International Paneling/September 2022
Image by Horster
The Inflation-Fascism Connection?
by Wolf Vest
Baden Baden
Last week, I was BBQing with colleagues from different countries and we began discussing parallels between our current moment and that of Germany in the late 1920s. Trying to look into our crystal balls, we wondered if increased rates of inflation and a rise in authoritarianism are correlated. Basically, when people can’t afford stuff, will they turn to more Nationalistic political figures?
If you look at the last US president’s ongoing, seemingly unstoppably crazy control over an army of pseudo-zombies, as they rustle dangerously in consideration of attacks on the FBI, and then look at upcoming issues tied to inflation, global warming and further financial polarization, you get a pretty scary picture. Basically, a global “end of Weimar--rise of Fascism” situation. The new “brown shirts” are in place. Devoted and dedicated.
Hungary’s current leader’s popularity is also on the rise, just as his seemingly racist messaging is ramping up. This is, of course, is happening on all sorts of levels all over the globe. Look at the abortion issue as it has spread from Poland to the USA. Non-English Oligarchs seem to be in control of London. Whatever China has planned is gaining momentum. Facial recognition and the general surveillance state will figure into some scary scenarios, as well. All of “Digital Life’s” negatives have yet to fully manifest. I just seems like there must eventually be some boundaries on the digital experience. But getting to those boundaries is likely going to have to include experiencing what is beyond. And who is going to decide such stuff? Tricky questions. Difficult scenarios. But I digress.
The past weeks here in Germany have been warm ones and the “hunger stones,” that haven’t been stolen, are once again visible, as the river and lake waters recede. I was told the deepest ones are dated 2018. I have also noted with much disappointment and not much surprise that seemingly more people than ever are choosing to behave badly. Getting weird, maybe a little desperate, adding new levels of willingness to oblige in sleazy, shitty antics. Just as water has receded, so did the veneer of civility. When those we look up to behave badly, it’s now plain to see that those looking up follow their lead. And, I hate to say it, but money and being a VIP shouldn’t be an asshole license. And social media’s marketing mechanisms kind of promote luxury as the pinnacle of what it means to be a person.
So, basically, all the pieces are in place for a savvy fascist to build on what’s there now and what has been.
So, basically, all the pieces are in place for a savvy fascist to build on what’s there now and what has been. Many friends and family have become, via near constant exposure to their digital brethren, push-button soldiers, ready to act when the dog-whistle is heard. The main difference, we concluded, was that a rise in fascism this time around will likely be even more global and efficient than any before. Then I pulled out a bottle of Cremant, we had a toast, and everyone went home.
Shorty of the Month: Matthias Fritsch’s, "Yesterday was a Day of Rumour an Counter Rumour"
Matthias Fritsch is a German artist spending hs time between and Berlin and Athens, Greece—or so they say! Hie “Techno Viking” video was a viral smash some years ago and he is also part of “Moving Silence,” a group supporting contemporary silent short films. His work has been part of the LIGHT YEAR series and this particular piece appeared as part of DIGITAL FAIRY TALES: Vengeance is Mine in April of 2019. A different world, it seems. Yet, "Yesterday was a Day of Rumour an Counter Rumour" is an eerie foreshadowing and a reflection of the man’s eternal relationship with conflict.
Image by Juliane Pieper
POETRY CORNER!
by Caitlin Grace McDonnell
Brooklyn
The Egg
My daughter threw away a dollar bill.
I don’t know if that’s illegal, she said,
but I didn’t want it. A man on the street
had shoved it into her hand, said, you’re cute.
When an egg rots, the skin around
the shell tightens, the yellow darkens.
The scent may make you never want to eat again,
or drink in the scent of others. In the third
trimester, I knew she was too big for me
to push out. I could feel it. She was going
to crack me open. When I was pushing,
my midwife said, She might be a conehead.
But then I breathed everything out and
tore from urethra to anus in one heave.
Big perfect meaty feet. Nothing birdlike.
