Fringe Binge

I've spent the last month and a half bouncing from festival to festival. After arriving back from my month-long stint in Edinburgh at The Fringe, I headed to Electric Picnic for a weekend before starting a job at the Dublin Fringe. I think it's gonna be weird on Sunday when the Dublin Fringe comes to a close and my life returns to some semblance of routined normality.

I've managed to catch a few shows so far. As always with Dublin Fringe, the quality has varied wildly.

The Good:

Cathy Davey's Songs that Scare Children (But in a Very Beautiful Way) - This one-off show was very special and is a serious contender for this year's Fringe Awards (which I'll hopefully get to attend). Lisa Hannigan, David Turpin, Davey herself and a few more peformed tunes ranging from Gilbert & Sullivan and Gershwin to songs from The Night of the Hunter, South Pacific and Hans Christian Andersen, all in an eerie vaudeville way. Just awesome.

Eejit of Love - An Irish musical parodying reality TV shows like X-Factor. Sounds dire, right? Well, that's what I thought but word of mouth was so positive that I decided to check it out on the last night of the run. Granted, the plot was practically non-existent, but the music, punchy lyrics and performances were all worthy of Broadway.

Antics Rogue Show - The premise was kind of 'pimp my art'. Audience members were encouraged to bring along pieces of bad art lyng about their homes so that Will St. Leger, Maser and some more of Dublin's top graffiti artists could stencil, spray and occasionally smash the pieces to transform them into something more aesthetically pleasing. There was a unique experience, made all the better by the refreshingly informal atmosphere and free beer.

La Clique - The flagship show of the Dublin Fringe for the past two years. Tckets for this one-of-a-kind burlesque circus show are €35 but worth every cent.

The Bad:

Those Powerful Machines - There was nothing wrong with the production itself but the script was unspeakably heinous. A cripple who builds sex machines, a nightclub hostess who lost her dreams when someone shoved an action man up her vagina and an Irish terrorist convene in a sparsely-furnished apartment. It's just as good as it sounds.

Twelve Treatises on Memory: An Epistemological Slapstick (With Sock Puppets) - Should be sued by the Advertising Standards Board. There was no slapstick, epistemological or otherwise, and the sock puppets seemed like a hacked-on afterthought intended as a 'get into Fringe' card. This play was like watching a scene from Fair City extended over an hour and twenty minutes.

The Mediocre:

Appointment in Limbo - I expected more from Patrick McCabe, writer of 'The Butcher Boy' and 'Breakfast in Pluto'. This was just ninety minutes of melodrama with a horribly clichéd 'it was aaaall a dreeeam... or was it?' ending.

The Silhouette Old Time Mystery Radio Show - Duke Special and friends presented an evening in the style of a 60's radio show. It fell flat in comparison to the show devised by Cathy Davey that had graced the Spiegeltent two nights previously.