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COMEDY . Cardoso Flea Circus ****
Bite-sized big top entertainment
The best thing about Cardoso Flea Circus is that it exists at all. It’s one of those Fringe curiosities you can't
imagine coming across at any other time
or place this side of a Beano comic. And it’s the genuine article. Those truly are real live fleas walking the tight-rope, competing in races, fighting with sticks and jumping to order.
It’s a one joke show, at 45 minutes
just the right length, but there are two elements that set it apart from another
end-of—the-pier act. One is the high- tech video projection that gives us all ring-side seats, the other is Professor Maria Fernanda Cardoso whose amusineg deadpan earnestness borders on performance art.
(Mark Fisher)
51 Cardoso Flea Circus (Fringe) Edinburgh ’5 Garden Party, until 28 Aug, 8.45pm and 70pm, 27 Aug mat 5. 75pm, £9/f70 (£5/f6).
COMEDY John Moloney tit
Patches of comedy gold Deliciously deadpan, the tweedledum/tweedledee-resembling John Moloney starts his three-part show by declaring that we’re in the presence of comedy gold. Initially, he could well be right because the gagtastic first stage of his performance asserts ' some of the funniest one-liners the ‘ comedy cannon has to offer.
The second part — 'the gospel according to John’ — is however, less successful as Moloney's observational comedy veers too close to the unfunny bone. Do we really
48 THE USTF
1‘ warm and silly Adam Hills
POETRY PREVIEW John Cooper Clarke Punk’s Poet Laureate returns
Take your Hughes and your Heaneys and drop them in Hay On Wye. For some of us there is only one governor, one Poet Laureate. He is our Leonard Cohen (ironically John Cooper Clarke is writing a poem about the Canadian poet monk for Arthur Smith's Festival show), but more precious and twice as funny. He is also the hero to all workshy fops. ‘I don't really work on anything. me. It’s an idle life being a poet and anyone who says it's a busy existence is lying. People become poets so they can lead an idle life anr’ kid people that they've got a job.’
Clarke's voice throbs with a Mancunian joviality as he speaks of his hero. 'It was Muhammad Ali, or Cassius Clay as he was then; his quickfire stuff was a bigger influence on me than anyone else. I thought “pretty good that, everyone seems to like it, think I'll have a go. I'll leave the boxing bit
out though, maybe I could just get away with the
rhyming stuff".'
The tag of uncrowned prince of punk poetry is something Clarke is happy with. ’It would be an uphill battle to try and shake it and why should I? I mean the stuff that concerns itself with narrow political issues is
like being referred to as a ’pub nation’? Warming us to him once again with the musical finale, Moloney teases with improvisational comedy and utilises the often neglected accordion to dazzling effect. (Catherine Bromley)
m John Moloney (Fringe) Assembly Rooms (Venue 3) 226 2428, until 28 Aug,
8.30pm, £9/f 70 (£8/£9).
~ M“
‘People become poets to have an idle Iife’
dated but I Don’t Wanna Go Down In The Basement
and Sheena Was A Punk Rocker are as relevant today
COMEDY
Tony Law and:
Farming fun from Canadian comic
A comedian who doesn’t so much eyeball the audience as eyebrow them. This fella's brows have a life of their own, almost as though you're paying for one comedian and getting a double, if not a triple act.
Eyebrows aside, Tony Law is a tough- looking Canadian farmboy with a line in tractor gags, so if you dig agricultural humour, then Law is your man. He may still tell pot jokes but he’ll Win you round with an excellent impression of a Yorkshireman saying the ’c’ word.
Hardly award-winning stuff, but Law is a strangely charming and solidly funny stand-up of the old school. (Ross Holloway)
l Tony Law (Fringe) Pleasance
(Venue 33) 556 6550, until 28 Aug
‘4 (not 22) 8.30pm, £8.50—f9. 50
(£7.50—f850).
COMEDY
Adam Hills *ir‘ki' Ouick-witted Aussie dynamo Heavy reliance on audience participation is a potentially disastrous practice. But the tremendous Adam Hills has such a talent for powerful persuasion that he effortlessly charms bank managers, salesmen, and even schoolchildren into joming in wrth his daft antics.
Warm, silly and hugely enjoyable, the show is loosely based around the theme of image. Springing around the stage like an excitable jack-in-the-box, the quick-witted Hills demonstrates how you can dress any old shit up and
as they were then.’ And as crucial as a night with John Cooper Clarke. (Paul Dale)
John Cooper Clarke (Book) Charlotte Square Gardens, 624 5050, 79 Aug, 9pm, £7.50 (£5.50).
make it look good. The Sunday evening show features sign interpretation which
has to be worth an extra star for demonstrating the phrase 'Zig-A-Zig- Aaah’. (Allan Radcliffe)
Goody Two Shoes (Fringe) Adam Hills, Gilded Balloon (Venue 38) 226 2757, until 28 Aug, 9pm, £8.50 (£7.50).
PHYSICAL THEATRE The Ground Will Always Give Way **** Otherwor/d/y haunting ballet/cs With their world premiere of The Ground Will Always Give Way, Laboratorium-33 have meticulously constructed one of the most hauntingly dream-like experiences you're likely to see on a stage. Throughout the intense, often grotesque balletic performance, there are moments when the ethereally androgynous bleach-blonde performers seem to be dwelling on another planet. Presentation-wise the show is flawless: eerie and erotic imagery flickering on scattered TV screens, torch-lit smoke-beams and an
otherworldly mind-fuck of a soundtrack
all perfectly complement a variety of themes, which cover everything from, well, who knows what?
You have to wonder what hellish dreams lurk in Laboratorium-33’s twisted psyche. But with a performance this stunning, who cares? (Olly Lassman)
The Ground Will Always Give Way (Fringe) Laboratorium-33, Rocket @
South Bridge Resource Centre (Venue 723) 558 9997, until 26 Aug (not 20)
: 9.45pm, £7 (£5).