Not like me. Someone new in the room.
For a few years after, I felt my sex
was all wound. All something broken,
stitched, the smell of pain. I don’t remember
when this shifted. It’s not new again I feel,
but something textured and whole
in its own slanted light.
Image by Tom Rotenberg
Slow Summer and Investing in People
by Mark Bailey
Minneapolis
It's late summer and the world is moving slowly. Here in Minneapolis, we've had little rain and excess heat. Weather like this might represent the new normal. The climate is changing, after all.
The crypto world, too, has been slow, which is normal for the season. My recent writing jobs for the industry have all been small. This month, I wrote Gitbook documentation for a Singapore-based Solana app and put together a few scenarios for the future of EOS, which will appear in the first issue of 'Immutable Realms,' an upcoming EOS zine. The release of 'Sifer Wars,' a major NFT project I worked on last winter, will come out on Polygon September.
Elsewhere in crypto, there are signs that big things are coming this fall. Ripple is hiring new technical writers. So is Terraform Labs, the company behind Terra Luna. Issues with Terra Luna crashed the whole crypto market in May, but Terraform Labs apparently has a plan to reboot. They're looking for writers to document a suite of blockchain apps in a new 'app factory,' which suggests that the Luna tokens in my Terra Station wallet might be worth more than nothing someday.
Lately I've been dreaming about pooling all the intellectual property from my creative endeavors and issuing tokens representing fractional shares of this pool to raise money for the production of high quality audiobooks and better marketing of my science fiction novels.
The less I work, the more I dream. Lately I've been dreaming about pooling all the intellectual property from my creative endeavors and issuing tokens representing fractional shares of this pool to raise money for the production of high quality audiobooks and better marketing of my science fiction novels. A recent article in the New Yorker inspired this train of thought. The article was about how entrepreneurs Daniil and David Liberman have started selling shares in themselves, giving investors the opportunity to invest directly in the rise (or fall) of their combined fortunes.
The Libermans are doing this by assigning all of their assets and liabilities to a corporate entity, then selling shares of this entity. According to the article, they're in talks with the Securities and Exchange Commission about the possibility of publicly listing the securities they've created. For a variety of reasons, the Liberman approach wouldn't work for my situation. Still, the concept has captured my interest.
Strictly speaking, it wouldn't be legal for me to create and sell an unregistered security. Qualified investors can do this, but not an average guy like me. I know of at least one company in Asia that facilitates creating real estate-backed tokens, but I haven't run across anyone issuing IP-backed tokens that would be compliant with US regulations. Although it's possible that there will never be a market for such a service, it seems more likely that this is just a few years away.
In the meantime, the idea of people investing in each other by such formal processes is fun to explore. A 2009 science fiction novel called The Unincorporated Man by Dani and Eytan Kollin considered the implications of this idea when taken to extremes. That book painted a fairly dystopian picture of a society underpinned by such investments. Then again, the debt-based underpinnings of our current society feel fairly dystopian already to members of the underclass like me.
One of the strongest points in favor of creating investment instruments like these involves incentives. If someone is literally invested in your fortunes, they're incentivized to help those fortunes grow. These well-aligned incentives create an entirely different dynamic than is common in the relationship between a creditor and their debtor. They get everybody involved playing for the same team, at least in theory.
V.V.’s
Image and Text by Stu Spence
Sydney
Great Granddad Vic leased the shop around 1890. It was called ‘V.V’s’, (our last name being Villiers), and he sold men’s hats and umbrellas. It was a rough area, but he did well and ended up buying the building.
When granddad Bert took over in the 30’s he expanded into general menswear; socks, shoes, underwear, the lot. Then the Great Depression hit and it was only the cheapest goods that sold. Tiny profits. “The cake with no cream,” he called it. There was talk of him having to mend clothes, and re-sole shoes to turn a shilling, though we weren’t allowed to talk about that.
Ever.
