The Culture Show at the Edinburgh Festival - Part 3 The Culture Show

This programme contains some strong language. Hello and welcome to the

final culture show from the 2012 Edinburgh Festival, where we're

bringing the finest comics, writers and comedians. Budget cut, we've

had to down grade the Autocue, what's my next line? Coming up the

funniest and fabulous shows on the fringe, according to me. The

brilliance of Howard Jacobson. Dieter Roth intriguing diaries, one

of the hotest singers in town, and Russell Kane reveals his thoughts

on books, blokes and broodiness. Edinburgh loves a good gong, we

have the Foster's Comedy Awards, fringe first, herald angels, hark

The Herald angels, Michael Gove prize, if you want the low down

what is pertinent, you need to ask a master at the peek of the

critical culture. We couldn't get that person, so I've done my top

five. Once again the fringe is full of strange and wonderful things.

Teas been hard to select my topics, but it's had to be done. One of my

favourite comics did not disappoint at this year's festival. Asking

questions like what is a Tory femist, why is this Edwin fat suit

building, and why don't they do a Spielberg film about donkeys.

Welcome to the world of Bridget Christie. The senged year I've seen

you dressing up for a purpose, to use an mal met a for for the female

struggle. The problem hasn't gone away, I did a donkey for a while.

Even donkey journalists hate donkey comics. You do a bit about

switching on to you which, and you happen to tune in to five minutes?

I was flicking through, and these two girls, they were gorgeous and

talking about a quiz night. But how they were getting to ready to go to

a quiz night, by having botox done before they went there. Is this how

we're getting ready, we have toxin, which can cause a life threatening

illness, pumped into 18 years old faces to answer trivia. 20 Years

ago, when I would go out a quiz night, I would read up on my

general knowledge. Bridge jit is embarking on a Europe-wide tour

next month. Next up, entire delegation from

South Africa, has been among the big hitters in this festival. From

traditional, to Eddie Izzard, Trevor Noah. It is the perfect

South African drink, what's this supposed to mean, it is 90% black.

The white is still on top. garnering five star reviews all-

round has been Yael Farber Mies Julie, she transports the action to

modern day South Africa. Because you're drunk tonight. Julie won the

award, she's transfered to London in the year. Living up to

reputation as one of the best venues, The Trav verse has offered

a good line-up. Born to Run, the true story and Beats, rave culture

and rebellion. However the biggest buzz has been Rob Drummond, sellout

Bullet Catch, surrounded around the dangerous stunt which claimed the

lives of 12 illusionists. The first idea to do the Bullet Catch or the

great story of illusionist who was killed during the particular.

first idea is I loved magic and need do a show. What's the most

extreme show coy do, and one answer, and that's a Bullet Catch. Just

before you do the Bullet Catch trick the audience become rattleed?

I give them the opportunity to leave F they don't want to watch it.

And people have been taking up that opportunity. And leaving the

auditorium. You see audience members covering their faces and it

is satisfying to see that, because it means the show is working.

you get nervous? Yeah I do. No matter how many times do you that,

facing a complete stranger with a gun, point directly at your surveys

unnerveing, just before you pull the trigger. Do you think I would

be a suitable candidate to demonstrate? Over the course of the

interview, I have got to know you and trust you, I would like you to

You're a genius, oh my days, well done for you. How are you feeling?

Shaky. You can have that. Round of applause for sap Sue. I didn't kill

anyone. You have no idea how many fringe performance toss get that

right. My final pick is Tony Law. like the way your meat is held

together with a skin sack. Well the lads fell about. It was brilliant

banter. The thing you can critical about comedy, but in a positive and

sweet way, and particularly effective thing is a catch phrase,

which is you say a series of terrible trueisms or awful,

offensive things, and you go, banter. Where did that come from?

