And Antopolski talks about his two young daughters, now, as he informs us, aged five and three, with an attractive combination of tenderness and bewilderment. His descriptions of fatherhood are like a realistic and honestly written parenting manual. With swear words.

His 2009 Fringe show, Silent But Deadly, was awarded the much coveted Dave Award for the Funniest Joke on the Fringe: “Hedgehogs. Why can’t they just share the hedge?” It’s brilliant, largely because you can’t quite believe no one had thought of it sooner. The Dave award makes a conspicuous, and shiny, appearance on stage this year, but, although the one-liners are still sharp and clever in their simplicity, they feel somehow less memorable. Or was that the beer? Hmm.

Over his regular visits to the Fringe, Antolpolski has found a format that works – topical chat, a few gags, a song and a rap, with the latter proving a highlight. This year’s offering, about the joys of owning your own laser, is no exception. It’s good to know that we can all still identify with our thirteen year old selves and the pleasure we took in pointing laser pens at teachers’ heads. The lyrics are wonderfully inventive and smart, although he is always going to have trouble improving on 2008′s brilliant Sandwich Rap, still available on YouTube.

Dan Antopolski has produced a solidly entertaining hour. He’s an engaging performer who manages to find a balance between intelligently thought out wit and pure unadulterated silliness. And he’s cute too, if you like that sort of thing.

By Vikki Jones

Dan Antopolski – Turn of the Century

Venue 23: Pleasance Dome

Until 30^th August, 8pm

Tickets available from www.edfringe.com and www.pleasance.co.uk

£9.50/£8

Fortunately though, this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe is bestowing some rather good stuff on our very own Leith. Can’t be bothered with over-enthusiastic drama students touting reviews from the cultural powerhouse that is the Leeds Student? Then look no further than this fine selection of Fringe experiences showing in our own backyard.

Cargo, Iron-Oxide Ltd
Leith Links (West), Next to the bowling green; August 11-15 and 17-22, 21:15 (1 hour); £10/£8
A daring, outdoor performance created by Iron Oxide in conjunction with Edinburgh Mela and the Scottish Government’s Expo fund, Cargo uses extreme physicality to explore the universal need to migrate. It is the water-soaked tale of two people’s quest to find a place to call home. The show has been selected to form part of the 2010 Made in Scotland programme, showcasing the finest Scottish theatre and dance. However, Cargo premiered at the Edinburgh Mela on the evening of Friday 6 August.

Tabú
NoFit State Circus, Shrub Place, Leith Walk; August 4-30, except 10th, 17th and 24th, times vary; £18-£16/£14-£12

It’s been four years since NoFit State’s giant silver spaceship big top last landed on the normally barren patch of ground at Shrub Place. They are the UK’s leading contemporary circus troupe, based in Cardiff but coming to Leith Walk direct from Montréal’s International Circus Festival. Tabú explores the dark side of humanity – do we choose, it or does it choose us? Leave your Star Wars-based preconceptions at the door and watch some jaw-dropping circus skills, drama and dance. Featuring original live music and video and performed in promenade with the action happening in and around you, you won’t have seen anything like it.

The Tempest
EGTG in Association with the
Leith Agency; Mary of Guise Barge, The Shore; August 9-14 and 16-21, times vary; £8/£6
The ever-creative folk at the Leith Agency having recently brought us Leith Records and Batter of the Bands are now branching out into theatricals. This site-specific production of the Tempest takes us to the new home of Prospero and his daughter Miranda, who have been washed up in Leith following their expulsion from their hometown of Milan. Directed by the Leith Agency’s very own Claire Wood and brought to you by ‘The Grads’ – Edinburgh University’s Graduate Theatre Group – who won an award from the Scottish Community Drama Association for their production of Margaret Edson’s Wit in 2009. Stylist magazine has named the show one of its hot tickets for this year’s Fringe.

La Locandiera
Wonderland Productions Ltd; Assembly @ Vittoria Restaurant, 113 Brunswick Street; August 4-30, except 16th and 23rd, times vary; £39.50-£29.50 (dinner included)
Even the Assembly Rooms are finding their way down Leith Walk this year with this production of Goldoni’s classic Italian comedy. Performed in true eighteenth century period style and served with the traditional folk songs and ambiance of a Florentine Inn. The menu includes three courses and coffee.

