bowl! | :36:43. | :36:48. | |
The whole production is amazing, I have lost my cred dingss because I | :36:48. | :36:52. | |
haven't read the book - credentials because I haven't read the book | :36:52. | :36:56. | |
either, it was like a Roald Linaker thing, it is clearly an ambitious | :36:56. | :37:01. | |
novel, it shows you can take an ambitious novel and stage it and | :37:01. | :37:07. | |
have an experience clos to cinema with the visceral - close to cinema | :37:07. | :37:12. | |
with a visceral interaction. etheral dress of his wife, which | :37:12. | :37:18. | |
becomes her skin? It is such a creepy play. You are awestruck by | :37:18. | :37:22. | |
how beautiful it is, but also slightly creeped out. I think it is | :37:23. | :37:25. | |
the soundscape. At times it does seem like you are going to see a | :37:25. | :37:31. | |
piece of music. And how I always hoped music would be in the 21st | :37:31. | :37:34. | |
century, it would be illustrated so beautifully, and a performance | :37:34. | :37:37. | |
being something else. It is a musical composition with | :37:38. | :37:40. | |
extraordinary other stuff going on. One of the things I couldn't | :37:40. | :37:45. | |
believe they were going to do, but they do, maybe by suggestions, | :37:45. | :37:51. | |
elegantly, distilling, being down in the well. There are parts of the | :37:51. | :37:56. | |
book sitting down at the well, I felt like that a few times in the | :37:56. | :37:59. | |
festival. But it is done so elegantly on stage. You get the | :37:59. | :38:02. | |
feeling that there is a point to why he's at the bottom of the well | :38:02. | :38:08. | |
and how he's working himself out. It never fully adds up. There are | :38:08. | :38:17. | |
teasing hints of different types, film noir. They should stick that | :38:17. | :38:23. | |
puppetry on a poster. Maybe they will man puppetry. I love the | :38:23. | :38:28. | |
puppetry. This is a lot of it. that whole thing about this staged | :38:28. | :38:32. | |
popularly about all the things people project, yet at the heart of | :38:32. | :38:37. | |
it is utter loneliness, that is a soundscape as well? Absolutely. | :38:37. | :38:40. | |
That is the thing that everybody might not exist, obviously in the | :38:40. | :38:45. | |
book and in this, the further it goes on, the further you don't know | :38:45. | :38:50. | |
what reality is. I hesitate to use this vocabulary, people think it | :38:50. | :38:53. | |
sounds awful, it is very provocative and evocative, it is | :38:53. | :38:59. | |
very rich with meaning. Even though, to an extent, it is you could say | :38:59. | :39:04. | |
the same about Prudencia, the shadlyland between reality and non- | :39:04. | :39:11. | |
reality. It is - shadowland between reality and non-reality. It is done | :39:11. | :39:14. | |
so well. You are puzzling it together, it is the detective work. | :39:14. | :39:18. | |
It is also the audiences' mind, that makes it so compelling. You | :39:18. | :39:22. | |
are not told. The audience was mesmerised when I was there. At the | :39:22. | :39:28. | |
end it is almost like they have pieced it together, like a | :39:28. | :39:32. | |
wonderful three dimensional jigsaw puzzle. It is the whole theme of | :39:32. | :39:36. | |
the festival, looking east. Did you think it was like something you had | :39:36. | :39:40. | |
ever seen before? It was, unlike anything I had seen in a theatre. | :39:40. | :39:45. | |
The music gave it an integrity, and allowed it to explore, putting in | :39:45. | :39:49. | |
things that seemed like it should have no place. The long monolougue | :39:49. | :39:53. | |
about heing in the desert, and the tort - being in the desert and the | :39:53. | :39:57. | |
torture, you are gripped, I don't know what it has to do with it. | :39:57. | :40:03. | |
Theme mattically there is some link. - Thee mattically. There is some | :40:03. | :40:08. | |
link. When people talk about the book, they use names, then at the | :40:08. | :40:11. | |
end they think hang on, maybe it is original. You can describe what it | :40:11. | :40:17. | |
does, how it does it, multimedia, screens, puppet, in the end it is | :40:17. | :40:25. | |
original, it is an original piece of work. We are always in search of | :40:25. | :40:29. | |
laughs, thousands of visitors cram into the venues. | :40:29. | :40:34. | |
Up and down stairs that spring up all over the city. This week we | :40:35. | :40:39. | |