Oh, just hearing and being around banter, overhearing it on trains,

and banter lads, banterings and then they do the most more risk

thing about woim, but then it is just banter. The little things that

bleed into bigger things, "Course that's what she's like the wife"s

just banter. I just to sit with my notebook out, doing banner and

steal it. The last few minutes of the show is magical funny moments.

Just beautiful and lovely. Where did the idea come from? The last

three years in a row, with the kids, I watch the way they light things

and do things, and the way they connect to children. It is hard to

connect with children, if do you, that's something special. I've been

trying to learn and absorb from things like that. If you engage

with children, engage with adults that way, that's why the lighting

of the business went on. I loved it, thank you for sharing it with us.

Thank you so much for having me. Tony will be playing the theatre in

London in October. If you're at home playing beard cricket, I'm

delighted to teld you, Tony Law and combination score a six. Next up,

Booker Prize winner author, Howard Jacobson is in town talking about

his new work, Zoo Time at the book festival. In is themes of zierks

disappointment, death of a novel and mother in laws, Tim Samuels

went to meet him. Howard Jacobson made a career of writing about very

funny, literary, typically northern, Jewish man, and latest novel, Zoo

Time is no exception. Howard, lovely to see you again. How are

you. This time is anti-hero as comic writer whose career has seen

better days. He's also a married man, wildly in love with fiery

flame haired wife, Vanessa. By extension, her vivacious mother,

Poppy. Normally I presented her a type script hot from my computer.

How do you give your wife a novel about a man whose in love with his

wife's mother. I denied the similarity of course this, is a

work of fiction, any resemblance between characters living or dead,

but she never swallowed that. Which left me with two courses of action,

either risk ending the marriage, or not write the book. I imagine this

was good fun to write? More fun that I've ever had writing a book,

the most fun, I had. The niceest thing you say is, it feels it was

fun to write, because that means it is fun to read. I do like writing

about mothers and daughters, there's always a fascination

between the love between them, the ways in which they lookalike, how

they walk and move together. The painful rivalries, not admitted

between them. That itself is a great subject. The character, Guy

Ableman, what kind of a guy? This is a guy who would love to be a

wild man. He would be lawless. I understand this. He is a nice

person, he's brought up to be a nice person, and would like to be a

bad person. Affair with your mother-in-law, how much more

shocking alass he could shock the world with it. Then you have the

ridiculous industry as portrayed here, the bedeath of fiction, where

fads, constantly changing. It is a toxic mix to have the industry and

psyche together? What was the buzzword last year," Readable" a

book had to be "readable", last year, it was "unput downable". Put

it down, laugh, scream, cry, throw it across the room, take a note,

open the windows, put it down! year, he wanted to have a thousand

story apps ready to go for the mobile phone market, bus stop

reading he called it, unbooks, that could be started and finished while

phone users were waiting for someone to call them back, or the

traffic lights to change or waiter to arrive with the bill. In short

to plug those small, social hiatuses of life on the run.

struck me as confident book, I wonder having won the booker you

were in a position where you could put your head above the parapet.

This novel was started six months before I won the Man Booker, at a

time I had no belief, I thought my career was coming to an end, what

will I do. I'll go down fighting and write a funny novel about the

end of it all, like a suicide note. Half way through, I go and win the

Man Booker Prize, which I thought probably would be the end of this

book. And then I had a bleak thought, I thought what if the

novel would be my best novel ever, my funniest best novel ever. And if

the Man Booker Prize ruined it? Man Booker Prize ruins great novel.

What if that snaps you had to be a writer to invite the trouble, you

had to be a writer to be prepared to put your life into a sort of

suss expense, while the story of what would happen, had its way with

you. I didn't give a figure for happiness. I was after bigger,

dirtier fish. The truth is this. I do not believe there is or has been

a writer alive that doesn't somewhere in his soul wonder if he

is any good or she is any good or not. It is like being Usain Bolt,

it can't be measured or proved, you never know, so I think, anything

that feels like a confirmation, of something that you hope might be

the case, that you are all right, that you can do it, that you

haven't been fooling yourself, comes as a huge relief. You were

runing in the right race. And not just running, you were winning it.