The American High School Theatre Festival
Pilrig Studio, St Paul’s Church, 1b Pilrig Street; Programme details available at www.ahstf.org
Every year, carefully selected bands of America’s top High School drama students, whose parents can afford the airfare, descend on Pilrig Studio with a selection of theatre and children’s shows. Look out for classics such as The Real Inspector Hound or the intriguingly titled The Revenge of the Space Pandas.

The Chinese State Circus: Mulan
Ocean Terminal Big Top; August 6-22, except 12th and 19th, times vary; £27-£10/£21-£7
The story of the legendary Chinese heroine provides the background to this display of acrobatics, circus skills and Shaolin martial arts, accompanied by a live performance of an original score. The priciest tickets will get you into the heart of the action, ringside, and the cheap seats are at the back next to the band. ■

Info: Tickets for all shows can be booked online at edfringe.com or from the venues directly.

As someone who tries, and more often than not fails, to make a living out of writing, albeit not of the self-referential, poetic kind, that heavily underlined and italicised profession has the capacity to make me wince. Our fragile little egos need some sort of title to convince us that we might, one day, be of some artistic use.

But, I reasoned, perhaps the very pretentiousness of her attempts to present herself as unpretentious demonstrates just how pretentious every single one of us can be. And I was satisfied. How pretentious is that?

I found myself at this particular performance of Utter!, which featured the work of several graduates of the highly regarded Creative Writing degrees at the University of East Anglia, because my pal was in it. Her name is Megan Bradbury, she’s a novelist and, of course, she was unreservedly brilliant. She even provided me with an in joke related to our shared occasional problem with household vermin. She’s great.

I must confess though, had it not been for Megan, I probably wouldn’t have rushed to a sweaty cave below a pub for an hour on a Tuesday night – all that pretentious stuff, you know? But what was refreshing, whether the work was to your taste or not, was the honesty and commitment of all the performers and the variety the hour-long programme achieved.

Ok, so Eiseman-Renyard was a bit wanky, but she was brave and not afraid to be proud of her work. Molly Naylor was touching and funny, with a gift for expressing those small, awkward gestures that pass between human beings that we would often prefer to forget. Ross Sutherland was a talented wordsmith and performer, entertaining and acutely observant in equal measure. Megan, as I mentioned, was great.

Utter! runs until 29^th August with a different line-up every night and an extra special two hour performance on Monday 23rd. So grab yourself a cheapish-for-Fringe-prices beer from the Banshee Labyrinth and prepare to be entertained.

Vikki Jones

Utter!

Venue 156, The Banshee Labyrinth, Niddry Street

7.30pm (1 hour), 6.30pm on Monday 23^rd August (2 hours)

Part of PBH’s Free Fringe – no ticket required but donations very welcome

For full details of the line-up visit www.utterspokenword.com

Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, a hub for new Scottish writing all year round, received three of the six awards. In Traverse 2, Scottish playwright DC Jackson’s My Romantic History is a touching story of how our past encounters can come back to haunt us in future relationships, produced by the Bush Theatre, Sheffield Theatres and the Birmingham Rep. Also showing in Traverse 2 is Speechless, a new play based on Marjorie Wallace’s book The Silent Twins, co-produced by Shared Experience and Sherman Cymru.

The Traverse has also branched further off site than in the past couple of years, with site-specific work and venues at St Stephen’s Church and the Scottish Book Trust, which houses the third winner, White, by Andy Manley. Produced by acclaimed Scotland-based children’s theatre company Catherine Wheels, this show is their first aimed at very young children and is delighting old and young alike.

The National Theatre of Scotland’s co-production with Frantic Assembly, Beautiful Burnout, also scooped an award. Showing at the Pleasance Courtyard, Bryony Lavery’s play explores the highly-charged and controversial world of boxing in an incredibly physical production.

Renny Krupinski’s Bare at theSpaces on the Mile also gets up close and personal with the world of combat, exploring the violence and destructive relationships of a bare-knuckle fighter staying afloat in the underworld. Manchester company Bareback Theatre’s production was also an award winner in the International Mobil Playwriting Competition.

