list.co.uk/festival ‘I’VE ALWAYS BEEN A RECRUITING AGENT FOR PINK FLOYD’
Festival Theatre
Woody’s life as we can cram in there.’
Where Lutken’s show is based squarely on the life of its famous subject, Almost Like a Virgin and The Rex Roman Pink Floyd Show tackle theirs tangentially. ‘I work as a Madonna impersonator around the world,’ says Evelyne Brink, who conceived and performs Almost Like A Virgin, ‘but my background is actually cabaret. I was born in Germany and I grew up with that kind of scene. I left for the big, wide world at the age of 22, and after travelling all over it I ended up doing Madonna shows. This show is about how that happened. It reveals the extraordinary life of a Madonna impersonator, and the music is a mix of Madonna hits, German comedy songs and songs that I have written.’
‘I’ve always been a lifelong Pink Floyd fan,’ says Simon Ash, who has adapted his own book Chapters in the Life of Rex Roman for the stage, ‘and I got caught up in the rush when the band reformed for Live Aid. It turned out to be the only time they got back together again. So I used that pivotal moment for the book I wrote, upon which the show is based. ‘I wanted to make a hybrid between music and comedy. So the songs I’ve chosen all drive along the story of air guitar hero Rex Roman. I’ve always been a recruiting agent for Pink Floyd, because all through my life people have said, “They’re so boring.” I hope this show will convert those people.’
Taking the idea of musical theatre to its (il)logical extreme, Die Roten Punkte features a fake band playing a real gig that’s framed by a knockabout comic storyline. Not that the punkers are admitting to that fiction; as Otto Rot says: ‘Our manager, Rodney, keeps booking us concerts in comedy and fringe theatre festivals all over the world, which is a little bit weird because we are a rock’n’roll band. And we hear a lot of people laughing at our shows.
‘But I don’t mind,’ Rot adds. ‘As long as
people are having fun.’
Almost Like a Virgin, Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, 8–31 Aug (not 12, 19), 7.50pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews until 7 Aug, £5; The Rex Roman Pink Floyd Show, Udderbelly’s Pasture, 08445 458 252, 8–23 Aug (not 12, 19), 10.15pm, £12.50–£14 (£11.50–£12). Preview 7 Aug, £7; Woody Sez, Udderbelly’s Pasture, 08445 458 252, 8–31 Aug (not 17), 2.30pm, £10–£12.50 (£8–£11). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £6.
Aside from the differences in the staging between what Lutken calls a ‘concert narrative’ and a stage musical, Woody Sez also has a lot more going on in terms of content than the relatively straightforward stringing together of tunes. That’s reflected in the show’s complex history. ‘It’s a biographical show all about Woody’s life,’ Lutken says, ‘but also his music and his politics, the dustbowl, the labour movement, those kinds of things, and it was originally inspired by two things. First, a tribute concert to Woody, a combination of music and prose that Woody had written that was performed in New York City in 1956. Woody’s manager thought it was a great thing, so he published it under the title California to the New York Island, and it rumbled around for a number of years before it eventually went out of print.’ Woody Sez has the added inspiration of Woody’s newspaper columns from the late-30s and early-40s called ‘Woody Sez’, which appeared in The People’s Daily World, a communist newspaper on the West Coast of the US. Those columns, too, were published by Woody’s manager.
Lutken continues: ‘I took three elements of Woody’s life – his autobiography, Bound for Glory, California to the New York Island and Woody Sez – and put them together to make a show that features as many elements of
LIFE STUDIES There’s a feast of biographical shows at this year’s Fringe. Miles Fielder picks out five of the best
A Tribute – Gielgud’s Ages of Man Experience Shakespeare via Sir John in this celebration of the great actor’s crowning achievement: his one-man recital of excerpts from the best of the Bard. Thesp George Innes has got his work cut out for him. The Outhouse, 557 6668, 8–30 Aug, 12.15pm, free.
Becoming Marilyn Not so much a straightforward piece of theatre about the life of Hollywood’s blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe, but a look at how Norma Jean Mortenson became the world’s most famous film star. Assembly Rooms, 623 3030, 8–31 Aug (not 17), 3.10pm, £12 (£10). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £6. Considering Georgia O’Keeffe One-woman show taking its inspiration from the US painter’s biography. Expect a portrait of a woman and an artist, which, like its subject’s abstract representations of her adopted New Mexico, is as evocative as it is literal. St Bride’s, 346 1405, 10 & 11 Aug, 6.30pm, £7.
Morecambe The life story of the one-time best-loved entertainer in Britain makes its Edinburgh debut on the 25th anniversary of his death. It follows Eric Morecambe’s life from childhood to international stardom. Assembly Hall, 623 3030, 8–31 Aug (not 17), 4.10pm, £13–15 (£11–£13). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £10.
Pythonesque And now for something completely different. Not one but many biographical snapshots in this comic look at that enduring British comedy troupe, Monty Python. Udderbelly’s Pasture, 08445 458 252, 8–31 Aug (not 18), 12.45pm, £10–£12.50 (£8–£10.50). Previews 6 & 7 Aug, £7.
6–13 Aug 2009 THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 53