Tag: Edinburgh festival

Assembly George Square Theatre, Edinburgh
The actor and comedian’s lucky dip of a show offers sketches, songs – and a controversial take on #MeToo

‘Old-fashioned,” Maureen Lipman calls herself at the start of Up for It, and the term certainly applies to her show, a medley of music and standup, character comedy and counter-revolutionary views on #MeToo. It is, she says, the kind of cabaret that she and co-star, jazz singer Jacqui Dankworth, would enjoy, and will likewise appeal to anyone drawn to big personalities, old jokes and music so smooth you could slide a whisky tumbler down it.

Lipman starts as she means to go on, mixing self-deprecation (“You thought your wife had booked to see Su Pollard”) with steely self-regard. “People like me, we’re shunted aside these days,” she complains, notwithstanding her casting last week in Coronation Street. There follows a monologue about 21st-century telly, in which Miriam Margolyes farts her way around the world and Lipman hosts a show called Walking with Wrinklies.

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Assembly George Square Theatre, Edinburgh
The actor and comedian’s lucky dip of a show offers sketches, songs – and a controversial take on #MeToo

‘Old-fashioned,” Maureen Lipman calls herself at the start of Up for It, and the term certainly applies to her show, a medley of music and standup, character comedy and counter-revolutionary views on #MeToo. It is, she says, the kind of cabaret that she and co-star, jazz singer Jacqui Dankworth, would enjoy, and will likewise appeal to anyone drawn to big personalities, old jokes and music so smooth you could slide a whisky tumbler down it.

Lipman starts as she means to go on, mixing self-deprecation (“You thought your wife had booked to see Su Pollard”) with steely self-regard. “People like me, we’re shunted aside these days,” she complains, notwithstanding her casting last week in Coronation Street. There follows a monologue about 21st-century telly, in which Miriam Margolyes farts her way around the world and Lipman hosts a show called Walking with Wrinklies.

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Just the Tonic at the Mash House, Edinburgh
So long as you can avoid making the inevitable Concords comparison, this peppy musical duo delivers some pleasantly diverting songs

Joke that you’re “the nation’s favourite comedy rap-jazz duo” and you’re bound to recall “New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk parody act” – as if it weren’t hard enough already for musical comedy duos to escape Flight of the Conchords’ shadow. But Harry Baker and Chris Read have made waves over the last year (Radio 2 appearances; guest slots on Russell Howard’s Sky show) with their brand of peppy comic song, and, provided you put Conchords comparisons to the back of your mind, their latest fringe offering makes for a pleasantly diverting hour.

There’s no edge whatsoever to what they do, and at points the show shades into blandness. It’s not clear what distinctive new qualities they bring to the musical comedy party. Their songs range frictionlessly across subjects from the romantic lives of pandas to the woes of supporting the England football team. When they do address something contentious – the spectre of terrorism in their final song, for example – they reap platitudes (“Fear only has the power we give it,” runs their wholesome refrain).

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The tricky subjects of identity politics, consent and mental health make for electric shows

• The best comedy to see in Edinburgh, part one

“Unless you can say in one media-friendly soundbite exactly what it is that you’re talking about and exactly what it is that you stand for, people lose interest.”

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