Jenni Ajderian

(originally published by The Student )      Where the theatricality of opera and the sobriety of religion meet, we find Verdi’s  Requiem  - a huge undertaking and a powerful piece of music for the Edinburgh University Music Society to perform, and one which merits a similarly huge and impressive back-drop. With four soloists, a double choir and full orchestra, McEwan Hall is filled almost to the brim with our suited-and-booted players, and the effect is not only visually impressive but orally overwhelming. Sound billowing out into the space with which the orchestra is so clearly familiar; awesome surges of power and piercing solos made possible by an acute knowledge of their surroundings.      By turns moody and monstrous, the  Requiem  was written in memory of one of Verdi’s contemporaries, and was performed repeatedly by captives during the Second World War. With its roots in the Catholic Mass ceremony and its turns through mourning and peace towards joy and biblical wrath, it’s

Pleasance Sessions 2013 A long time ago in a Pleasance Theatre far, far away... (originally published by The Student )      Strap in, kids- we're going to the moon. Bored of the Earth's predictable rhymes and ready-made raps, Abandoman are taking their show into strange new worlds of improvised comedic genius. Moonrock Boombox packed out the purple cow during the Fringe, and now returns to Edinburgh for a single night of stratospheric comedy gold.      It's a wonder frontman Rob Broderick doesn't need an oxygen mask as he touches down onstage in the Pleasance Theatre. Immediately he climbs out into the crowd, riffing constantly off the audience's quirks, picking out choice members of the crowd to play the central roles in the narrative that unfolds. We quickly choose a King of the Moon, an evil rival set on knocking him off his interstellar throne, and a crack team of programmers, HR assistants and English Literature students to help power our spaceshi

     If the Edinburgh Festival Fringe is about letting the little guy play with the big guys, about innovation and creativity, about finding a show that at first baffles and then delights, then this is the perfect Fringe show. Based on a text-based Youtube game which swiftly went viral, John Robertson brings us his live version of an eighties' low-budget video game.      It is unlike anything else on the Fringe this year. It relies heavily on audience participation but even more so on Robertson's own wit and the strength of the prepared game screen-shots. It is wonderfully well made and self-consciously low-budget. Prizes range from ancient computer games to rubber gloves and considering the fact that every Fringe contains more Shakespearian adaptations than you can wave a ruff at, it is mind-bendingly awesome that this exists in the first place.      A few minutes' introductory stand-up sees Robertson leaping across the stage in leather trousers and black corset, e

     Just the Tonic at the Caves, 16:40, every day but the 13th       Remember the one about Odysseus? No? Well, neither do the Sleeping Trees, really. Having read the ancient classic a few years ago, this Total Theatre Award shortlisted troupe present the bits of the Odyssey that they can remember, and hope we can ignore the bits they've forgotten.       By way of breath-taking distraction, the trio chant, dance, sing, leap around and provide their own sound-effects and inner monologues without the need of such modern things as lighting or sound techies. After all, when originally performed or recited, the Homeric classic would have been accompanied by just these kinds of wild gesticulations, enthusiastic facial expressions, and sky-high suspensions of disbelief.      The show is the last of the troupe's Stories project, which has relied entirely on the performers, rather than props and scenery. This has become a common theme in low-budget shows, but in this case in part

     Of nearly 3,000 shows at this year's Edinburgh Fringe, nearly a third are comedy, and for any one publication to review them all is a pretty impossible task. This will be my fifth year at the Fringe, and my first at reviewer publication Broadway Baby, where I'll be humbly taking up the post of Comedy Editor, so it's my job to pick and choose which shows are worth sending a reviewer to. Of course this is what anyone does when they arrive at the Fringe, filtering the 3,000 shows down to probably five or six to spend an average of £8 a ticket and hoping beyond hope that it's worth the ticket price. Personally, I'll be attempting to get to all of these, regardless of price and regardless of whether or not I'm reviewing them- Reginald D Hunter: In the Midst of Crackers Starting with the big names in comedy, Reginald D Hunter is an essential for lovers of wildly intelligent satire and unstoppable wit. Hailing from Albany, Georgia, Hunter has lived in the UK f

