Stoke Newington
A relatively uneventful day yesterday at work was followed by a trip to Ryan's Bar in Stoke Newington to watch a couple of Edinburgh previews. Accompanying me were my friends Joanna and Charlotte, as well as TV's Darren Maskell. With the Edinburgh Festival not starting for another three and half months, I was curious to see where these shows were in the development process. Darren revealed that he had seen an unnamed act earlier in the week perform a 20 minute "preview", spending approximately a third of that time telling the audience that it wasn't ready. I feared a similar occurance, but both acts made it to the obligatory hour mark.
Holly Burn was first up, in character as a hyperactive Geordie teenager. The conceit, such as it was, seemed to be that Holly had rescued the girl from her squalid Newcastle life to put her on the road to showbusiness stardom. How much you enjoyed this depended on your penchant/tolerance for screeching voices, overacting, strange props and peculiar use of audience participation. I'll admit that it wasn't quite my thing. But as Joanna noted, I am something of a purist.
The purist in me had more cause for cheer when Matthew Crosby ended the evening. This was only the second time I'd seen Crosby do stand up, having been far more familiar with his work with the sketch giants Pappy's. What followed was an easygoing, enjoyable 60 minutes, touching amusingly upon Putin themed t-shirts, Niketown and generally coming to terms with being a 35 year old, sort of Jewish looking man who is baffled by the world. Crosby is also a far better ventriloquist than I would expect. He seemed to have most of the material of the show already in place and it's a case now of structure. I'm confident it will be well worth a look come Edinburgh.
Holly Burn was first up, in character as a hyperactive Geordie teenager. The conceit, such as it was, seemed to be that Holly had rescued the girl from her squalid Newcastle life to put her on the road to showbusiness stardom. How much you enjoyed this depended on your penchant/tolerance for screeching voices, overacting, strange props and peculiar use of audience participation. I'll admit that it wasn't quite my thing. But as Joanna noted, I am something of a purist.
The purist in me had more cause for cheer when Matthew Crosby ended the evening. This was only the second time I'd seen Crosby do stand up, having been far more familiar with his work with the sketch giants Pappy's. What followed was an easygoing, enjoyable 60 minutes, touching amusingly upon Putin themed t-shirts, Niketown and generally coming to terms with being a 35 year old, sort of Jewish looking man who is baffled by the world. Crosby is also a far better ventriloquist than I would expect. He seemed to have most of the material of the show already in place and it's a case now of structure. I'm confident it will be well worth a look come Edinburgh.
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