I did not die during Your Days Are Numbered: The Maths of Death, although I had a 0.000043% change of doing so. Any show that has a joke about getting a room in a Hilbert hotel and I are going to get on famously (and conditional probability, footnotes!), plus I got to use a calculator, learn about the Fatal Accidents Act 1976, and witness a shark attack the audience (quite unlikely).
Lunch, then chatting to the cast and crew of Folk Tales Trilogy (see you there tomorrow, guys, I did promise) in the queue for Sticks, stones, broken bones at Underbelly. This was possibly my highlight of the fringe so far (okay, it’s only the third day, but this was already my 12th act), partly due to the fact I was the volunteer brought on stage to have a fight with a Japanese warrior shadow. I believe I acquitted myself okay, including sneaking behind the shadow for a quick back attack, leading Jeff Achtem to say as the shadow couldn’t turn round, neither should I 🙂 Anyway, apart from my Fringe debut, the rest of the show was also excellent, using household implements to create magical shadow characters.
You couldn’t think of much of a bigger switch from Canadian shadow puppetry to Flawless’ “Chase the Dream” at the Udderbelly, but that’s where I was headed next. Very good, as you would expect, group set pieces especially (that might just be me liking a good synchonized dance), and other highlights for me included the Dirty Dancing sequence; the moment where one member obviously became a local centre of gravity and everyone else gravitated towards him seemingly against the flow of their bodies; the slower section with “mirror” dancing (and I think Sara Bareilles’ “Gravity” as accompaniment, not sure); and the lovely ode to House music – “House is a feeling”. [Still incoherent enough for you, Emma?]
Waitrose ice cream van interlude. I’ll never get tired of that.
Over to the Pleasance for the evening, starting with The Penny Dreadfuls performing a back-to-the-roots sketch show – those T-shirts that don’t exist will be in high demand. I remember finding it funny, though I’m struggling to remember many of the sketches now (I do have a very poor memory :-/ ); I more remember the tiny snippet of John Murphy’s wonderfully haunting Sunshine soundtrack [edit: they’ve posted their full soundtrack, which is excellent of them]. Then Shappi Khorsandi: The Moon on a Stick in which she spoke humourously about her divorce, kid and life. [Sorry, but I do need some sleep! It was very good, and deserves more than I’ve given it here.]
Lastly, Russell Kane. My sister was meant to join me for this from Reginald Hunter, but he had overran and so she missed it (managed to switch to Sunday, I believe). I’m not sure whether it was the heat (Pleasance Beyond was getting very hot by the end of the day), the slight annoyance at other overrunning acts, or whether I just didn’t like it, but whereas nearly all the audience seemed to enjoy this show tremendously, I only laughed a couple of times (and even then, the joke I remember was making fun of his girlfriend for the ability to sleep in an upright car seat on the way to Edinburgh). I’m sure one could try and infer something about my relationship with my father, but I think it was more that I just did’t find it very funny, sorry. We’ll see if my sister disagrees on Sunday 🙂
Tomorrow holds the postponed-due-to-free-ness I, Elizabeth, the clash of rollery derby and Simon Callow, the aforementioned Folk Tales Trilogy (or they’ll be upset), and Tripod vs the Dragon. Plus whatever else I sneak in the gaps.
Still delightfully incoherent, yes. 🙂