Info on Reviews of Shows at the 2009 Festival

The main objectives of this page are to:

• tell you where you can find reviews on the web
• provide a summary of those shows which have scored most marks with the critics
• detail some of this year’s awards
• provide links to selected summaries of the festival by the critics
• summarise our own thoughts on the shows that we managed to see
• provide links to selected Visual Arts, Jazz & Blues and Film festival reviews.

Where to Find 2009 Reviews

There are a plethora of sources to satisfy even the most voracious consumer of reviews. Of course the critics vary from the professional to the semi-pro, the student, the enthusiastic theatregoer ... and all shades in between.

The following list will be updated as it becomes clear precisely where reviews can be found on any given site.

Scotsman
The Guardian
The Stage
Chortle (comedy)
Fest
OnstageScotland
BritishTheatreGuide
The List
FringeReview
Viewfromthestalls
Whatsonstage.com
The Herald
The Times
The Telegraph
EdinburghGuide.com
The Independent
Edinburgh Festivals Magazine
ThreeWeeks
BroadwayBaby

List last updated on August 13th, 2009.

Most Critically Acclaimed Shows (Fringe and EIF)

There are simply too many shows and too many reviews to attempt a list of links to them, even an abbreviated one. Instead, I focus on producing periodic lists of those shows that the critics liked best.

Let me start off by stating the obvious: there are many enjoyable shows which never make these lists. We have seen many “minor classics” in Edinburgh over the years that went largely unnoticed by the critics. Indeed, we have a number of shows in our planned schedule for this year that have had little publicity during the “preview season”. So, do not be a complete slave to reviews: listen to the “word on the street” and perhaps try something different – you might be pleasantly surprised.

The minimum criterion for a show to be considered for the following list is that it must have had at least three reviews … which is not easy.

This is the fifth and final iteration of the list of most critically acclaimed shows. It was published at 6:00pm on Wednesday August 26th, 2009.

Drama. Morecambe, Private Peaceful, The Sound of My Voice, The Event, F**ked, The Trial, Heroin(e) for Breakfast, Internal, Precious Little Talent, Midsummer, Beachy Head, Chronicles of Long Kesh, Faith Healer, Sea Wall, Orphans, Little Gem, If That's All There Is, King of the Gypsies, The Palace of The End, Gagarin Way, The Origin of Species ..., Ophelia (Drowning), The Rap Guide to Evolution, The Devoured, David Leddy's White Tea, The Last Witch, The Sound of My Voice, Normality, Bane, The Sociable Plover, Nun the Wiser, Forgotten Things, Metamorphosis, Lilly Through The Dark and A Grave Situation.

Comedy. The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church, Adam Hills, Idiots of Ants, Rhod Gilbert, Phil Nichol, Richard Herring, Tom Wrigglesworth, Andrew Lawrence, Simon Amstell, Laura Solon, Celia Paquola, Hugh Hughes, Andrew Lawrence, Zoe Lyons, John Bishop, Penny Dreadfuls, Glenn Wool, Rich Hall, Andrew O'Neil, Kevin Bridges, Russell Kane, Colin Hoult, Phil Kay, Pajama Men and Paul Sinha.

Opera. Faust, Il Ritorno D'Ulisse in Patria and St.Kilda. Accidental Nostalgia (operetta).

Music. Camille O'Sullivan, Barbershopera II and Jerry Springer The Opera.

Dance & Physical Theatre. Gelabert Azzopardi Companyia de Dansa, The Return of Ulysses, Something about Others, Controlled Falling Project, Flhip Flhop, Cocorico, Circa, The Overcoat and The Red Room.

Others. Power Plant

2009 Awards

There are a growing number of awards which will all be mentioned in this section when they are announced. The Scotsman Fringe Firsts and The Glasgow Herald Angels, the major awards, are handed out weekly while the remainder are given towards the end of the festival.

The Scotsman Fringe First awards for new writing. Week 1 Scotsman Fringe Firsts awards have been announced: Dennis Kelly's Orphans, Ontroerend Goed's Internal, Found, John Clancy's The Event, Edgar Oliver's East 10th Street, Paul Charlton's Crush and The Unravelling. Week 2 Fringe First awards are: Daniel Kitson's The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church; Mark Watson's The Hotel; Baba Brinkman with The Rap Guide to Evolution; Tim Whitnall's Morecambe, performed by Bob Golding; and The World is Too Much (breakfast slot at the Traverse - 6 short dramas by different playwrights). Week 3 awards go to: Grid Iron's Barflies; Mark Ravenhill and Bette Bourne's A Life in Three Acts; Inua Ellam's The 14th Tale; David Leddy's White Tea; and Dot performing Tom Basden's Party.

