Friday, August 17, 2007

The northern hemiblogosphere

Here at TN, we proudly stand at the cutting edge of the art of ugly neologism. I guess it goes with an unfortunate passion for awful puns that used to afflict me when, as a lowly sub-editor, I wrote headlines and captions for our esteemed daily newspapers. (Yes, sometimes it was me! I won the Herald Sun's Headline of the Week competition twice! But enough of unseemly boasting...)

Anyway: our northern brethren (the ones near Iceland) are mostly preoccupied with the Edinburgh Festival, Fringe and Main. (There is some local interest - the main bit is, as you'll recall, currently run by homeboy Jonathan Mills, and the fringe as always attracts local talent. Our man Peter Houghton, who's exported The Pitch to Scotland, seems to be keeping his head up amidst the chaos). How anyone can cover an event that includes more than 2000 acts beats me, but the Guardian is doing its best.

Meanwhile in blogland: Chris Goode at Thompson's Bank, who has brought a couple of projects to Edinburgh (you can hear about them on Theatre Voice here), is keeping a diary - so far, here, here and here. He's had a characteristically innovative idea: "Even though I've been in Edinburgh a week now, why, I can still do the previews I intended to do, but after I've seen the shows instead of before. Wait, wait, don't freak out. I'm sure it's possible. I guess we'll just have to call them something other than previews. It's kind of like, instead of writing before I've viewed the shows -- in a pre-viewing mode, you might say -- I'll be, as it were, going over the shows that I've already viewed: revisiting them, in my mind's eye, if you like, or..."

Dan Bye at Pessimism of the Intellect, Optimism of the Will, who has brought two shows to the fringe, is also logging his experiences, both as artist and audience, and like Mr Goode is complaining about the lack of critical engagement. And Andrew Haydon at Postcards from the Gods has a few previews up as well. I'm sure there's tons more out there, but that should bring you up to speed...

Meanwhile, the US must-read of the week is Qui Nguyen's hilarious and (I hate to use this phrase, it's horrible, but it is) heart-warming post about his family's attitude to his theatrical vocation on his blog Beyond Absurdity.

PS: Statler quite rightly points out that I have neglected the local Edinburgh coverage. He reports: "On Stage Scotland and One4Review have a large number of reviews and I've found both to be fairly reliable. Sadly my own View From The Stalls has only managed 16 reviews so far, but I'd like to think that what it lacks in quantity..."

9 comments:

  1. Well, Edinburgh is exciting and all but the question of the day is: what were those award-winning headlines?!

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  2. Yeah. What were the headlines? ...on an interview with Fidel Castro's daughter- "My father, the original Cuban heel". Apocryphal?

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  3. No doubt out of shame, my mind has sequestered those headlines far far away from any conscious memory. If I ever dream them, I'll let you know...

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  4. Alison, I'm surprised that in your coverage of Edinburgh theatre reviews/blogs you seem to have neglected the 'locals' who have made an incredibly good attempt to make a good size dent in those 2000 shows (or the theatre ones at any rate).

    On Stage Scotland and One4Review have a large number of reviews and I've found both to be fairly reliable. Sadly my own View From The Stalls has only managed 16 reviews so far, but I'd like to think that what it lacks in quantity...

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  5. Reading 'Scotland on Sunday' this morning the feature of the Festival so far seems to be Alan Cumming's buttocks.

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  6. Hi Douglas - lovely to see you here! I actually think the news of the fringe is the Captain Dan the Demon Dwarf who superglued a vacuum cleaner to his manly parts and had to be taken to hospital...

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  7. I am also trying to write up some reviews ... but there is so much to see it is a near impossible task... But an awful lot of fun!

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  8. Just read about the Demon Dwarf incident. How awful! Does anyone know if they were able to save the vacuum cleaner?

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