At the Gilded Balloon, playwright Stewart Permutt’s haunting tragi-comedy Real Babies Don’t Cry explores friendship through the bizarre purchase of a life-like newborn baby doll which, for its mother, soon becomes and obsession.

All these shows will now be selling fast so get your tickets now!

By Vikki Jones

Tickets available from www.edfringe.com or direct from venues:

Traverse Theatre www.traverse.co.uk

Pleasance www.pleasance.co.uk

theSpaces on the Mile @ The Radisson tel. 0845 508 8316 (10am-10.30pm)

Gilded Balloon www.gildedballoon.co.uk

This is very much the case with Iron Oxide’s Cargo, produced in conjunction with the Edinburgh Mela festival as part of the Made in Scotland 2010 showcase. Issued with our uniforms of blue plastic ponchos, the audience are herded into what feels like some sort of cattle pen, with brightly coloured flares and the plucking of a ukulele drawing our attention around the 360 degrees of performance space.

Sound confusing? It is a bit. Told in, around and above the audience, through physical theatre, music and water (hence the ponchos), Cargo aims explore multicultural identities and our understanding of the place we call home. Communication takes place through movement and noise rather than language, a reflection of the diverse, and not necessarily English-speaking, audience the Mela attracts.

And Cargo has a huge audience remit. Performing both at the Mela and as part of the Fringe, the show seeks to cater for a diverse mix of cultures and ages, as well as traditional and non-traditional arts and theatre-goers. This might explain the production’s reluctance to tell a clearly discernable story. It touches lightly on issues of immigration and cultural acceptance, but seems to deliberately avoid posing or attempting to answer any politically motivated questions, despite obvious allusions to the prejudices and inconsistencies of our attitudes to human migration.

To those of us looking for hard-hitting, cutting edge theatre, this approach will be frustrating. However, the production’s bold imagination realised in a colourful mixture of puppetry, dance and physical drama are consistently engaging. So, if you are willing to step away from the political and accept the performance as a unique, other-worldly fairytale, Cargo is an entertaining and uplifting experience.

By Vikki Jones

Cargo

Iron Oxide/Edinburgh Mela Co-production

Venue 167: Leith Links West

11-15 and 17-22 August, 9.15pm

Tickets available from www.edfringe.com and www.hubtickets.co.uk

£10/£8

The performance is an hour or so of pure, glorious escapism. Your jaw will drop as perhaps the chiselled torsos you will ever see whirl across the stage demonstrating capoeira, or perform back flip after back flip in a perfect circle.

Undeterred by this year’s disappointing World Cup, Arthur Mansilla, the 20-year-old Brazilian Freestyle Soccer Skills champion, performs footballing tricks and stunts with quiet concentration, surrounded by the noise of stamping feet, tenor saxophone and a cacophony of drums. Add to this a carnival-like atmosphere of music, dance and a young lady whose bottom wiggles at the speed of light, and you could be forgiven for thinking that life in Brazil is nothing more than a permanent party.

But the show is not shirking the very real poverty and deprivation that affects so many Brazilians. Many of the performers’ roots are in the favelas and slum areas of the country’s biggest cities and they are still active in promoting music, capoeira and dance within their communities. We are introduced to singer Paloma Gomes, whose talent was nurtured as part of a project for socially deprived areas run by a Brazilian musician and social activist Carlinhos Brown. She was discovered by Tony Gough, the show’s director, performing on a beach.

Brazil! Brazil! Will make you feel warm inside. It is unadulterated entertainment; an hour of fast-paced fun performed with real heart and soul by a stunningly talented and acrobatic cast. Go see.

By Vikki Jones

Brazil! Brazil!