went in search of the top performers, some use very strong | :40:39. | :40:49. | |
language. It's not easy to stand on the | :40:49. | :40:57. | |
stages of Edinburgh's famous comedy venues and make the audience laugh, | :40:57. | :41:01. | |
but these fledgling comedy folk have been drawing more viewers than | :41:01. | :41:08. | |
celebrity Big Brother. Dim knock Watson has been going it | :41:08. | :41:14. | |
alone based on a daring raid by his grandfather in the Second World War. | :41:14. | :41:18. | |
A day may come, if you are very lucky, when you have to kill a | :41:18. | :41:24. | |
German, or an Italian, or like a Japanese or whatever. Right up | :41:24. | :41:29. | |
close, but don't worry, it's locking mint. | :41:29. | :41:34. | |
I have done five years as part of a three-man sketch show up here at | :41:34. | :41:37. | |
the festival. And going from being responsible for about 20-minutes | :41:37. | :41:42. | |
worth of talking in an hour, to an hour's worth of talking, has been | :41:42. | :41:49. | |
pretty punishing. # Who that's staring through your | :41:49. | :41:52. | |
window # Who's knocking on your door | :41:52. | :41:54. | |
# That's me # That's Sam | :41:54. | :41:59. | |
# I have been round here ten times before. Cariad Lloyd is becoming a | :41:59. | :42:03. | |
free fringe hit, with her cast of quirky characters. I'm here as part | :42:03. | :42:06. | |
of a Government scheme to help all of those people raised under | :42:06. | :42:10. | |
Thatcher's national curriculum, just us. All the things you might | :42:10. | :42:14. | |
have missed out on, liked aing up, and milk. | :42:14. | :42:20. | |
Does anyone else watch Loose Women and think maybe we didn't deserve a | :42:20. | :42:25. | |
vote. The second Penny Dreadful to be nominated is Mr Justice Tuckey, | :42:25. | :42:34. | |
who has watched Disney's straight to DVD back catalogue so we don't | :42:34. | :42:43. | |
have to. Cinderella 2: A Dream Comes True, is anybody else naive | :42:43. | :42:45. | |
enough not to know that the dream came through in the locking first | :42:46. | :42:55. | |
:42:56. | :42:58. | ||
one. It is my first show, it is nice to have a nod. Loin King II, | :42:58. | :43:08. | |
:43:08. | :43:11. | ||
Lion King 1.5. If Lion King is Hamlet, it definitely is, Lion King | :43:11. | :43:16. | |
3 is highbrow shit. If Edinburgh is the proving ground for new comedian, | :43:16. | :43:23. | |
will this year's awards be the launch for Humphrey Cariad and Thom. | :43:23. | :43:30. | |
Did you think Mr Justice Tuckey got a freedom from being away from - | :43:30. | :43:37. | |
Thom Tuck Goes Straight To DVD get freedom from being away from the | :43:37. | :43:42. | |
other two? You are intrigued by the back story of the guy, presented on | :43:42. | :43:52. | |
:43:52. | :43:53. | ||
stage. Watching 54 Disney straight to DVD films. There is funny things | :43:53. | :44:03. | |
:44:03. | :44:04. | ||
about someone pursuing a obsession. I couldn't remember or know any of | :44:04. | :44:08. | |
the films. There is something specific about one of them, people | :44:08. | :44:14. | |
were singing the songs about it? People singing songs from the | :44:14. | :44:18. | |
Little Mermaid was disturbing. lot of guys. I felt slightly ever | :44:19. | :44:24. | |
so much he wanted to find a subject and he found it. He was never going | :44:24. | :44:28. | |
to get a girlfriend either? It is something he found, and it was a | :44:28. | :44:34. | |
good idea, a good risk. He with all this clowning and miming, and | :44:35. | :44:38. | |
finding the inner idiot, I have been hoping that people might be | :44:38. | :44:41. | |
looking to find the inner genius w some of this stuff, at least there | :44:41. | :44:48. | |
was some thinking. There was some wore play. Some sharp writing. That | :44:48. | :44:51. | |
was encouraging. But on the other hand, I felt that what he should be | :44:51. | :44:57. | |
is part of a comedy troupe, I think he would be really good with that | :44:57. | :45:07. | |
:45:07. | :45:07. | ||
guy Milos Karadaglic. I think they should - Car aid, I think they | :45:07. | :45:13. | |
should get together. I think Humphrey has come off better than | :45:13. | :45:17. | |
Thom Tuck. His grandfather's story, told in a different way, with all | :45:17. | :45:22. | |
the characters, was very inventive? We mustn't make friends complete, | :45:22. | :45:29. | |
there will be a big fight. With Thom Tuck I felt he should have | :45:29. | :45:34. | |