When Pop got too old, and since Dad had gone into the law, Uncle Phil moved down from Maitland and turned V.V.’s into a fruit and veg. shop. He was a farmer, though the old man reckoned, “as a farmer, your uncle’s a great beer drinker,” still, he had connections in the country back home, so bought the produce cheap, and made a pretty good go of it.
At first.
The fact that The Lucky Penny Hotel was directly across the street from the shop didn’t do Uncle Phil any favors. Me and the cousins’d be tearing around playing in the shop when we’d see him coming out of The Penny and crossing Ambrose St. He looked like he was walking the deck of the Manly Ferry in a big sea.
In the end the drink got him, and Uncle Phil, along with the rest of his mob, headed back up north somewhere.
That’s when I took over.
I’d been trying to make it as a journo in London, failing spectacularly, drinking too much, heartbreaks, money squabbles, etc. When mum sent the telegram, I gladly hopped the first flight home.
So, ‘Villiers Cafe’ was born. It sailed slowly and steadily for a good few years, then “the recession we had to have” whipped up a storm, money got tight, the pressure pushed down relentlessly, and I ended up with a heart attack, a bad one. The quack prescribed permanent gardening leave, so that was it.
My old man was retired by then, so he didn’t want the cafe, the cousins up north didn’t want it, so the old girl was sold, worst day of my life.
It’s been vacant ever since.
Some nights I go back. I might have a beer at The Penny (now Mulligan’s Irish Pub) then wander over and smoke a cig. on the footpath out front. Whenever anyone walks past, and they don’t much anymore since the freeway went in, I just look at my watch, then up and down the street, like I’m waiting for someone.
Ending up alone at my age wasn’t the plan, but as the old man used say, “you play the hand you’re dealt, mate.”
I like that the shop’s empty, it’s easier to remember, to imagine things. A few beers in me and that funny blurry streetlight sends streaks down the floorboards and walls, and, well, slowly the visitors arrive. Old Vic might be dusting off a Homburg in that corner, or I’ll see me kicking a rotten apple into the wall over there. When Dad had to drag a drunken Uncle Phil out from behind the spud sacks and into the back room, Phil would always lose a shoe in the process. I can see his shoe right there. Once it was just the smell of Margy Percetto’s perfume over there at the window table. That was ok with me.
Ending up alone at my age wasn’t the plan, but as the old man used to say, “you play the hand you’re dealt, mate.”
I never was much of a card player, that was the problem.
Old Doris over at The Penny calls me sentimental, “Yer a dreamer, son, always were,” then she kinda smiles, looks down at her empty glass and then back up at me. She sees this as a compliment, and so a sherry refill is expected as payment, cheeky so and so. I sigh and oblige.
“I wouldn’t say I’m sentimental,” I say, finishing the beer and putting my hat on, “not really, I just like visiting.”
“The shop?” she says, going for a ciggie from the pack on the bar, then remembering it’s not allowed anymore, “You like visiting an empty bloody shop?”
I smile and leave. I could explain, but she wouldn’t get it, and some things are just not meant to be spoken.
If I told her I come to the shop to visit my family, she’d think I was a lunatic, and she’d probably be right, but I’m not going to desert them now, am I?
I’m all they’ve got.
I've started a video journal on the Tezos art scene
by Adrian Pocobelli
Berlin
A lot has happened since we last crossed paths, and, unlike world politics, what's been taking place over here is actually quite good. I've begun a (more or less) daily Artist Journal video series, where I discuss my thoughts on the NFT space and share my art practice. My main goal right now is to create a daily habit (right after my first cup of coffee in the morning), and, so far, it's been going well (eight days and counting). The reception has been surprisingly good, too, particularly from the artists in the community, so it all feels quite promising right now.
So here they are. I hope you enjoy them.
Image by Roberto Vitali
The Way We Wine: An Italian Wine Lover in Germany
By Alberto Salvi
Berlin
Hello International Paneling cosmonauts, it’s Alberto. I will be telling stories about an Italian wine enthusiast in Deutschland. And give you some tips for coping with a wine-needing life.
