Edinburgh Fringe: First Blood

Well it's here.

The Edinburgh Fringe.

The Edinburgh Festival, the book festival, the politics festival are round the corner.

The Jazz Festival already been and gone.

But through it all - the Fringe. Massive, unprogrammed. Thousands of shows. A monster. It's back.

"Are we going to see anything in the Fringe?" the Geek asked for the umpteenth time, causing me to fling a copy of the Fringe programme at his head. (Pretty dangerous in fact as it is something resembling a telephone directory these days.)

"You choose! I can't choose! I can't bear it. Can't BEAR it! How are you suppose to tell? Every time I find something it's booked up. There's people crawling EVERYWHERE. I'll catch a cold. I'll get claustrophobia. You sort it out!"

I used to be a great fan of the Fringe. It was massive and monstrous but you could always find a gem or two in amongst the mess, and - crucially - it was cheap. Not any more. Now it is quite an undertaking to commit to a show - many upwards of £8. You feel less inclined to just try something out when it is so dear and more cheated and angry when it turns out to be rubbish.

Plus, I've seen so much of it all before. University sketch shows where everyone thinks it's terribly funny to act a bit camp. Endless one-man or one-woman shows where the one man or woman involves puts on hundreds of funny voices and plays a variety of "hilarious" characters without much plot or structure. Off the wall theatre shows, endless versions of the classics done by school groups and community groups and...well just lots of groups really.

"The thing is," I said to the Geek. "I want to see something different. But not the usual kind of different."

(The usual kind of different being the sort of show called things like, "I Stalked Roger Moore" or "The Extremely Hilarious and Edifying Story of a Victorian Explorer and his donkey called Bottom")

"I want nothing with innuendo in the title (that rules out about 80% at a stroke, no physical theatre, no impoverished classics or community group Shakespeares, no sketch-shows, no dance, no stand-up - unless we know its going to be very very good - no one man shows, no famous actors doing snippets of roles they've played before,  no wannabes looking for their own tv show, no angsty young people trying to do something "muscular" and "powerful" (which usually boils down to lots of shouting)...In fact, let's play it safe - let's have no actors at all...But no puppets," I add hastily. "I'm just not in the mood."

"Hmm," said the Geek, uncertainly. "How about this?"

So, here we have it. The ultimate different experience. No actors, no play, no puppets.

Wheels of Life from Sharmanka Travelling Circus at The Theatre Workshop in Edinburgh is half an hour long and not too expensive. We had no idea what to expect as we were handed binoculars at the door.

We saw a scene something like this:

These are "kinemats" or mechanical sculptural machines with cogs and wheels and little figures and strange flying contraptions and humanoid-looking robot-type sculptures and beautiful constructions from singer sewing machines and other devices, covered in animal figures - some funny, some friendly, some grotesque - and people and death figures and sex figures and birds and and and...

It is hard to describe how it works. The audience sits there and the lights come on - highlighting a lone figure on a kinemat - often just a tiny detail. Giving a sense of loneliness and isolation. Then the machine start moving - turning the wheels, ringing bells, twisting around. You watch through your binoculars - a weird and powerful idea in itself - like a voyeur. It makes the experience all the more powerful, detailed and - even though shared - private. Then another light will go on and you will suddenly see the dark underbelly of the scene - a death figure, a frightening creature with a flickering tongue. Music is used to incredible effect - folk music and Bach and jazz - making you think of the history of the twentieth century and all it saw. You think of Hieronymus Bosch. You think of the darkness of fairytales, the dark side of childhood, but you also see the beauty of existence and the fun and the humour. It is a show that is a piece of art because it does what art should do: capture the sense of the complexity, the tragedy and the absurdity of human beings and human society: their loneliness, their need of others, the civilised side, the animal side, their capacity for joy, their capacity for horror. Life and death.

All in all it is a deeply moving show.

 I contacted them over the weekend and asked if I could post some pictures, which make give some sense - though not really - of what I am talking about. They said I could, although I should say that these images are have full copyright reserved. More can be seen on Flickr here. And there is more about the fascinating history of the creator of the "kinemats", Eduard Bersudsky, the creation of the Millenium Clock in Edinburgh and the history of the company, which was founded in St Petersburg, on their website.

If anyone ever has a chance to see this, do go. It is like nothing else.

Comments

[Lisa]

Wow. That is some wonderfully weird show.

[Nik Perring]

That looks tremendous!

Nik

[poppy]

Yes, looks fantastic. Hard to be original these days, when so much has already been done.
x

[Susan]

Going to see it today! Thanks for the recommendation, Rosy!

[fiona robyn]

Love those photos...