Underbelly Productions/World Stage Productions/Developing World Health

Venue : Udderbelly’s Pasture, Bristo Square

Until August 30 (not Monday 16), 18:55

Tickets available from www.underbelly.co.uk and www.edfringe.com

£12.50/£11.50 Monday-Thursday

£15/£13.50 Friday-Sunday

Decky Does a Bronco

It’s the school holidays back in 1983 and five boys congregate daily at their local playground swings in Girvan. Here they practice ‘Broncoing’; the kind of activity that, if your mum caught you doing it, you’d be in big trouble. According to playwright Douglas Maxwell:

“To Bronco a swing you stand on it, worky up to the bumps (level with the bar) kick the swing over your head and jump beneath it. The swing then shoots over the bar and keeps going until it wraps itself right round. It looks ace and makes a hell of a racket.”

But Decky, the smallest of the group and the butt of many an unintentionally cruel joke, cannae Bronco. His story is told by David, a self-confessed “reminiscer”, trapped between his adult and child self. Through him we are transported into the mind of a nine-year-old – desperate to grow up, but also fearful of its meaning. Forced into the adult world sooner than they should have been, we are also confronted with the grown-ups these boys become.

Originally produced in 2000 to Fringe First-winning acclaim, Ben Harrison’s revival feels as fresh and poignant as if it were the first time around. The cast’s death-defying displays of playground gymnastics are delightful to watch; more so because they drive the narrative forward rather than pausing it for a set-piece. Grid Iron’s perfectly executed union of site with story gives the production a sense of intimacy, despite the scale and spectacle of a theatrical event.

Both the awkward physicality of the boys and the brooding self-control of their adult selves have been carefully observed and sensitively realised, to the point where the characters feel hauntingly whole in both present and past. A reminder of how a gut-wrenching childhood feeling of sadness and fear can stay with you forever. By Vikki Jones

Decky Does a Bronco

By Douglas Maxwell

Directed By Ben Harrison

Venue 80: Traverse @ Scotland Yard

Until 21^st August, not Mondays, 7.30pm

Tickets available from www.edfringe.com and www.traverse.co.uk

£17/£19. Concessions available

Having pottered around trying to look busy while husband happily set about being all masculine and dragging grass, weeds, stones and bits of wood out of the ground, I finally felt obligated to take over with the rake. Unfortunately I had already completed my one press-up exercise routine that day so it was game over in a matter of minutes. I began to suspect I have as much of a natural instinct for gardening as Charlie Dimmock does for under wiring.

But we (I use that word in the loosest sense – it would be fairer to say ‘mainly not me’) persevered. Where once there were waist high nettles and angry looking unidentifiable thorny branches, there is now mainly earth, rocks and remnants of scaffolding from last summer’s statutory notice. However, despite a distinct reduction in the amount of foliage, if I’m honest, it still looks like a bombsite.

Garden centre pornography
With the neighbours’ gardens laid out to lawn, with shaded seating ar- eas and the occasional water feature, I must confess to feeling somewhat ashamed of my efforts. The lady in the next garden along always smiles sympathetically, as if she’s just wait- ing for us to realise we’re fighting a losing battle and take our pound shop garden tools back upstairs.

This might have happened had we not decided to get creative in the form of a rockery which, though it didn’t have any actual plants growing in or around it, made us feel that one vital step closer to the Royal Horticultural Society Show. And so straightforward: collect misshapen rocks from your bombsite/garden; lay them on the ground in a circle; fill with earth and top with more rocks. Easy.

Enthused by our brand new feature and buoyed by a visit to some friends’ enviably productive allotment (lucky beggars), we embarked on the next phase of our passage into Gardener’s World – the Sunday afternoon trip to B&Q. And we’re not talking the tiny little B&Q on Easter Road here, no no no, we’re talking mega out of town garden centre pornography B&Q at Newcraighall. These gardeners meant business.

And who should be there to greet us but TV’s very own Alan Titchmarsh, in disturbingly slightly larger than life size cardboard cut-out form. Everywhere you turned there he was, his sparkly eyes and cheeky little grin willing you deeper into a world of turf, shrubs and weapons grade weed killer. Alan wasted no time in seducing us to the vegetable and herb seedlings rack, where lots of cute little baby plants were looking for people to take them out of their polystyrene cages and give them a new home.

Just a few hours later, wellies on and trowel in hand, I felt for the first time like Tom and Barbara. I made a very professional looking teepee with bamboo canes tied with string, around which my French beans will trail. I dug even spaced holes in what has now become the vegetable patch and attempted to separate matted together broad bean shoots into single plants to fill them. I was gardening!