A little bit about me, Alberto: I was born and raised in Apulia, a fertile land, cultivated with plenty of native grape varieties. The “heel of the boot” is where you get introduced to wine as a child, during family dinners, when your grandpa pours it for the first time into your cup with a splash of water. It is very common to have parents or grandparents producing wine from vines in small plots of land scattered across the countryside.
That’s why wine is so ingrained in the local culture, as you immediately become accustomed to its consumption in your daily life, developing a certain above-average knowledge base, starting from the viticulture and vinification, and ending with forming your taste buds.
There I decided to go further and started studying towards becoming Sommelier, and I am currently completing my studies here in Germany. Here the entire wine industry is witnessing significant growth, from production to export, also due to the increasingly favorable weather conditions (sigh!). This inevitably leads to major diffusion and a steady increase in public interest. As a result, it is very pleasant to experience a situation of fervor, which with this feeling fills in the inevitable gaps left behind.
My first story will bring you to face the contrast between the willing to do wine culture and the lack of competence and method. A natural wine tasting held by a young winery in Berlin.
This past week I have been to a natural wine tasting by a young winery. I will save the name since I feel a little bad about being negative. The event was touring northern Germany, held in a restaurant courtyard for the Berlin date.
A natural wine shall be a small-scale produced wine, from sustainable, organic, or biodynamic vineyards. It is fermented with no added yeast, with generally no additives included, such as sulfites. Or at least it should have these characteristics. But there is no regulation or official definition of a natural wine. And as a matter of fact, wine is produced by men, therefore it cannot be called “natural” in the strictest sense.
The set-up was basic: a wine serving counter and a grill, The people were a fancier. I immediately got caught by the people attending the event, posh and radical chic. Fashion was an imperative.
On a blackboard, the list of the three wines they were serving: a house wine, a white and a red one, no further details. Beyond that: the bundle for one glass, the ever-present German bratwurst, and a dessert. Am I the only one thinking they’re giving much more attention to food?
I finally got served the white wine, with not an explanation about the grapes, the techniques.
Definitely not what I was expecting from a wine tasting. They could not have given any less attention to the wine they were serving. But then I began to understand why. My white was cloudy and dull as usual for a natural wine, but it had a very narrow bouquet and tasted about as good a very acidic pear cider.
The icing on the cake of this rather unfortunate wine event was witnessing someone refilling the glass with a cheap bottle hidden in a fancy bag.
The icing on the cake of this rather unfortunate wine event was witnessing someone refilling the glass with a cheap bottle hidden in a fancy bag. I could not have been happier to see this. The wine testing culminated with people drinking beer from the minimarket down the street. Expertise and genuine interest are undermined by the usual need to feel part of the moment. The narrative was lost.
This experience keeps open the question about exactly what the world of natural wines consists of. And as for me, it was a funny start to my wine writing mission. Nowadays, for me, it is the fashion, it seems. I’ve been unlucky again.
Here are my recommendation of the month:
Remordimiento, Bodega Cerrón.
Vinatge: 2020
Area: La Mancia, Spain.
Grapes: Cencibel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot, Syrah.
Alcohol content: 14.5% Vol.
Price: 9-11€
This organic red wine is a blend produced in La Mancia region, Spain. The color has a ruby hue, and a fresh perfume of ripe red fruit gives way to a toasty finish. A young and energetic wine endowed with tannin softened by the light passage in barrique.
Grüner Veltliner Ried Weintal, Weingut Herbert Zillinger.
Vintage: 2019
Area: Ried, Austria
Grapes: Grüner Veltliner.
Alcohol content: 12.5 % Vol.
Price: 20€
The most widely planted varietal in Austria and with the widest range of quality levels, this wine certainly ranks well. It displays a ripe exoticism that ranges from fruits such as pineapple and banana, the bitterness of chocolate, to mineral spices.
Groseille Rosé, Alexis Hudon.
Vintage: 2020.
Area: Loire, France.
