Fringe Theatre Round-up

This year’s Edinburgh Fringe was a thoroughly eclectic and ever-extravagant festival. From celebrity producers (Emma Thompson, Fair Trade) to celebrity stars (Alan Cumming in I Bought a Blue Car Today or Clarke Peters with Five Guys Named Moe) and a host of other well-known faces, this annual invasion of arts fans and performers was the biggest yet, boasting an amazing 2,453 shows across 259 venues.

Unlike previous years, the 2010 Fringe sought to recapture the Scottish aspects of the world's biggest art festival, with the NTS presenting two new pieces of work. One of these, Beautiful Burnout (a co-production with Frantic Assembly), challenged our perceptions of boxing whilst showcasing stunning choreography and realistic fight sequences. Another Scottish highlight came with the return of one of the success stories of the 2000 Fringe, Grid Iron’s award-winning coming of age drama Decky Does a Bronco. My attempt to see the show on the final night was rained off, so my experience of Decky was standing in the rain surrounded by moaning old people, but it's memories like this that make the Fringe what it is, and even the grumpiest of OAPs can appreciate that sentiment.

Continuing the theme of returning shows was Whitebone Productions’ Bane, a truly original one-man film noir parody with live music. A sellout show in 2009, the aptly-titled sequel, Bane 2, made its Fringe premiere alongside its predecessor last month, and proved a fitting successor to the cult hit. Coming together for one night only, Club Noir and Scottish Opera’s A Night at the Opera was a dastardly decadent helping of vaudeville titillation and operatic performance. The two genres blended perfectly together to create an exceptional show that surpassed the other burlesque offerings that were available throughout the city in August.