My first couple of days have been a bit of a blur in some ways (see previous post for the inadequacies of the old streets here and production stories) but to not sample the range of things going on - assuming the Festival has a quasi-religious status - is a little bit of a sin. Here’s a round-up of the comedians and shows I’ve seen so far:

Steve Williams -
Underbelly
This hotly-tipped Welsh comic is apparently one to watch, if you believe the promoters. He has secured a spot on the coveted “Beyond the Fringe” one-off show towards the end of the month, which has launched many well-known names in the past. His performance, however, left me wishing that I knew the guy as a friend rather than having seen him on stage. A moderately-responsive audience rightly laughed along heartily with his set-pieces, and it was evident that he could write good material, but whenever he went off-topic, he struggled to engage. The exception to this was when, unprompted, and with a sense of comic timing to rival the Fringe’s best, a cymbal was dislodged from its backstage mooring and swung onstage, much to everyone’s surprise. Here, Williams showed his adaptability, and improvised perhaps the most rewarding few minute of his show. Overall, his genial demeanour forces you to forgive his lapses and wish him well, but his jokes need slicker transitions to push him into the front rank of comedians here.

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Hello there again. I have now been in Scotland’s fair capital for two days, and have seen my first few shows. Fringe regulars frequently talk about the beginning of the second week being a traditional lull in proceedings, and that’s definitely been the case since Sunday. A lot of shows take a night off on the Monday or Tuesday of week two, and the heavy party-goers can be seen retiring early after a tough weekend, to rest up for the late nights ahead.

Monday was also our opening night, and was always going to be a busy day for our production. I had to drive the set and props across town from our East End flat to the venue, Sweet ECA, tucked in amongst roadworks and one-way streets. It’s definitely not advisable to take a car to get to anywhere in the Old Town at any time unless you have a secured parking space, but the fact that this was rush hour served to make the trip one of epic proportions.

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I was lamenting my absence from Edinburgh this year in somewhat negative terms, omitting to mention how much I miss having lunch with Iain Crawford in the Scottish Arts Club, or bumping into Jim Haynes, or relishing the absolute highlight of any festival — the morning chamber concerts in the Queen’s Hall.

The upshot was a spur to catch the Anthony Gormley exhibition at the Hayward before it closes this coming Sunday; be there, or be square, or rather be a white cube.

You’ve seen all those male lifesize figures on top of the Shell Building, the Festival Hall, the National, all the nearby bridges and walkways; they only make sense when you penetrate the gallery itself.

Never was that brutalist, unlovely concrete place made more beautiful. The Gormley body shapes form painfully contorted caryatids clinging to walls, transform themselves into concrete slabs, like a high rise city scape version of the terra cotta army, or dangle perilously from the inner staircases.

The non-human installations include a fantastic, floating steel plate space station, and a room rendered porous like a colander stuck with endoscopic tubes you can look through either inside or outside the structure.

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Feeling slightly odd about not being Edinburgh for the first time in many years. It all seems so far away and remote when you read accounts of brilliant comedians you’ve never heard of and four star reviews of shows that sound terrible.

I always felt that nothing on the fringe ever matched anything on the international programme anyway, and the same sounds true this year. Can’t wait to see Alan Cumming in the NTS’s The Bacchae when it arrives in Hammersmith next month.

So what do I miss about the festival? Friends, meals and the art exhibitions, mostly. Walking across the North Bridge, or by the Waters of Leith, or to the top of Arthur’s Seat.

One year my scribbling friend Carol Sarler decided that the margarita machine in the Assembly Rooms star bar was not potent enough. She insisted we all doubled up on the tequila shots.

We did so and tottered off, in a swaying phalanx, to see Arthur Smith do some silly show on a putting green somewhere. We applauded wildly whenever he hit the ball and he applauded wildly whenever one of us stood up straight.

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The Broadway actor John Lithgow is surprise, not to say “what the hell is going on here” casting for Malvolio in the upcoming RSC Twelfth Night at Stratford, but at least he seems to qualify on one count: an interest in cricket.

Lithgow was a genial lunchtime guest on BBC Radio’s Test Match Special today and evinced a burgeoning familiarity with the game partly encouraged, apparently, by his fellow RSC cast member Barnaby Power.

The RSC obviously has a direct line to the TMS cubby hole: RSC governor Michael Wood, the television historian, was another guest on the programme over the weekend.

Wood wittered pleasantly on about his forthcoming television series about India. Lithgow talked about the difference between cricket and baseball. What neither of them did was put in any sort of plug for the RSC, which seemed a bit of a shame; or mention the cricket connection with the company.

The old actor manager Frank Benson used to cast all his pre-RSC Shakespeare productions at Stratford on the basis of an actor’s ability on the cricket square. In the 1960s, Peggy Ashcroft, an ardent cricket fan, used to take an active interest in the RSC team’s fortunes.