Grapes: Pinot Noir.
Alcohol content: 10.75% Vol.
Price: 19€
After working years for the best Parisian natural wine bars, Alexis Hudon gives us this 100% Pinot Noir grown on limestones and flintstones, unfiltered natural rosé with minimum additive sulfites. Fruity with a strong strawberry and creamy in the mouth, is our perfect match for a summer sunset.
Edinburgh Fringe Fest Notes: The Art of the Flyer
by Susan Sloan
Edinburgh
Wandering around Edinburgh in August I will generally collect so many flyers, postcards and other assorted promotional detritus that I’ve often thought about turning it into some kind of meta performance art piece where I start handing them back out to people. Some are comically bad in execution - frankensteinian clip-art monstrosities - while many are simply competently dull. A few, however, rise above the sea of ecologically embarrassing landfill to succeed in catching the eye and wooing potential audience members - either through clever gimickery, great design or sheer WTFuckery.
Reviewing the promo for the shows rather than the shows themselves might sound like another cynical performance art meta-suggestion, but I think it’s time to shine a light on one of the most prominent and yet overlooked aspects of this annual cultural explosion. For most shows with limited budget, limited time and limited personnel the daily trudge around the Old Town dispensing their calling cards along with some sparkling personality and a wacky costume or two can be the difference between performing to three people who wandered in by mistake while looking for Ian McKellen’s Hamlet and a sold-out run.
Sadly, like the performers in those three-customer bombs the designers responsible remain largely unknown, rarely if ever being credited for their work.
Badges for ‘Burn’ by John Muggleton
Quick! (Response Codes everywhere)
This has truly been the year of the QR code. Not so long ago, on the other side of the covid time vortex, QR codes were a thing you might encounter here and there. Support was clunky, often involving specific apps and corporate usage could be odd and out of step, like the next gen version of when shops would paint a Facebook ‘like’ button onto their signage. But somewhere in the last year or two they have become ubiquitous. Want to get a train? QR code. Going to a gig? QR code. Buying a coffee? QR code.
This ubiquity has extended to the festival and the tiny codes can be found everywhere, allowing artists to send users online for additional details, or tease them with oblique and mysterious designs leading to digital treasure hunts. In many ways it has been a game changer and most of the best examples I spotted this year utilise this space saving tech to create slicker, cleverer or more esoteric designs.
Tarot style flyers for Crossing The Void by the Koi Collective and The Ecstacy of Victoria Woodhall by Owl & Pussycat Theatre Company
Less foldable, more foldable and other unexpected configurations
An obvious, but surprisingly underused, way of grabbing attention is by switching format. As the quirky QR carriers above prove, artists are no longer beholden to the standard A5 glossy print. Having something shiny and different shoved in your hand is always going to be more interesting than yet another slightly crumpled piece of paper. Stickers and badges are fun to receive, and a pretty smart way of getting other people to advertise for you. Meanwhile this slightly sleazy retro phone-box card is a perfect example of the form following the theme.
Sticker for Hot Clown Sex by the Hot Clown Company and phone-box calling card for Doll by Common People Theatre
The beautifully intricate illustrated mini-book for Earwig, on the other hand, invites the viewer to dive more deeply into its world. Set around the life of an early 20th century deaf pioneer, it is also the only show I noticed offering a BSL version of the flyer itself.
Flyer for Earwig by the Time & Again Theatre Company
Viva your Vision
The naughtily named Viva your Vulva has both won awards and caused considerable controversy this year due to its unflinchingly anatomical content, proving that anything that Jerry Sadowitz can do the ladies can do better. The uncompromising mix of feminism, frank humour and health education presented in the show is carried through into its fantastically fun flyer design.
Fittingly for a show aimed primarily at women the cheekily yonic looking ‘fortune teller’ will bring waves of playground nostalgia to females the world over. More usually constructed from bits of jotter paper to determine each other’s favourite colours, musicians or six form boys it is transformed here into a do-it-yourself (though thankfully some were already done) pop-quiz on lady bits.Of course, many countries are drifting further right and further left, but the messaging of the right is easier, relies on a anger and just plain travels faster and galvanizes easier.
