All posts by Yeside

Edinburgh Fringe Festival Wednesday August 14th – Sunday 18th 2019. 33 Shows in 4.25 Days!

Reviews

Wednesday August 14th Evening:

The Canary and the Crow @ The Roundabout, Summerhall

Jayde Adams  @ Pleasance Courtyard

 

 

 

 

Thursday 15th August

Steve Richards @ The Space at Symposium Hall

Sea Sick @Canada Hub, Kings Hall

Daughterhood @ The Roundabout, Summerhall

Predictably Irrational @ The Space at Surgeon’s Hall

Mason King: Sleight of Mind @ The Space at Surgeon’s Hall

The Good, The Bad and The Brexit @ The Space at Surgeon’s Hall

Skylar Macdonald’s Fact Machine @ C-Aquilar

Mojo @ The Space, North Bridge

Friday 16th August

Heroin(e for Breakfast @ The Pleasure Dome

Pitch Purple – Doonstairs – Guilded Balloon Patter House
Chain of Trivia – TheSpace at Surgeons Hall
When the Birds Come – Underbelly at Cowgate
Conspiracy – Underbelly at Cowgate
Dead Equal – Army at Fringe
Clive Anderson – Assembly George Square Studios
Boar – Pleasance Courtyard

Saturday, 17th August
West of Frances – TheSpace at Surgeons Hall
One Starts in the Barbers etc. – Greenside at Nicholson Square
Awhile with Seamus Healey – The Hepburn Suite – The Royal Scots Club
Until the Flood – Traverse 2 – Traverse Theatre
Ahir Shah: Dots – Monkey Barrel Comedy
Clouds – theSpace on the Mile
Grandmothers Grimm – The Vault – Paradise on the Vault

Sunday, 18th August
Islander – Roundabout@Summerhall
Trump Lear – Pleasance Courtyard – Bunker One
Biggest Problem – Grassmarket 4, Sweet Grassmarket
Definitely Louise – Attic – Guilded Ballroom Rose Theatre
Stand Up with Janine Haroumi – Pleasance Courtyard
Songbird – Pleasance Courtyard
Butterflies – Playground 1 – Zoo Playground
Scottish Sock Puppets – Dram – Guilded Balloon Patter House

 

A German Life

Bridge Theatre

A German Life

At The Bridge Theatre

3rd May, 2019

“I had no idea what was going on. Or very little. No more than most people. So you can’t make me feel guilty.”

I read recently that a few years ago Amazon briefly sold out its entire stock of Hannah Arendt’s 500-page treatise, “The Origins of Totalitarianism.” In it, the German-born philosopher surveys the conditions that gave rise to Nazi rule, charting the  gradual rise of fascism. Social shifts are slow, sometimes too slow to spot, let alone stop. Liberty gets lost, bit by bit. To arm ourselves against any repetition, we must remain alert to the tell-tale signs. Art can act as an alarm call. Christopher Hampton’s play “A German Life” seems to aim for that.

Christopher Hampton’s play is based on the testimony which Brunhilde Pomsel gave when she finally broke her silence to a group of Austrian filmmakers, shortly before she died in 2017 at the age of 106.

Maggie Smith (84) delivers an extraordinary performance in a compelling 100 minute monologue as Pomsel, whose life spanned the twentieth century.  Initially, Pomsel struggled to make ends meet as a secretary in Berlin during the 1930. Her many employers including a Jewish insurance broker, the German Broadcasting Corporation and, eventually, wound up working as a secretary for Joseph Goebbels at the Ministry of Propaganda. Her shorthand skills led her to her secretarial role, rather than any ideological sympathies, or so she says.  And therein lies the rub. She was, indeed, an “apolitical youth”; another ordinary German carried along by unstoppable political tide.

Smith and Pomsel become one.  Smith’s credible performance  combines the knowingness of hindsight with the naivety of youth,  casual enough to catch you off-guard when the magnitude of events suddenly cuts through. “Isn’t it funny,” she muses, stroking her silk scarf. “The things you can’t remember and the things you’ll never forget.” Yet, you are never quite sure. Continue reading A German Life →