The Printed Word

Allow me to introduce you to a phenomenon called lanyarditis. It strikes every August in the heart of Edinburgh when the Festival Fringe swings into action. They are worn by students working the queues and checking tickets, as well as every performer, critic and hinger-on. Some even have more than one lanyard, and a few wear so many they adopt a permanent stoop, and the badges usually end up in their bowls of soup. Lanyarditis strikes in many ways. Take queuing. We Brits excel at standing and waiting in line.  With space at a premium, queues need to be managed, but factor in lanyarditis, and, suddenly, the rebel in you starts to surface. “Can you all squish up/snuggle up?” asked one student lanyard wearer. Grief, this is Edinburgh we don't squish up to the people we love, let alone strangers in  plastic rain macs with “I love Bonnie Scotland” on the front. Meanwhile, her colleague asked everyone to take “one B-I-G step forward?” No! I’m ...

Eight performers, eight audience members, eight individual stories 8:8, Summerhall, times vary, until August 25. One of the opportunities of the Fringe is to find something different, something well out of your comfort zone. 8:8 features eight cast members performing to an audience of eight people. It lasts just 25 minutes, starting in absolute silence and ending with the cast leaving you in the empty former woman's locker room in the basement of the venue.  The room is empty save for two rows of eight chairs, We sit, the cast come in and stand facing us in total silence for a prolonged period. They turn to the left and then right, and go through choreographed sequences all without speaking before pulling up their chairs and facing the audience to introduce themselves and tell their stories which, they say, are true, or partly true. Each actor then moves directly in front of one audience member, places headphones on them and watches as they hear the rest of the story....

Two hours of rich entertainment The  Drowsy Chaperone, Greenside at Nicholson Square, until August 24. The Drowsy Chaperone is a show within a show - a musical wrapped in a comedy. This version of the Broadway shows effortlessly spans its two hours and is richly entertaining. Produced under the Kingdom Theatre banner, it features a huge cast with live band, and is well worth catching before the end of the 2019 Fringe. Set in the roaring 20s, it is narrated by the man in the chair as he savours the joy and memories of his favourite musical, the fictional Drowsy Chaperone - bringing it to life, pausing the action to add his own commentary, and  occasionally getting wrapped up in the songs and the spectacle. Derek Ward was perfect in the role  as he contrasted the humdrum of reality with the magic of a musical. Everything, he mused, turns out right in a musical. Of course it does... In front of, and around him, a cast of around a dozen plus an...

Viggo The Viking *** (Underbelly, Cowgate), 8:20pm until August 25 Not entire sure how to explain this hour of mime that’s packed with dialogue featuring a Norwegian stand-up dressed as a Viking. It’s completely nuts - and also wonderfully funny. Viggo Venn’s humour has a childlike appeal, and warmth at its core - and that’s why he gets the best out of his audience participation. He chases each latecomer round the theatre - I say theatre, but this is a stone cave cut deep in the Cowgate -  and does it repeatedly until everyone is seated. He then draws childlike pictures of them on the cheapest DIY whiteboard you’ll see,  gets them to do bird whistles to accompany his imaginary feathered friend, and then, halfway, through his allotted time, begins his story … which is, well  I’ve no idea where to begin with an explanation. This show relies heavily on the audience to be willing to go with the flow. If it does - and on the night we saw him, h...

Fife Flyers have concluded their roster for the 2019-20 ice hockey season with the addition of a Swedish defenceman. Jonas Emmerdahl has joined the club ahead of its opening challenge games against Herlev Eagles next weekend. The 27-year old blueliner makes his EIHL debut after a career spent in Swedish  hockey. His arrival concludes a major overhaul of the blue line, and means just two of last season’s eight defenceman – Scott Aarssen and James Isaacs – return for the forthcoming campaign. This season they seem set to begin with six skaters. Ricards Birzins, Reece Cochrane, and Craig Moore have all moved to other teams, while injury forced Rik Pinkston to hang up his skates. Evan Stoflet, whose season was short-circuited by suspension and concussion, is a non-returnee, while the club has not revealed  any berth for Chris Wands. The long-serving Kirkcaldy skater, who also missed the end of the last campaign through injury, has been with the club throughout i...

It is still one of my favourite venues - a place packed with memories of great gigs and incredible live shows. The Playhouse Theatre seems to have been surrounded by never-ending roadworks in recent years. It ought to be the focal point of the area - a landmark building which draws huge crowds night after night. Let’s hope the grand old lady of Greenside Place is afforded that status when the fences come down and the endless redevelopment work is finally done. As a teenager, it was almost my second home as it hosted pretty much every single touring rock band. In the early 1980s I saw everyone from Jethro Tull to Iron Maiden, The Rolling Stones, Mike Oldfield, Sammy Hagar, The Who, Gillan, Ozzy Osbourne and Peter Gabriel, hit the stage. There were back to back gigs featuring Whitesnake - the first saw me pinned to the front of the stage with my head next to a stack of speakers. Couldn’t hear properly for days. The second saw me buy a ticket off a tout for ...

Ian Rankin: In A House Of Lies Michael Connelly: Dark Sacred Night Two stalwarts of the crime writing genre, and both with definitive characters now approaching their senior years. And that hands both of them a real challenge. How do you manage John Rebus and Harry Bosch as they face up to their twilight years outwith the force? Kill them off with an explosive final outing? Allow them to go quietly into the night? Or let old age, and failing health, take its natural course. Rebus and Bosch are both growing old in real time - something not old crime detectives do - and that gives them a finite shelf life. Both have endured across several decades and multiple novels, both are now facing the end game. They’re not quite there yet, but then “when” and “how” are standing on the horizon. In Bosch, Connelly has created one of the finest fictional  detectives. His story, and career, span 21 novels across 27 years all of which which are laser-...

Piece by piece, Fife Flyers roster is taking shape A new ice hockey season is almost upon us. The 2019-20 EIHL campaign begins in September, but most teams have challenge games scheduled for the end of August to shake the rust from skates, and run the rule over their summer signings. For Fife Flyers’ fans, the picture is not yet complete, but enough pieces are now in place for them to make a decent assessment of how the team is shaping up. The forwards are all signed, and a new netminder stands between the pipes - all that is missing is the final blueliners. And those signings hold one of the keys to how the season may shape up. There are half a dozen new players heading to Kirkcaldy to join the core of players who iced last season. They need to gel quickly to ensure the team gets off the most positive start possible. The forwards appear to have plenty firepower  once again, and a fair bit of size too. General feedback to the recruitment has b...