Fortune teller video and flyer for Viva your Vulva by Elaine Miller
Plastic Fantastic
This stunning promotional hand-out for the 2022 Korean Showcase was an absolute joy to find. Beautiful to hold and look at, it is contemporary feeling and completely unique. A piece of art in its own right. Made from clear perspex and shaped like a circular artist’s palette, it must have been one of the more complex flyers to produce, but it’s one I will hold onto long after the festival has finished.
Korean Showcase (WeMu, TOB Group & Variety E-SEO)
Good Old Graphically Pleasing
Alongside the innovative, experimental and let’s face it more expensive offerings there will always be a place for those that come in strongly purely on solid design merit.
Some of my favourites of this year’s standard glossy flyers include the bold and atmospheric design of Night Dances, the impressionistic and uncomfortable imagery used for The Three and individually striking and successful treatments for Woyzeck Marie, Loveless, Pool (No Water) and Sugar.
Flyers for Night Dances by United Fall, The Three by Nina Halpenny, Woyzeck Marie by Meghan Loughran, Loveless by Gregory Miller, Pool (No Water) by Mark Reverhill and Sugar by Mabel Thomas.
The future of the flyer
When it comes to the flyering tradition I find myself torn between accepting it has long been a wasteful environmental nightmare with hundreds of sheets of shiney non recyclable paper barely touching the recipient’s hands before being deposited into the nearest overflowing bin, and the strong affection I have for a much maligned but surprisingly creative corner of the larger Fringe enterprise.
Can flyers evolve into something less wasteful without losing their charm, and if so what will that look like? A deeper descent into the hell pit of social media? NFTs? Minority Report style floating screens? Some kind of as yet uninvented material that instantly evaporates into the atmosphere when no longer required?
Or perhaps the future of the Fringe itself, as the show Sockpuppet and its wonderfully Web 1.0 flyer warns, will lie in live-streamed deep-faked approximations of your favourite Hollywood celebrity performing any show you desire anyway. No need for Ian McKellen to drag himself all the way to Edinburgh, or for the audience to bother either.
I hope not, at least not yet.
75th Edinburgh Fringe Festival: International Paneling’s Epic Overview of the World’s Biggest Arts Festival
The author with the “Space Hippo” poster…
Text and Images by Mark Fernyhough
Edinburgh
Prologue.
I arrive at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from Berlin via the glamour of EasyJet. My suitcase has a large image of Micky Mouse on it, so it doesn’t get lost. I feel like a slightly cooler Bryan Ferry.
Entering Edinburgh’s main Fringe thoroughfare The Royal Mile I’m immediately intercepted by a woman flyering for a comedy show. She says it’s good to be back in Emmerdale, weirdly confusing the Scottish capitol for a fictional ITV soap opera about cows. I crack a joke, asking where all the people with fringes are (expertly stolen from Leo Kuelbs). She quickly moves on. I question how much she understands comedy.
Back on the street I talk to the cast of the charmingly titled “Drag Acts vs Zombies.” I get a photo with them. “This is my good side” I say, explaining why I’m posing awkwardly to the right. “We don’t have a good side” one of them replies. My kind of people.
I wander around looking at fringe production street posters. Whilst a few too many feature stand-up comedians gurning/trying their best to look ‘zany’ with quotes from the most obscure places: “Genius!! - The Winnipeg Farming Quarterly,” there are many intriguing pieces also. My favourite poster goes to ‘Space Hippo’ a Sci Fi puppet show.
Ok on that note, let’s go and ingest some actual Fringe.
NB. I’m omitting productions that fall below International Paneling’s high standard of 4 or 5 stars and/or if their show titles are too wordy or hard to spell.
