I recently returned from my first Edinburgh Fringe, and aside from the hellish cold I caught, I had a fantastic time. Here’s five hits from the 2016 line up.
Author: inkerley
Freelance journalist from Wolverhampton, UK.
Holmes for Rent, Edinburgh Fringe
(Original post at The Boar)
At the Edinburgh Fringe- that great festival into which all the actors and comedians of the world are irresistibly drained- there are more musicals than you could see in a week. Perhaps more surprisingly, there are a great many shows about Sherlock Holmes. Musical Theatre Warwick’s Holmes For Rent, an adaptation of Christian Blex’s German musical Sherlock H., is perhaps the only production that is both.
The Alchemist, Royal Shakespeare Company
Photo by Helen Maybanks.
(Original post at The Boar)
Polly Findlay has staged a raucous, playful production of The Alchemist, Ben Jonson’s esteemed city comedy.
Interview: Rachel Partington
(Original post at The Boar)
I’ll admit it- I’m scared of interviewing Rachel Partington.
A student at Bristol Old Vic theatre school, Partington has written a play about the experiences of an Eritrean refugee she met in the infamous ‘Calais Jungle’. In Still Here, soon to be performed at the Edinburgh Fringe festival, she’s recreated their conversation in the migrant encampment and assumed her role as questioner onstage once more. Imagine my trepidation at this intimidating prospect. How do you interview an interviewer?
Doctor Faustus, Royal Shakespeare Company
Photo by Helen Maybanks
(Original post at The Boar)
Maria Aberg returns to the RSC to direct a lurid, fantastical production of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. By now, most of us know the story – an ambitious scholar makes a fatal deal with Lucifer’s agent Mephistopheles. In exchange, he receives near limitless power, and meets a tragic demise. Aberg’s play is chaotic to watch, yet rarely steps a foot wrong, and left me near breathless at its close.
Continue reading “Doctor Faustus, Royal Shakespeare Company”
Jessica Jones: ‘AKA Take A Bloody Number’
TW: rape
(Original post at The Boar)
This week Jessica Jones slows down enough to let its characters deal with their damaged relationships, and centres itself around the search for forgiveness. None of the characters have a wholly black and white morality, but some feel guiltier about blurring ethical boundaries than others.
Continue reading “Jessica Jones: ‘AKA Take A Bloody Number’”
Jessica Jones: ‘AKA I’ve Got The Blues’
TW: rape
(Original post at The Boar)
So much has happened this week that I can barely fit it in one review. To my immense relief, in AKA I’ve Got The Blues, Jessica and Trish finally found out quite how off the rails Simpson is. Even before he murdered Clemons, Simpson’s behaviour was menacing with Kozlov’s drugs intensifying his hero complex into full-blown homicidal vigilantism.
Jessica Jones: ‘AKA 1,000 Cuts’
TW: rape
(Original post at The Boar)
This week, Jessica Jones treads familiar ground for the superhero genre, and asks what’s the cost of fighting a dangerous criminal. The lives caught in the crossfire become the central focus of AKA 1,000 Cuts, as Jessica’s allies each cause the death of a guiltless bystander.
Things that my latent Catholicism has ruined for me
- Red wine
- Organ music
- Sexual pleasure
- Fondue
- Non-theological interpretations of the first season of Daredevil
- Italian culture
- The colour gold
- Gothic architecture
- Nuns
- 80% of Hozier lyrics
- Paul Bettany
(N.B. I am not a practising Catholic, but as any Catholic knows, this doesn’t matter. If you’re Catholic you STAY THAT WAY, until you DIE like a FILTHY SINNER. Guilt consumes your every waking moment. I have never once felt pleasure without secretly wanting to sit in a dark room and chant myself into forgiveness. I’m off to do my Hail Marys now.)
Jessica Jones: ‘AKA Sin Bin’
TW: rape
(Original post at The Boar)
This week we find Kilgrave in his very own sin bin, a high tech prison made by Simpson complete with electrified water and hermetically sealed walls (I confess I had to google what that meant – airtight, for those who were wondering).
Bethan Ackerley 