Well that's the most erotic use of lost property I've seen. Afternoon

Mam. I think she lost a hip there.

the Edinburgh Festival showcases the finest singers, we think the

one to watch is Iestyn Davies. Clemency Burton-Hill went to talk

The rock stars of the opera and classical world are the tenors, the

lovers and heroes, famed and adored for the power of their top note,

the sensational high C. But what about a beautiful male

voice that can go even higher than the high C?

Some think of it as surprising, unnerveing and confusing but often

other worldly the distinctive voice of the countertenor. Resonateing as

one of the world's young counter tenors is the Iestyn Davies and

lucky me, I get to hang out with I know auf glamorous life as an

opera singer, so I thought I would take you to the finest gastronomic

experience. What are you having? Scam by and chips. Kech

championship I loathe that. Do you ever find people are surprised and

shocked when they hear you sing? Well there's been a couple of

occurrences where there's people not expecting to hear a man sing in

this way. They see the face, they see your

beard or whatever, standing there, and then you have this other

worldly sound coming out of you, so they're thrown by it. Give us the

basics, what is a countertenor? is a name given to a male singer

who uses their fall sella range, it is the sound you would hear, if you

were listening to the Bee Gees. for example I took these chips and

they say represented, the sorrowcal chords, very bad greasy chords,

when a normal singing voice, active vaits and vibrate to a different

fashion, and part of the vocal folds vibrate, I could give you the

impression if I was talking now, and then I want to talk like that,

that's fall seta. And it is much harder when you've eaten chips. So

is that the same, we hear about the castrato? The castrati, were

popular in the 18th century. The thing about them, was they had be

castrated, so this had happened. The end of the puberty, they

preserveed their treble voice and ended up having a power of a tenor,

Pavarotti power, but with the straipg other worldly voice.

castrati were the world's first superstars, and had a remarkable

effect on the female audience as explored about the most famous bun,

Yael Farber. You haven't had to go through?

