Loserville does Edinburgh 2010 – UPDATE: Our Poster Boy Bo Burnham is Nominated for Best Comedy Show! GO BO!

Upon arriving in Edinburgh on Monday morning via the lovely British Airways (thanks for the 2 glasses of wine, biscuits and 6 free newspapers, F*CK YOU EASYJET.) we didn’t have much hope for the Edinburgh Festivals(the biggest festivals of performing arts in the world). And yet we’re so easily proved wrong, here’s how.

ps. unlike usual reviewers, which we are not! we acknowledge the following is just our opinion based on our experience and has been edited to what we like to call MINIPINIONS…rather than reviews. Although we still give star ratings coz we like em innit.

Favourite Show of the Festival:

*****Primadoona

Beautiful show, encompassing her wild physical sketch comedy style with deep and poignant anecdotes from the shitty last 3 years of her life including her son’s ordeal with Leukaemia and her marriage breakdown. The hubris within the show along with her hilarious comedy style made this show truly marvellous from start to finish.

What we creamed our jeans over (GOOD):

*****@virtuallyreal, Roundhouse Theatre Company at Assembly

We had our preconceptions about this show as we read The Stage review and it wasn’t too great. However we loved it, touching, funny sincere and cleverly staged to describe perfectly the state of our times through social networking about serious issues such as suicide and relationships with fresh eyes and an incredibly talented cast. Captivating.

****Jennifer Coolidge

Ok we didn’t actually see this show, but we did meet the lovely Stifler’s Mom in the street, she was so lovely! She said in her incredibly humble tone when we asked her about the 5 star review she had got from the Scotsman that day: “One person’s five star review is another person’s one star review”…so in love with her right now!

****The Role of the Critic, Masterclass at Pleasance Courtyard

Hehe this is a turn up for the books, we’re reviewing the critics, lol! Michael Coveney (Whats on Stage), Kate Copstick (Scotsman), Lyn Gardner (Guardian) & Matt Trueman (some blogger we’d never heard of). They explained the joys of reviewing in Edinburgh including: the amount of shows they have to see, and the snobbish way they go about it (hehe not really they were all very humble and exalted the joys of the fringe). The best bit was when Matt Trueman (Who?) said he didn’t know why people did the fringe and all the others including darling Lynnie from the grauniad laid into him in a glorious bout of fisticuffs. Bravo you w*nkers.

****Frank Chickens, Franz Ferdinand & Stewart Lee in Stewbilee, Festival Theatre

We got randomly texted by our friend Yoko who’s in the Frank Chickens and told us they we’re doing a massive gig at the 1500 seater Festival Theatre as part of Stewart Lee’s Stewbilee. They were so ace with their epic dance routines and cheeky comedy, Stewart Lee was ok (not sure how good he works in a this big non-intimate venue though) and Franz Ferdinand performed. But FRANK CHICKENS performance was definitely the highlight particularly their unbelievably catchy one hit wonder ‘We Are Ninja’ in the video to the left. Teenagers who had never heard of FC came out declaring their love for them. Amazing!

****Hedwig and the Angry Inch, SJC Productions at C Plaza

We love the film and the live experience can be so good, we were apprehensive but this production was unbelievably brilliant the lead carrying the responsibility for the gender defying Hedwig (if you don’t know the story its a tranny rock musical about a german boy who is convinced to get a sex change but it goes wrong and he ends up in some trailer trash town in America with nothing, starts a band and rocks the world) was out of this world. We ended up thinking the show was so much better than the film…move over John Cameron Mitchell there’s a new (and better) Hedwig.

****Just the Tonic Presents: Jack Whitehall and Friends, Just the Tonic @the Caves

We definitely agree with the press that JW does have a silver spoon in his mouth and his comedy is infiltrated by this slight camp toffishness. However he’s beautiful….lly rude and was pissed as f*ck when he came on, so we love him. Also featuring was Bo Burnham, musical comedy genius not from Canada (he’s from Boston according to a comment below), he was so ahead of his time deconstructing showbiz perfectly check him out here.

***John Tiffany (Director for Black Watch & National Theatre of Scotland), Masterclass at Pleasance Courtyard

Lovely director, very inspiring talk about challenging the system being a rebel and conquering the world. Ta very much John.

Not really worth writing about but we thought we would anyway (INDIFFERENT):

**Smoke and Mirrors, from the director of La Clique, Spiegel Garden

Very nice production values, but none of the real excitement of La Clique the original cabaret spectacular.

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***Love Lace: a Rock Musical, Udderbelly

A very professional production hailing from Broadway describing vividly the horror and joys of Linda Lovelace the star of the 70s porn film Deep Throat. It was brilliant in a lot of ways but there was next to no dialogue just singing making this more of a rock opera and was slightly too long.

***Teenage Riot, Ontroerend Goed, Kopergietery, Drum Theatre Plymouth, Richard Jordan Productions Ltd Traverse

Ok but very similar to their last show, basically slut teenagers trapped in a box for an hour, it made us feel a bit like paedophiles. Nice music though.

**Saucy Jack and the Space Vixens, Unlucky Theatre Company at C Too

We love this space themed super camp musical but there was something missing. We don’t know what.

What we thought was a bunch of pretentious sh*te (BAD):

*Soap, Assembly at Assembly Hall

Soap was basically a whole circus of hotties in bathtubs, good premise slightly lazily executed. However they made us rediscover the great song Splish Splash.

*Scottish Food, Everywhere in Scotland

Ok this is strictly not a show but Scottish food is diabolically awful leaving us with constipation for much of our stay.

*Assembly Press Office, Assembly

Ok we love Assembly, it’s the loveliest venue on the fringe with the best shows but they didn’t give us tickets to Jennifer Coolidge, so we are forging a loser battle. Just kidding we like rejection, it brings home the true philosophy of Loserville.