“The Freedom Ballet of Ukraine” at photocall
Freedom Ballet of Ukraine
With special permission from the Ukrainian government to perform here in wartime, this ballet company from Kyiv are most compelling. Presenting an adaption of their show Boudoir with 14 dancers, Ukrainian high culture is clearly not prudish, as adult themes abound. Music from cabaret trio The Tiger Lillies who are elsewhere at The Fringe is also included. ***** (5)
Laurel and Chaplin: Before They Were Famous
Documenting the forgotten true-life tale of Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel’s early history together, this comedic play is an overlooked fringe delight. One only hopes the show’s creator has already sold the film rights. Jordan Conway portraying Chaplin is a star in the waiting, whilst Laurel played by Matt Knight is destined to double for singer Jake Shears in a Scissor Sisters biopic. **** (4)
Actor, Michael Trauffer of “Fabulett 1933”
Fabulett 1933
Hosted by The Space U.K. who are doing remarkable work this year, Swiss-born Michael Trauffer’s poignant one-person musical explores the exquisite decadence of Weimar Berlin’s cabaret scene leading up to WW2. Fabulett 1933 charts the German capital’s rapid transformation from the most liberated place on earth to the darkest, through the very personal story of protagonist Felix. This one-hour piece acts as both a timely reminder of historical queer persecution and warning shot to the future. **** (4)
Prometheus Bound (Io's Version)
This production has a slightly edgy hallucinationary vibe. Like a club in Berlin at 5am, there’s a woman dressed as a cow and lots of chains involved. Special mention should go to US born lead Alyssa McGuire, who is captivating. **** (4)
Mythos: Ragnarok
The breakout show of The Fringe which everyone on street level is actually talking about (whilst the media is completely ignoring it) is this epic wrestling meets Nordic mythology theatre extravaganza. It’s turned-up-to-11 insane and all the better for it. ***** (5)
Bloodina
Presented by The Pleasance, Scandinavian themed production ‘Bloodina - the Viking musical’ features questionable accents, sword fights and sisterhood. Whilst the piece is shot through with humour, it’s also often refreshingly non ironic in its delivery. There’s an almost Rick Wakeman prog vibe to much of it with Spinal Tap-esque wobbly set elements and swords. **** (4)
The Mystery of the Wee Pirate's Curse
Presented at Edinburgh’s Hilton Hotel, this is a 1950’s spooky British farce of the highest caliber, with double entendres aplenty and a splendid ensemble cast. Hailing from London, the Chanticleer Players led by Louisa Moore, should really be on prime time BBC. ***** (5)
Artorigus
Led marvellously by a denim clad cast, this production deserves more attention. A contemporary adaptation of King Arthur, it shuns the humour and gimmicks of similar productions and emerges with real integrity. **** (4)
Medea The Musical
A musical retelling of Medea in a court room by a bright young cast led by Hayley Canham and directed with aplomb by Maria-Telnikoff. Actress Dixie McDevitt, who plays Glauce is quite the force of nature. **** (4)
“The Hip Hop Orchestra Experience”
Hip-Hop Orchestra Experience
Hailing from California, Hip-Hop Orchestra Ensemble Mik Nawooj expertly mash hip-hop with live strings, woodwind and a female soprano. At the Fringe they are deftly collaborating with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. This funky fusion has real gravitas. ***** (5)
Plague
Based at TripleX, this musical is basically the Black Death meets Maid Marian and Her Merry Men on steroids - but with more songs about root vegetables and perhaps even a human size jiving one, though that would be a spoiler. Sharp production values and a strong cast make this worthwhile. **** (4)
Assisted
An arrestingly cerebral Sci Fi exploring the love triangle between woman, man and a Siri-like AI voice assistant. Whilst the abusive relationship is sometimes hard to watch, the production packs a real punch with exquisite acting by the talented Emma Wilkinson Wright. ***** (5)
So that rounds up my International Paneling Edinburgh Fringe coverage. The festival has bounced back remarkably after the very real life dramas of the last couple of years and is truly an arts institution to be celebrated. Let’s do this again next year.