seta is a completely different skill, the repertoire they sang now

The international festival careies on throughout the weekend and end

with a spectacular concert on Sunday. Octopus, limbed becameer

head, Russell Kane is doing the double. He is at the book festival,

discussion the humanist, I waited with a large net outside a book

store with him and I caught him. few of my men are having to have

sprogs, it scares me the level of love, that some of you men feel,

there's a violence I don't understand. When I look at my buoy,

I never fucking felt anything like it in my life, if anyone looked at

him I would fucking, if the nurse looked at him, I stabbed her in the

fucking face, I weren't having it. Rustle, your CV has got august, not

amazing comedy, but you're author, with a capital A, tell bus the

book? It is about Benjamin White, he has humour, he can perceive it,

but he is not butt it emotional. He discovers humour so pure it can

kill. The main character is devoid of empathy, and he happens to be a

critic. He actually, started from, when I started comedy, to me, I was

going, leaving work and thinking, I have to do comedy, I'm so lucky,

there was miserable people with note boot, which weirdly had a

person nationality transplant when think got on stage, so critic,

clinically outside the very thing which is the connoisseur, that's

how it started. I'm not cold just locked in "like jokes that misfire,

even though their construction is perfect. Thiss puzzle, even me for

a moment at least. The circus gag, flawless in the make-up, tonely

hond, with a rightful inflection to a room full of people, yet it falls

flat, they cannot ethe knots and strands around the idea, how it

looks on to the mood and matter on the room, its shape and light, no

joke is perfect you see, environment shapes even plaitium

material." What's your experience of critical? I've never really got

like a panic. There's a couple of guys, that don't get what do I, and

I get swipey, three star stuff, but I've been lucky. That's not fair,

some children just refuse to eat, bollocks. If he saw spin yach, he

would fall. Funny how this diet is not a Somalia. Talk about the

festival this year, your show, you always like themes, this is I love

the theme this, is about fatherhood, you coming of age. At least in your

imagination? Absolutely. That is the one playful thing do I with

critics, you have to spot where they come from, but the show title

is come from a negative mark within a review. This year, I wanted to

talk about having kids, but someone said he has nice material but a lot

is a posturing delivery. Brilliant, it's a pun on posturing, as

positying, hypothetical delivery, all the words were packed in

posturing delivery, and we were off. You want to experience everything,

when you fantasies everything, I would love one, I want to

experience everything, emotionally that a father would experience, I

want a boy, girl and bay... I would be one of the few fathers, I want

to tell you, papya, come in, oh I'm so excited...

Glitter canyons going off. I know, You can check out rustle on tour

from October, and on BBC Three tomorrow night. A most striking

displace of the Edinburgh fest rational is diaries of Dieter Roth.

Roth was one. First artist toss really explores the idea of life in

his art and suck suck suck went to devil in his world. That's Michael

Anglo, it is for kitty, who simply won't wear a cardigan, likes to

You know how people don't like contemporary art, complain it is a

pile of rubbish, today I'm to see a man who helped embed that idea, by

transforming one of the stuff our This is a work called Flat Waste,

and by the Swiss-German artist, Dieter Roth. It looks like an

important archive, but these hundreds of folders aren't filled

with precious document, instead they contain personal waste collect

of a course of a year in the mid-7 0s, by the artist, some of the

trash is disgusting. My first impression, flicking through this,

is a madness at work here. Because, Roth collected all manner of

pointless things, stubed out fag butts, coffee cup lids, old

crumbleed beer mats and razor blade which has stuff in the mettle Then

you have things like, what is that, it is like a piece of an envelope,

which is a tiny scrap of paper. There's no reason why this should

be preserveed, you'd think. When these are confronted with scraps of

life, makes you piece together. I feel like I'm in a episode of CSI,

you have to piece the story, of Dieter Roth's life. Dieter Roth was

born in 1930. He trained as a commercial artist, but when he came

into contact with modernism and constructiveism, the idea of art

that could bring about social change transformed his outlook. He

is mostly famous for the avant- garde work, when he created work

using organic material, such as cheese, chocolate and rabbit

dropings, and Flat Waste, constain some strange materials as well.

Well, here, look at this, by the looks of things it is a scrum

pelled up tissue, which spots of blood, or a bit like ear wax.

Initially it would be easy to dismiss this, and say, well, here

we have the outpowerings of detraipged hoarder, but actually, I

think there's a deep thinking artistic intelligence, motivating

his work, because Flat Waste belongs to a long tradition within

the tradition of art, which is self-portrait. A portrait of the

artist created by the rubbish and waste that he's left behind. The

show here at the fruit market is called Dieter Roth: Diaries and

appropriately enough we have a table load of the things. But the

ultimate example of him recording his day to day activities isn't

This is a quite extraordinary work, when you think about its context,

it is called Solo Scenes and consists of 128 screens, set across

three banks, and in each one, we see the artist, in his various

studios around the world, going about his day to day business, in

the final year of his life. He knew he had a heart condition. His

doctors had told him he need to have an operation, he refused to

have the operation. He didn't want to have it. So you see here, a man,

an old man, infirmed man, a weak man, confronting his own mortality.

His son and long time collaboratetor, is now the

custodian of his falter's work. always found it interesting, and

typical for him, this discipline to do that. Because, he had, he didn't

like his figure, he didn't like how he looked, how sick he looked and

fat and old and all that. But somehow he had the courage to just

do that. There, he has his head in his hands, here he's having trouble

breathing. And he is waiting for the pain to pass. Often we see him

in very unflattering situations, well there, he's sitting on the

toilet. Yeah, but that's a visual, real diary, his daily life, and it

is what it is. When you see this work realised in the gallery, how

do you feel? He's so close? years after he died, he died, I

installed it three or four times in different place, I never could look

at t but slowly I'm able to look at it. When you feel, what do you feel