Mouse's Fringe Review Part 1 - 'Fringe Mouse'

This year, I'm going to more Fringe shows than any other year. I don't know if there's better shows (or better suited to me, anyway) but I've found far more to see this time. I didn't manage to get tickets to Bill Bailey's new show, Steampunk, which was rather disappointing, but we've seen - or have got tickets for - five shows so far.

Saturday 12th
So, we started by going with Boo and Matt to see a play called 'Dark North', about a psychic. It wasn't bad, although it got very hammy in parts. There were points where I was laughing but I wasn't sure whether they meant it to be funny or not, which made me feel a bit awkward. My two favourite parts were at the start, when the psychic came onto the darkened stage area and stubbed his toe on the only piece of scenery they had, and the bit where the psychic got beaten up and Boo went 'Yay!' All in all, it was ok, but I'm glad it only cost £10 for the two of us - if it had cost much more I'd have felt slightly miffed.

Sunday 13th
Today was Fringe Sunday, when there is a large selection of performers from various Fringe shows doing snippets of their shows in the Meadows (a large park-type area). There were tents for comedy, music, cabaret, etc as well as lots of the street performers doing their shows and some stalls. I found the stall run by 'very nice Australians' where Boo bought her ammonite ring. I succumbed to temptation and spent some leftover birthday money on a ring with an iron pyrite ammonite in it. Boo's right, they are very nice Australians.
We watched the Space Cowboy, who did sword-swallowing, and blindfold juggling with sharp/burning things atop a three-metre high unicycle. I was very impressed.
We then saw 'Arizona Jones', supposedly Indiana Jones's cousin... He was climbing up a four and a half metre high pole to balance at the top and crack a burning bullwhip enough to put the flames out. I liked him too. I would really, there was fire involved.
There was also a man called something like Steve Mischief (which is a crap name) who was lying on a bed of nails, and standing on it while juggling. He was fairly impressive.
Chris especially liked a group called the Trans World Orchestra who consisted of one bloke with a drumkit and one with a didgeridoo playing techno-ish music. He went to see them later that night, but there was a lot more guitar and singing, and that made it lose a lot of its appeal for him.

After dinner at Boo's, we all went to see the Nofit State Circus show, ImMortal. I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this. I decided to go based on their float in the Festival Cavalcade, which had a woman doing somersaults in midair, and their name, which made me nearly piss myself laughing when I first saw it.
The show was amazing. There was a storyline, but I wasn't really following it because I was too busy staring at the acrobats and going 'oooooh!' They were doing all kinds of trapeze work, swinging on ropes, bouncing on giant elastic bands... A lot of it was done along with the performer being raised and lowered by another member of the cast acting as a counterbalance. I absolutely loved the whole thing, and I was sorry when the show finished.
On the way out, we got talking to one of the performers, and it was really interesting to find out more about the behind-the-scenes aspect of the show.

Wednesday 16th
Tonight we went to see Adam Hills, one of my favourite comedians. We saw his show two years ago and loved it, so we were very happy to find that he had a new show this year. It was really good - at one point he found a man in the audience who did Scooby Doo impressions (really good ones) and had him doing punchlines etc.


We've got tickets for a few more shows, so there'll be another review after that (Mouse's Fringe Review - The Bitch Is Back! ...or maybe not)