Review – The Thinking Drinker’s Guide to Alcohol, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh Fringe

There are no prizes for guessing what attracted Phil to The Thinking Drinker’s Guide to Alcohol. It certainly wasn’t the thinking.

Could it have been something in the show’s publicity: “There are going to be free drinks. They’ll be delicious drinks too”? Yes, yet another show which does exactly what it does on the tin.

In this case the tin was a can of Deuchars which just happens to be Phil’s ale of choice, handed out before the show even started. Ah if only London’s glittering West End were thus.

Review – The Boy With Tape On His Face, Pleasance Courtyard

Mime?

Have the Whingers lost their minds?

Is Edinburgh a portal into a strange parallel universe that will see them embrace sung-through-musicals, on stage park benches and balloons-as-metaphors too?

The Boy With Tape On His Face is yet another show that sets out its stall in the clearest of manners.

On stage is a boy who indeed has a piece of gaffer tape stuck across his mouth. So he can’t speak, so, yes, this indeed technically a mime show; “the boy” even wears a stripey T shirt under his jacket.

Yet instead of the usual walking into a strong wind or trapped in a small box kind of mime this is a highly interactive show in which the boy wordlessly persuades audience members to perform all kinds of comedy turns on his behalf.

It feels highly original, is wildly funny and seems like a rather risky venture, relying as it does on the ability of audience members to cotton on to what’s being asked of them.

Sit on an aisle or the front row if you’re brave and you’ll probably end up in the show. The Whingers were over-looked on this occasion but we were due a night off from doing other people’s shows for them. Seek him out: www.theboywithtapeonhisface.com

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Review – Potted Potter: The Unauthorised Harry Experience – A Parody by Dan and Jeff, Pleasance Courtyard Theatre, Edindurgh Fringe

Try, if you please, to picture this improbable scenario.

A hot auditorium that accommodates (we would say seats – but more of that later) 750 people packed to the rafters 95% of the crowd is made up by families with children presumably tripping on “E” numbers, toddlers and babies that are just starting to crawl.

CBBC’s Dan and Jeff are the only thing that will keep them vaguely quiet by ripping through all seven Harry Potter books in 70 minutes. Yet in the midst of this sit the Whingers (who have heard of the books and the films) smiling beatifically and (almost) oblivious to the mayhem that surrounds them. Yes, quite impossible to imagine isn’t it?

Review, Cul-De-Sac, Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh Fringe

Nothing to do with Roman Polanski’s film of the same name, but plucked by the Whingers from the telephone directory-sized Fringe brochure just because we felt it sounded “very us”.

Billed as “this brilliant spin on Stepford Wives is an irresistibly twisted tale of ordinary men, women, and their dogs”, happily Matthew Osborn’s Cul-De-Sac proved to be thus.

The less you know about the goings on in this “dark, tweeting suburban underworld” the more you’ll enjoy it. Without giving too much away it involves trimmed hedges, garden gnomes, barbecues, an ear infection, a very sinister neighbour and a dead dog (cue “Ahhhhs” from some of the audience). Imagine what might have happened if Terry and June had grown up in Psychoville.

The cast, Alan Francis, Toby Longworth and Mike Hayley are all excellent. Mr Hayley, who is taking time out from the terrific Journey’s End at The Duke of York’s Theatre to appear gives a brilliantly convincing, understated performance.

But most importantly there’s plenty of laughs and provided probably the funniest (and surreal) line we’ve heard on the Fringe so far. Out of context it wouldn’t make much sense and we would hate to spoil it anyway.

This is apparently the first play to emerge from the Comedians Theatre Company new writing project Itch: A Scratch Event. We will be watching their progress keenly.

We predict this may turn up at the Soho Theatre. Look out for it.

Right up the Whingers’ own peculiarly twisted cul-de-sacs.

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