The Glasgow Herald Angel awards. Week 1 Bank of Scotland Herald Archangel is Universal Arts. The Herald Angels are Grid Iron Theatre (Barflies), Ontroerend Goed (Internal), Dennis Kelly (Orphans), Nic Green (Trilogy), DOT 504 (100 Wounded Tears) and Jack Bruce (Jazz & Blues Festival). Week 2 Herald Archangel is Christopher Bell (chorus master of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus). The Herald Angel awards go to Frank Woodley (Optimism), Ofelia Popii (Faust), Cynthia Hopkins (Accidental Nostalgia), Claire Cunningham (ME), Patrice Thibaud and Phillipe Leygnac (Cocorico) and Barbara Morrison (Jazz at The Outhouse). Week 3 Archangel is Bette Bourne (A Life in Three Acts) while the Herald Angel awards go to Kathryn Howden (The Last Witch), Fuel Theatre, Dialogos (Tondal's Vision), Zic Zazou (Brocante Sonore), David Leddy (White Tea) and Shadwell Opera (The Magic Flute). Week 4 Herald Archangel goes to the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Herald Angels are: Juliana Engberg (curator of The Enlightenments), Doris Dorrie (director of Admeto), Karen Kandel (Peter and Wendy) and Giorgio Battistelli (Experimentum Mundi).

Edinburgh Comedy awards (The "Eddies"): Tim Key (main award), Jonny Sweet (best newcomer) and Peter Buckley Hill's Free Fringe (panel prize).

The Stage Awards for Acting Excellence at the Fringe: Billy Mack for The Sound of My Voice (best actor); Cora Bissett for Midsummer (best actress); Green Shoot Productions for Chronicles of Long Kesh (best ensemble); and George Mann for Odyssey (best solo performer).

The Carol Tambor Edinburgh to New York award: Elaine Murphy's play Little Gem performed by Guna Nua & Civic Theatre

Amnesty International’s Freedom of Expression award: Palace of The End by Judith Thompson

Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize 2009: The River People's Lilly Through The Dark; David Leddy's White Tea; and Inspector Sands' Theatre's Is That All There Is.

Total Theatre awards: The River People for Lilly Through The Dark (emerging artists / company); Beady Eye for Everything Must Go (Or The Voluntary Attempt To Overcome Unnecessary Obstacles) (devised performance); Adrian Howell's: Foot-Washing for The Sole presented by The Arches (innovation / interaction / immersion); Daffyd James and Ben Lewis for My Name is Sue (music & theatre); and Clod Ensemble for Under Glass (physical and visual theatre); and Improbable Theatre (significant contribution to theatre).

Arches Brick award for emerging talent: Beady Eye for Everything Must Go (Or The Voluntary Attempt To Overcome Unnecessary Obstacles) and Dancing Brick for 6:0: How Heap And Pebble Took On The World And Won.

Jack Tinker Spirit of the Fringe award. Morag Deyes and Dancebase.

Holden Street Theatres award: Horizon Arts for Heroin(e) for Breakfast.

FringeReview awards. Outstanding theatre shows: Horizon Arts for Heroin(e) for Breakfast plus Louise Hill and Martin Aukland (Bristol Shakespeare Festival Company) for Iago. Hidden Gems: Normality from Wordsmith's Theatre Factory.

Malcolm Hardee comedy awards: Lewis Schaffer (cunning stunt) and Otto Kuhnle (comic originality)

Allen Wright awards for young journalists: Matt Trueman of Culture Wars in the Review Category and Sam Friedman of Fest Magazine in the Features, Interviews and Previews Category.

Other awards include: Edinburgh Evening News Drama Awards and ThreeWeeks Editors' Awards.

Critics' Postmortem

The Herald is first in with a reasonably balanced and coherent article by Iain Macwhirter. It is followed by The Guardian who describe 2009 as a vintage year. Meanwhile, Dominic Cavendish in The Telegraph talks about the trend towards the theatre of intimacy (audience participation to me) in drama.

WhatsOnStage.com provides links to various blogs written during the last week of the Fringe.

Punters' Visit

We took in 24 shows and 4 art exhibitions during our one week visit to Edinburgh. A brief summary of our thoughts on what we saw:

• an average year overall with no unmissable show
• best drama show - Orphans (by some distance)
• best "Edinburgh" plays (tight, well-written and well-acted shows for a small cast in a small space) - The Fall of Man and The Sociable Plover
• best use of technology (multi-media) - Beachy Head which was an impressive production generally. Its use of technology was apt and quite seamless in contrast to Accidental Nostalgia where it was in your face and often superfluous
• best comedy (or should we say storytelling?) - Daniel Kitson's The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church
• best physical theatre - Circa
• best visual arts - Raphael to Renoir which I felt was a more coherent exhibition (in the sense that it was a single private collection) than The Discovery of Spain although I particularly enjoyed the Goya drawings in the latter (if "enjoyed" is the right word for such gruesome works). I tend to agree with Adrian Searle in The Guardian who described The Discovery of Spain as an uneven show
• this year's "turkey" - Optimism. We fail to understand why the critics praised it at all
• what we would like to have seen but were unable to fit in - Precious Little Talent, Private Peaceful, Chronicles of Long Kesh, The Sound of My Voice, If That's All There Is, Something about Others, The Overcoat and Power Plant.

Edinburgh Art Festival

Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival

Reviews of the overall festival can be found in blogcritics.org, The Independent on Sunday and TimeOut.

Film Festival awards included: the Michael Powell award for best British feature film to director Duncan Jones for Moon; PPG award for best performance in a British feature film to Katie Jarvis for Fish Tank; best new international feature to Kyle Patrick Alvarez for Easier With Practice; best documentary award to Aliona Van Der Horst for Boris Ryzhy; and the Standard Life Audience award to The Secret of the Kells (director Tomm Moore).