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I was making my way in a reasonably orderly fashion towards the first night opening of Grease at the Piccadilly Theatre, m’lud, when I found my progress obstructed by a member of the local constabulary. “You can’t go there, sonny” he said with a degree of what I took to be smug satisfaction, “not until I get the all-clear from my superior officer.”

This, I have to confess, was a “first” in all my days and nights of theatre-going. Since when, and indeed why, has Her Majesty’s police force been deployed to regulate the ebb and flow of a first night crowd? Doesn’t the Ambassador Theatre Group have a front of house team, or a few flunkeys in red tailcoats they might have borrrowed from the Really Useful Group?

I was pressed unceremoniously against a milling crowd of plump girls in skimpy skirts and pink Grease boleros — a not wholly unpleasant experience, I readily admit — while Mr Plod pursued his duty with a cold stare and a firm wrist.

And then it happened. The reason for the excitement and the hubbub was that no less an exalted figure in public life than the disgraced politician and popular novelist Jeffrey Archer was signing autographs. And not only that: his “fragrant” wife Mary Archer was also signing autographs. And then again, not even just that: the Archers, having signed merrily away for several minutes, turned to the crowd on the other side of the street — and waved at them!

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The Mission:
To spend two weeks working undecover at the largest arts festival in the world, bringing back the news, reviews, and behind-the-scenes gossip from all things fringe. Simultaneously, to mount and produce a show of his own for the first time in the harsh Edinburgh environment. All of this whilst being hounded by government agents from a corrupt South American regime, for crimes too sensitive to be specified.

The Man:
Stuart Denison, 21 - Student, journalist, general layabout.
By day, he’s just another up-and-coming young dramaturg, but at night (and during the rest of the day once the performance is over…) he morphs into a guerrilla reporter, roving amongst the shadowy streets and the equally shadowy back rows of theatres - wherever it takes to hunt down the story. At other times he can usually be found philosophizing over cups of black coffee (am) or chai (pm).

The Blog:
This is what you are reading. Here, Stuart’s experiences, stories, rants and maybe even reviews will be recorded, to give you a taste of a true Fringeburghian odyssey. An Edinburgh veteran of two years now, he encourages anyone and everyone to get involved, and to journey up to Scotland this August. Any comments, tips, letters, haikus or simply meaningless combinations of keystrokes typed at random should be addressed to stuart@whatsonstage.com, where they will be dealt with accordingly.

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So the deadline has passed and we are very excited after being inundated with a huge number of new, original works.

We have been very encouraged by the response to the 2007 event and hope to have the works chosen
and the scheduling released within the next couple of weeks. With “Whatonstage” supporting us as media partner
and the winner of “Best new musical” at the MTM:UK Musical Theatre Awards at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival being given the final spot on the schedule, we know that this year is going to be a much bigger and more recognized event than the
original.

Its going to be a hectic few months for all concerned. Thanks for all the submissions and all the support.

We shall keep you all updated as soon as we have confirmed shows and watch this space and the WOS main site for fantastic ticket deals.

Perfect Pitch

Monday 6th August marked our outing to the Open Air theatre to catch Gershwins’ musical, Lady, Be Good!

After pitter-patters of rain in the morning and a few spells again in the afternoon - I am sure everybody like WOS, was praying to Gershwin for it not to rain! It seems those prayers worked as the evening turned into a very pleasent one indeed.

Many picniced in the park or in our exclusive corner off lawn and private bar area before the performance started. With everyone in high spirits, I think its safe to say the majority were fascinated with the rhythm of Gershwin’s winner, Lady, Be Good with many coming back to our lovely area in the interval toe-tapping and humming

A wonderful summers night indeed and to top it off at the end we had a chance to meet the cast and chat with them that many took advantage of.

See you again for the next outing soon,

Ryan Woods - Sales & Editorials

A rather silly piece in The Times yesterday amounted to an accusation of cowardice masquerading as an interview with David Ian, whose production of Grease opens tomorrow at the Piccadilly Theatre.

The idea that commercial producers like Ian, who also chairs the global theatre arm of the US-based Live Nation company, are not doing enough to make the West End a vibrant, thrusting powerhouse of new work and great new musicals is patently absurd.

Ian isn’t Charles B Cochran, or Cameron Mackintosh (who, God knows, has tried hard enough to get new musicals going in the West End) or even younger operators like Edward Snape or Richard Jordan with one eye on the new main chance.

He’s Mr Mainstream Middlebrow personified, with a knowledge of rock musicals and an instinct for second guessing what the public wants. It’s not his fault that he’s not Dominick Cooke with bells on. He’s a smooth commercial operator.

So, where are the visionary producers the Times chap — he’s Brian Logan, who is also an actor and director, apparently; where’s his contribution to the West End renaissance, I wonder — craves? Probably still stuck in second grade at “visionary producers” school somewhere along the M25 at the Howard Panter Technical College of West End Excellence and Better Bar Sales.

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