Some varieties, I will admit, were pretty much dead on arrival. My overzealous separation of sweetcorn plants has resulted in one somewhat lame, spindly looking offering and a surrounding patch of floppy brown leaves. The sugar snap peas are currently far from snappy and the oregano seems to have had an unfortunate incident with the full bladder of one of next-door’s cats. But according to our new, if somewhat two dimensional, gardening guru Mr Titchmarsh, we should really have planted most of these in May. If only we’d discovered wisdom sooner.

Titchmarsh replicas
Yet surprisingly, (both to me and to husband, who winces every time I even pick up a watering can), the beans are climbing despite the attentions of some kind of leaf-munching insect and the beetroot plants I was assured would die are doing brilliantly, if I do say so myself. Every time I look out of the window at those perky little purple shoots and fragile wee leaves reaching up to the sun I feel genuinely warm inside.

But not as warm as some, Alan may have only assisted me in finding my way to the vegetables, but according to B&Q his replicas have been causing quite a stir, with female fans posing for pictures with their idol. Some diehard Titchmarsh-lovers have even approached their local store in the hope of being allowed to take one home. Forget my beetroot that really is garden centre porn. Vikki Jones

The £750,000 refurbishment, paid for by the Scottish Arts Council and Big Lottery Fund, along with loans, grants and other funding, was unveiled at the end of last month. The project has created studio space, a music practice room, a garden and an extended kitchen for the cafe, complete with shiny new equipment and appliances. Thirty bright, airy and clean new studios have been built on a balcony space overlooking the main hall. With automatic doors and plans to install a lift, the Drill Hall has become a 21st century space.

Yet there is plenty of the old remaining. The building stands as a memorial to 102 soldiers from the 7th (Leith) Battalion of the Royal Scots, whose bodies were laid out here following the Gretna rail disaster in 1915. The space, scale and purposefully functional nature of the original design have not been lost.

But better facilities should bring more revenue. As well as monthly rent from studios and office spaces, the Drill Hall is for hire as an events and meeting place, rehearsal space and some-time theatre. The cafe, which has recently expanded to provide outside catering, also generates income. With all these new additions, the worry for some might be that Out of the Blue will become a less inclusive and more commercial enterprise. When I bring this up with Rob Hoon, Out of the Blue’s co-ordinator, he sighs. “We’ve taken out loans and we have a mortgage to pay. Money we make from the refurbishment will allow us to continue the community side of our work.” And he’s got a point. In all of its incarnations, from a bus garage in New Street, the Bongo Club, studios at the Powerhouse in Portobello and the Drill Hall, the organisation has consistently sought to engage with communities and support local projects.
In Leith, this process began with the formation of the Friends of Dalmeny Street Park, just around the corner from the Drill Hall, which sought to replace this underused green space and rusting play equipment with an area created by and for its residents. Young people were given the chance to work with a photographer and designer to produce a magazine, Streetlife, detailing their ideas for the park, and children from Lorne Primary were also involved in the play area’s design.

And local relationships have continued to flourish. One of the first groups to use the space, a peer-led dance troupe, continues to practice there and performed at the launch of the refurbishment. At the end of my tour, as we sit in the cafe, Hoon proudly tells me the story of Jodie, who took part in the Streetlife project and then went on to the Cafe traineeship scheme. The scheme provides skills and training for young people who lack the opportunities, confidence and qualifications to find full time work. But, at the end of her training, Jodie Blue for you stayed and now works in the cafe as a fully-fledged employee.

As Out of the Blue grows, no doubt so will its success stories. For more information about how to support its arts and education projects and a full timetable of events, exhibitions and classes and details of spaces available for hire visit outoftheblue.org.uk. And look out for these events coming up soon…

The Leith Festival: 11th – 20th June 2010 Out of the Blue will be holding an Arts Market and ‘Bruncheon!’ event on Saturday 12 June 11-6pm, providing a chance to buy unique artwork, textiles, photography, jewellery, vintage delights, gifts, curios and treasures direct from the resident artists and makers at Out of the Blue. Entry costs 80p. Bruncheon! – 11.30am-3pm will be accompanied by a chilled out soundtrack from live acts and local DJs. From Thursday 17th – Saturday 19th June, the theatre group ACTive Inquiry, based at Out of the Blue, will perform the Legacy – a play about change and how to make it happen – at the Drill Hall at 7.30pm with a matinee on Saturday 19th at 3.30pm.