been 15 years older, I didn't know any of the films. With Humphrey Ker | :45:34. | :45:39. | |
I thought it was great. A lot of very funny stories and one-liners | :45:40. | :45:43. | |
as well. The writing was amazing for that show, he sustained it for | :45:43. | :45:47. | |
a whole hour, it never dropped in intensity. There were a number of | :45:47. | :45:51. | |
just great things, that took you completely by surprise. The plot is | :45:51. | :45:58. | |
too insane to even go into. Basically it is 1943, supposedly | :45:58. | :46:02. | |
about his grandfather. Going to Romania. And along the way he meets | :46:02. | :46:06. | |
the characters and turns himself into all the character, were you | :46:06. | :46:12. | |
impressed? I felt the writing, again, I'm being nit-picky here, I | :46:12. | :46:19. | |
will be, there is 21,300,000 performers here. He's very official | :46:19. | :46:26. | |
and very good, he's Humphrey. I got the feeling that you could see him | :46:26. | :46:30. | |
and Thomworked together, they have stylistic tricks there. In the end | :46:30. | :46:34. | |
I felt that is a good piece of writing and you are reading it | :46:34. | :46:37. | |
quite well. In the end I thought that is not good enough. I thought | :46:37. | :46:42. | |
it was very filmic, and I thought it would be radio. Maybe you're | :46:43. | :46:46. | |
write it was about the writing. There was a touch of Blackadder. | :46:46. | :46:53. | |
There was a lot of Rik Mayal. was Armstrong and Miller pilot | :46:53. | :46:59. | |
there is. It is good if you know the history of comedy. As the next | :46:59. | :47:03. | |
person does. Let's go there with Cariad Lloyd. These guys have been | :47:04. | :47:08. | |
around the block for ten years, she's here, Cariad Lloyd, at the | :47:08. | :47:13. | |
free fringe, was it refreshing to see someone like her? One minute | :47:14. | :47:18. | |
she's wrangling the queue getting them into the seats, and the next | :47:18. | :47:22. | |
minute she's changing costume and performing, amazing. The characters | :47:22. | :47:27. | |
are uneven. She says that herself? She do yes. But she has a great | :47:27. | :47:31. | |
rapport and the Cockney character, they are very funny. She's really | :47:31. | :47:35. | |
talented. She says some bits will be funnier than other, other | :47:35. | :47:37. | |
characters will be better, undercutting you all the way. | :47:37. | :47:43. | |
of the things about it, it is so ramshackle at the free festival, | :47:43. | :47:46. | |
that is what is lovely, you feel like you're at the festival, it is | :47:46. | :47:52. | |
ramshackle and posters on the wall. Some of it is really funny, really | :47:53. | :47:56. | |
good characterers, the Parker rapper was fantastic. She does a | :47:56. | :48:00. | |
wee boy Andrew, saw in the clip, which was really tender and gives | :48:00. | :48:03. | |
you a history of the Russian revolution. But I could feel half | :48:03. | :48:07. | |
the audience were really with her, and some of them were slipping away. | :48:07. | :48:13. | |
Maybe not so enthusiastic, and hiding at the back a wee bit. | :48:14. | :48:17. | |
she refreshingly ramshackle for you? I didn't think it was | :48:17. | :48:20. | |
ramshackle, I thought here is someone who is a student of comedy. | :48:20. | :48:25. | |
Because I was looking for someone to pull the inner genius out of | :48:25. | :48:30. | |
themselves, instead of the inner idiot, I thought we have Tina Fey | :48:30. | :48:34. | |
and Stanley Baxter, the flavour of the comment lost something | :48:34. | :48:38. | |
overnight. When I woke up I thought maybe not that good. I thought she | :48:38. | :48:41. | |
would be really good, and we will be paying an awful lot of money to | :48:41. | :48:48. | |
pay for her. Is she Katherine Tate? She's better, a million miles | :48:48. | :48:53. | |
better, not any cruelty, there is a generosity and love about her. | :48:53. | :49:03. | |
do you think will win? I thought Humphrey. I thought that. If Cariad | :49:03. | :49:08. | |
doesn't win I may weep! You may weep. Before we go the BBC arts | :49:08. | :49:14. | |
editor, Will Gompertz, has been star gazing. | :49:15. | :49:19. | |
It has been a hell of a festival. There has been more shows than ever. | :49:19. | :49:22. | |
It certainly feels there has been more punters than ever. There has | :49:22. | :49:27. | |
