The Not Television Festival 2014 (photo by Holly Revell, adjusted by Adrian Kinloch)

The Not Television Festival – this weekend!

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 The Not Television Festival is almost upon us! It doesn’t seem long ago that I was chatting to Francis Alexander, the artistic director of Chelsea Theatre, about the spirit of engagement that underpins Come With Me If You Want To Live, the cabaret night we’ve put on at the theatre twice now. Why couldn’t we […]

Edinburgh Fringe 2014 stars on a poster

Critics are not parents, publicists or parasites. Here’s what we are.

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An overview of some of the misconceptions about the cultural role of critics as expressed in several shows at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe, including The Reviewers, Critical! and No Turn Unstoned by Diana Rigg

Ryan Styles at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club, February 2010

How not to screw up audience participation in a cabaret show

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 The relationship between performer and audience is crucial to cabaret: the form is arguably defined by the lack of a fourth wall and the possibility of unplanned collaborations between those on the stage and those off it. Cabaret doesn’t have a monopoly on such things but it’s the only form where they can be taken […]

Rev BIlly on Princes St in Edinburgh, 17/8/14

Why isn’t today’s cabaret more overtly political?

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 In a post yesterday, I suggested that the direct political engagement with which we still associate Brecht, Weill and Weimar cabaret in general is harder to find on the current cabaret scene, even though we live in a world of war, division, oppression, inequality and exploitation scarcely less outrageous than that of the interwar period. […]

Interview with Alternative Miss World’s Andrew Logan for Run Riot

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 I didn’t know much about Andrew Logan and his Alternative Miss World pageant – except that the current title-holder was that awesome powerhouse of alt burlesque and more, Fancy Chance – until I saw the documentary The British Guide to Showing Off last year. I was pretty awestruck by the sensibility, scale, longevity and accumulated […]

Oozing Gloop, Ute Lemper (photos Ben Walters, Wolfgang Stahr)

Something old, something new: Ute Lemper and Dive’s Super-Fringe Sweep

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 “Come taste the wine, come hear the band!” As Ute Lemper reaches that line in that song (you know the one), she jerks a thumb over her shoulder to indicate ‘the band’ – though it’s a funny way of referring to the 60-odd classically trained musicians of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. But then Friday night’s […]

Cabaret Chinwag at Fringe Central on August 6, 2014: (l-r) Ben Walters, Miss Behave, Miss Hope Springs, the Wau Wau Sisters

Edinburgh Fringe 2014: highlights so far

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 Well, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an internal organ… It’s been a slightly unusual Fringe. I had a week of great shows, lots of work and a little bit of play (less than I’d have liked thanks to those pesky London deadlines that I always promise myself will be cleared before the Fringe […]

 
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