Vikki Jones

As I settled myself into a chair in the corner of the studio at Out Of The Blue, Ruth Hollyman, a small lady with a big voice managed to silence a room full of teenagers with one booming command.

“Right, guuuuyyyys!”

Impressive, I thought, and scribbled it down next to my large shorthand note which read Chaos.

“This is Vikki and she’s from a magazine called The Leither. She’s writing an article about us and I want her to say we are a highly focussed theatre group.”

Highly… focussed… theatre… group, I wrote, remaining highly focussed on my notebook as the crowd of teenage eyes came to rest upon me. But before I knew it they had launched themselves into what Ruth called a warm-up, although in truth it seemed like something more of a cool-down.

The highly focussed theatre group of which I write goes by the name of Strange Town, a youth theatre company for 8-25 year olds. Their aim is to encourage young people, whatever their background or previous theatrical experience, to recognise and develop their creativity and artistic abilities.

But we’re not talking gratuitous opportunities for parents to cheer on their offspring whose appearance as the backend of the pantomime horse guarantees a future of superstardom. Strange Town endeavours to create high quality, daring and entertaining work, much of which consists of brand new writing. In fact, I visited at the beginning of the rehearsals for a piece so hot of the press that it was still undergoing rewrites.

The play is by Duncan Kidd, a one time member of the acclaimed Lyceum Youth Theatre, who has also written two other productions for Strange Town. Wearing Badges Is Not Enough is not, as the title might suggest, a drama about politically active teen nudists, but takes it’s inspiration from the recent resurgence of the debate surrounding the war in Iraq. Kidd tells the story of a group of Scottish teenagers who felt so strongly about the invasion, that back in 2003, they bunked off school to march against it.

Red wine and fags

Now, back in 2003 I was in my final year at university. The lecture theatres were overrun with talk of protests and we discussed international politics over thinly rolled, chain-smoked, cigarettes and cheap red wine. Aside from lamenting my fading youth, as I watched the real-life youth of today chanting, “1, 2, 3, 4, we don’t want your fucking war,” I wondered what parts of this story these performers would remember. I also secretly wondered whether the protesting, red wine and fags story I just mentioned might make them think I was really cool.

But Robbie Small (17), Jess Innes (16) and Grace Sutherland (17) weren’t really the types to be impressed by stained teeth and smelly breath. Having barely hit double figures in 2003, they were aware of the Iraq invasion, but have no firm memories of the public resistance it met. For them, the Iraq Inquiry is confusing. They have none of the need of my generation to find a way, however staged, of holding those we considered responsible to account.

But this hasn’t stopped them having a sympathy for the cause – all of them say they are anti-war and, had they been politically conscious enough to make the decision at the time, would have wanted to get involved in the protests.

“Did they not lie about stuff?” said Grace.

“Lots of stuff,” I said.

“That just makes me want to protest even more,” said Jess. “I just stand up for what I believe in.”

And so, I leave with renewed faith in the youth of today. Even more so because these are not just card-carrying, middle class, Guardian reading lefties. Strange Town rightly prides itself on involving young people from 17 out of 23 state and private schools across the city, and its work is not afraid to show it. Take the line from this production which compares the relationship between a girl from Mary Erskine’s and a boy from Firrhill with Lady Chatterley’s Lover – now that’s a play I’d like to see…

Upcoming events

Wearing Badges is Not Enough, by Duncan Kidd, will be performed as part of The Lyceum’s Connect Festival of Youth Theatre that runs from 9-11 June.

The show will also feature on the Saturday night at Promote YT’s National Festival of Youth Theatre Summer Gathering. The event runs from 1-4 July at Rothes Halls, Glenrothes, Fife.

Strange Town runs weekly classes at Out Of The Blue on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. They will also be running summer schools for 8-14 year olds in July.

www.strangetown.org.uk