been quite a lot of rain. And there has been more stars than ever. I | :49:27. | :49:31. | |
don't mean celebrity, I mean stars, like this. They are more common | :49:31. | :49:38. | |
than a happy teenager with a fistful of A-grade GCSE, I have | :49:38. | :49:45. | |
star blindness, with all the celestial overtrading. The currency | :49:45. | :49:51. | |
has been downgraded in the hyperventilation of the review | :49:51. | :49:55. | |
business. One to three stars is void, three stars is probably a bad | :49:55. | :50:00. | |
show but the reviewer knows the performer, four stars worth a look, | :50:00. | :50:05. | |
five stars is the reviewer had great time, you won't because it is | :50:06. | :50:09. | |
soldout. We are left with a quagmire of four stars, how to make | :50:09. | :50:15. | |
sense of it all. We will the Telegraph, Times and Guardian, all | :50:15. | :50:21. | |
the brands and writers giving us star reviews, why do we need | :50:21. | :50:26. | |
Broadway Baby, and hundreds of other on-line sites doing the same | :50:26. | :50:31. | |
job, confusing the issue. Everyone seems to agree with each other, and | :50:31. | :50:35. | |
there is no different relation. Because the papers can't get round | :50:35. | :50:42. | |
all the shows, there is so many. Their stated goal is to get to as | :50:42. | :50:46. | |
many shows as possible. In theory, all the programme. That is just one | :50:46. | :50:50. | |
opinion. I think he should be able to read a range of opinions. Not | :50:50. | :50:57. | |
just three weeks, but the Telegraph and Broadway Baby, and festival | :50:57. | :51:01. | |
reviews, and make your own mind up. You could take the view that it | :51:01. | :51:05. | |
goes back to the way Edinburgh use the to be, 20 years ago you very | :51:05. | :51:10. | |
much - used to be, 20 years ago you very much had to plunge in. The | :51:10. | :51:13. | |
wall-to-wall coverage of the websites didn't exist, there was | :51:13. | :51:18. | |
the Scotsman and the national, it was easy to walk into a darkened | :51:18. | :51:21. | |
venue and not know what to expect. That is the thrill. Given that | :51:21. | :51:26. | |
everything is being levelled, it is a reintroduction of anarchy, you | :51:26. | :51:31. | |
have to pay your money and take your choice. What I want is a | :51:31. | :51:35. | |
critical standard. I accept, I'm sure that the websites are very | :51:35. | :51:40. | |
good, it is brilliant they cover all the fringe, but it muddys the | :51:40. | :51:47. | |
water. The problem is likely to get worse rather than better. What to | :51:47. | :51:53. | |
do? There is always one five-star show, the Edinburgh military tatoo, | :51:53. | :51:57. | |
and I understand there is a ticket left, for next year. | :51:57. | :52:04. | |
You have been here two weeks, Paul, five stars, four stars, three stars, | :52:04. | :52:09. | |
two stars, for the festival this year? I have spent my entire life | :52:09. | :52:13. | |
ignoring stars, then the madness doesn't lie. The star system | :52:13. | :52:18. | |
introduced any kind of reviewing, in 1993 by Q Magazine, that was the | :52:18. | :52:21. | |
end of everything. It is not about that, it is about critical context | :52:21. | :52:24. | |
and cultural context. It is not about fun or not fun, it is | :52:24. | :52:29. | |
something more than that. Or else everything evens out. There is the | :52:29. | :52:34. | |
joy of finding stuff for yourself? And having us tell you afterwards. | :52:34. | :52:37. | |
A lot of performers are here, it is not really about the audience, it | :52:37. | :52:41. | |
is about the other performance, it is a trade show. The five stars are | :52:41. | :52:48. | |
significant, maybe they don't tell the audience. A system showing how | :52:48. | :52:57. | |
many ukele s there are and puppets. There should be a separate festival | :52:57. | :53:01. | |
for puppetry! That is just about it for another Edinburgh Festival. | :53:01. | :53:05. | |
Thanks to my guests, Denise Mina, Paul Morley and Marcel Theroux. You | :53:05. | :53:09. | |
can find out details about everything on tonight's show on the | :53:09. | :53:14. | |
website. Send us your tweets, everyone is taken under careful | :53:14. | :53:16. | |
consideration, almost everyone, well the odd one. We are taking a | :53:17. | :53:21. | |
break for a few weeks to let our feet, heads and livers recover, I | :53:21. | :53:26. | |
will be back on the 21st of September. In the meantime, for | :53:26. | :53:29. |