Edfringe 09 | Matt Boothman

Review: The Stefan Golaszewski Plays, Bush Theatre

14th December 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Written and performed by Stefan Golaszewski
Directed by Phillip Breen
Bush Theatre, until Saturday 9th January 2009, £15.00/£13.00 (book tickets)
Two one-act plays back to back don't usually make a successful two-act play. Right? Which suggests it's probably no coincidence that Stefan Golaszewski Speaks About A Girl He Once Loved and Stefan Golaszewski Is A Widower work so well as a double bill; it seems likely they were always meant to be performed...

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Traverse Theatre sweeps first week awards

24th August 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

It's traditional for shows playing at the Traverse Theatre to clean up when the Scotsman and the Bank of Scotland start handing out their Festival awards. It's equally traditional for the rest of the Festival to complain that the Traverse cleans up so regularly and predictably. There hasn't been as much of that flavour of carping as usual this year; perhaps everyone's realised that complaining is less constructive than putting...

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Rap Guide star Baba Brinkman rekindles an old debate

13th August 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

"Congratulations on writing the first four star review in history without a single positive adjective! Utterly unquotable, but I do appreciate the stars : )"
Baba Brinkman, commenting on MattBoothman.com
So Baba Brinkman isn't satisfied with four stars, or with the accompanying review - which was, by the way, 50 per cent longer than my editor at the British Theatre Guide recommends for a Festival Fringe review, because I didn't feel I...

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Who to follow at Fringe ‘09

7th August 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

If you can't make it to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year, because a banker vaporised your life savings, or because National Express couldn't be bothered to drive you up the East Coast, or because you usually live in Edinburgh and have gone on holiday to Inverness for the month, never fear!
You can recreate the experience of battling your way along the Royal Mile, accosted every other step by acts...

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The Ultimate Critics’ Pick of the Fringe – part 3

24th July 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Previously: Part 1 | Part 2
So why do critics bother compiling advance Pick of the Fringe Programme lists at all?
The socially acceptable reason is to provide Fringe patrons with navigation points. The programme's Theatre section contains hundreds of shows, each one summed up in maybe twenty words. That makes it difficult to sift the diamonds from the dross, especially when many of the shows are world premieres and many of...

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The Ultimate Critics’ Pick of the Fringe – part 2

17th July 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

Previously on The Ultimate Critics' Pick of the Fringe 2009:
The 13 most anticipated shows of this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as collectively selected by five major newspapers and magazines, are: Barflies, Beachy Head, A British Subject, The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church, Morecambe, Palace of the End, Sea Wall, Suckerville and The World's Wife, with two votes each; Blondes, Orphans and Theatre for Breakfast, with three votes each; and the...

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The Ultimate Critics’ Pick of the Fringe 2009 – part 1

13th July 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

The 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe Official Programme has been available for about a month now. All the influential voices in theatre criticism have had plenty of time to comb through it and produce lists of recommendations. By analysing all these lists together, I've discovered this year's Ultimate Critics' Pick of the Fringe.
The Times, the Guardian, the London Evening Standard, the Scotsman and The List (the Scottish equivalent of Time Out)...

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Fringe 2009 nest-egg invested in scientific research

5th June 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree

With just over two months left until the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2009, the Fringe Society have begun investing heavily in the previously unknown International College of Ovology.
The College recently made headlines after it took possession of a specimen unearthed by workmen digging new tramlines in Edinburgh's Princes Street. The egg is white, oviform and unusually resistant to investigative scientific methods, including extremes of temperature and emotion.
"I've racked most of the...

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