Fringe benefits

Renata Rubnikowicz goes in search of the good, the bad and the ugly

Edinburgh weather can be atrocious in August but this must surely be the first time in the 50 years of the Fringe that audi- ences have been blown away by a blizzard. Slava Polunin's Snowshow is a delight which delivers drama, comedy and tragedy in its purest forms, reminding a Fringe in danger of being taken over by cynical stand-up comedians where its heart is. Capacity audienCes at the Assembly Rooms are cheering the St Petersburg clown with standing ovations. They leave reluctantly, the glittering snowflakes of his stunning finale drifting from the folds of their cloth- ing.

Bill Bailey, also at the Assembly Rooms, emerged as this year's hot comedy ticket, illustrating the surreal strengths of the best of current stand-up comedians. From key- boards cupped in a giant hand he lampoons music and musicians, taking in a Chauceri- an ditty, a xylophone player reduced to doing background music for children's car- toons and the Doctor Who theme tune reworked by Jacques Brel ('c'est lui, Doc- teur Qui) on the way. I blame Eddie Izzard who started the vogue for performing in French.

But such charm is noteworthy in a genre still rife with young men making jokes about masturbation to beery groups of their male peers in cellar venues with all the atmosphere of a public convenience. You'd do better to make your own amuse- ment with a 'See you, Jimmy' tartan beret, ginger wig attached, available from gift shops at about £2.99.

Louise Rennison, returning to the Fringe after a three-year break, was one of the women challenging the smutty boys at the cutting edge of filth. In her show, Sex — A

Girl's Survival Kit, at the Pleasance, she deftly encourages the audience to share their sex tips and fantasies. Squirming embarrassment quickly gives way to shared hilarity of a curiously innocent kind.

An entirely different one-woman act was Jackie Clune's Showstopper at the Assem- bly Rooms. Sharply acted and cleverly writ- ten by Dan Rebellato, this story of the woman who was a singing stand-in for Audrey Hepburn and went on to a bit-part in The Sound of Music is a mine of Holly- wood gossip.

Those scared of Rennison had plenty to fall back on, especially in the surfeit of shows about dead comedians. Several had been around for years, proving that the Fringe is by no means all about new shows.

In the one-man show Hancock's Last Half Hour at the Cafe Royal Theatre, the grey-faced actor has subsumed his identity so thoroughly in his character that he has left his own name off all the publicity mate- rial. (I think it is Pip Utton.) Of the two shows about the late Kenneth Williams, Think No Evil of Us at St John's Church Hall, David Benson's oblique personal musing about the way his life has been taken over by the Carry On star, is more successful than Kenny Carries On at Diverse Attractions, which concentrates on the last hours of Williams's life. 'Oh, what's the bloody point?' was the last entry in Williams's diary and at times the exhausted Fringer is tempted to agree.

Usually a most efficient organisation, the Assembly Rooms advertised a King Lear as being by the Georgian Film Actors' Studio, when the highly original production was by the Mardjanishvili Academic State Drama Theatre from Tbilisi. The error was com- pounded at one performance by a dearth of synopses, leaving some of the audience confused as to whether Cordelia really was playing the Fool. No wonder the fine lead actor, Otar Megvinetuhutsesi, sat in the Assembly bar looking more dejected than the Lear he played — who at least rejoiced in a happy ending (I said it was original).

The Traverse maintained its reputation for exceptional drama with a hypnotic, sub- tle and powerfully acted Judith by Howard Barker with The Wrestling School. My companion, who knows about these things, informed me that The Fever by Wallace Shawn — he of the much-talked-about The Designated Mourner at the National The- atre earlier this year — is a masterful expo- sition of the Marxist ideas of commodity fetishism and alienated labour. No matter. It is the performance of Clare Coulter as a rich North American racked with worry about the plight of the poor that rivets the attention for the full 90 minutes.

The Traverse is such a smart and com- fortable theatre it hardly seems to belong on the Fringe, yet there are gems in more ramshackle venues, too. Livestock's Ryder at the Pleasance Attic intrigues from the first as the cast appear in witty costumes by Sandra Howgate emphasising the sexual characteristics that are the motor of the piece. Strong ensemble playing and a mar- vellous text (from the Djuna Barnes novel) lift the piece out of the run of physical the- atre.

After a few days in hot, stuffy, darkened spaces, even the most dedicated Fringer yearns for a change. As ever, the Fringe can provide. Food — in the form of coffee and iced buns — is free for those who get up early enough to stagger to Continental Brechfest's Paper Cuts at the Gilded Bal- loon, a professional but too densely punned satire on the tabloids.

Passive exercise is available later in the day at the same venue with Lady Macbeth Finned My Buttocks, a hugely enjoyable skit on what happens when a `serious' actress brings a show to Edinburgh only to find she is sharing a space with an aggressive aero- bics teacher. The step version of `When shall we three meet again' is one I shall remember for a long time.

Those who didn't manage to climb up Arthur's Seat (just why did Fringe icon Arthur Smith cancel this year?) at the end of the first week on Fringe Sunday could make for Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Gar- den where incense threaded the fresh air during Plant Hunter — The Tibetan Jour- neys of Joseph Rock. The lion dancing was exceptional, the venue the best on the Fringe. Where else could the view of the castle stand in for Lhasa's Potala Palace? Yet does a Western audience really need a White Rabbit to lead it through the Tibetan Book of the Dead? Nevertheless, the spell of the Himalayas fell over a magical place and enchanted the promenaders.

When all fails and even discussion of `why is there such a lack of good new plays' palls, Fringers go for fun. Cafe Graffiti, an amiable venue on the corner of Broughton Street, endeared because of its table lamps made out of yellow plastic ducks and the residency it gave to Kenny Young and the Eggplants, a trio from Brooklyn who think nothing of destroying a plastic 'Child's First Golf Set' by using it as their percussion sec- tion.

But for sublime silliness, Peepolykus in Let the Donkey Go at the Pleasance take the biscuit. You will never look at a packet of Rich Tea in the same way again.

'We shall invade while they're all watching Independence Day.'