Image from IMDB.com      First things first, if you like magic you will probably like this film. If you don't, you know that whenever the words Michael Caine and Bank Robbery are in the same film blurb, whenever Mark Ruffalo is looking grumpy and unshaven, whenever Morgan Freeman is, er, there, you know you'll like what happens next. But the like-love line rests on the reason why you like magic.      If you like it for the spectacle, the visual factor, the lights and the colours, you will love this film. Stunning cinematography and elegant graphics bring us from the spotless shine of a Las Vegas stage to the packed streets of New Orleans and the grimiest parts of New York, as a troupe of four magicians play out their unstoppable three-act bank-robbing cop-befuddling show.      If you like it for the performance, the audience banter, the misdirection, you will probably love this film. With a solid cast and a story full of enough twists and turns to keep any rally-driver of

Photo by Dan Hems, gnarley waves by Mother Nature      My dad went to hospital last week. He's okay, he just learned some valuable lessons about launching a kitesurfer in 30 kilometre-per-hour wind too close to a car. An ambulance ride and an x-ray later he possibly has a broken rib, definitely has a sprained ankle, and certainly won't be running the Fairford 10k tomorrow, only ten days after he got too friendly with someone's brake-light.            So, tired from travelling and sitting in the hospital, and frankly overjoyed my father was still breathing, I suggested I take up dear old Nick's place at Fairford.      Looking back, we both did something stupid that day.      What followed was ten days of training, on and off, to get me up to speed with my mother, who has been doing this for the last 3 months. As an experience, it ranged from 'interesting' to 'whatthehellwasithinking', right through to 'ireallyhopeicankeepbreathing'

     One of the most interesting sidebar ads I've ever seen on Facebook popped up just the other day for NurtureDonors.com , a recent arrival to the UK which recruits egg donors and pairs them up with couples in need of fertility treatments. After a lot of reading (it's exam season- I have a lot of procrastination to do) I'm seriously considering egg donation, and my conviction that this is a good idea is emphasised by the fact that the website annoys me so very much.      It's clear Nurture Donors want young hip fertile gals just like myself both by their advertising strategy via social media and the fact that they insist on referring to their donors as 'gals'. A couple of times, they even call me 'girlfriend'. They over-use exclamation marks and they misuse apostrophes and hyphens and when sentences like this pop up my pedantic grammarian nerves are really close to breaking point- "A gals BF is often her Mom - if you are going to disclose

Images from the Cité du Livre website Festival de Bande Dessinée, Cité du Livre, Aix-en-Provence For some reason I've never been here before. For some reason it's taken this bibliophile seven months to figure out that there is a place in Aix-en-Provence devoted to literature, a place whose name in Google Translate produces variations on the theme of Book City, Book Estate and Book Ghetto. The books, they are huge. We have discussed before how I feel about books. Books which I recently blabbered about in a vlog are here reproduced in thirty-foot-high concrete form and act as a simple external wall to the Book Ghetto. They are huge. I felt a few tears when I first saw them. Hidden unjustly away behind the gare routière , the Cité du Livre played host this month to a graphic novel festival whose speakers ranged from authors to graffiti artists, and whose slightly shabby walls were transformed into booths full of first drafts, coloured panels and authors' not

(album review originally published by The Student )      As if the total absence of the 2012 apocalypse was not surprise enough, David Bowie’s decided to augment the world’s collective blood pressure even more by finally coming out of hiding. Bowie’s ten-year séjour in the US saw critics and observers worrying for his health and wellbeing, but it is astonishingly clear that he is more than alright. Bowie is having fun.      What arrived back in the new year was the best-kept secret in music, the least-anticipated but most welcomed come-back single in years. The recording of  The Next Day  was shared not with the press, not with the record label, not even with the artists’ families, until the night before its release.      “Where Are We Now”, that delicious gift given to the world on Bowie’s 66th birthday, was chosen as the first single, with the details of its release in mind. This, the mellowest song on the album, still exploded unannounced onto all corners of the internet within

Dear Hallmark : We're all very impressed by what you've done with St Valentine's day. No, really- the appropriation of the death-date of a Roman heretic who went ahead and practiced illegal marriage ceremonies and its transformation into one of the biggest gift-giving events of the year ? Seriously, bravo. Aside from the chocolates, the cards, the squishy teddy bears and the extortionate romantic holidays, you've also spawned an entirely new way to feel bad about oneself, a season around which Hollywood can organise its mushiest films, and an anti-movement just as strong as its lovey-dovey counterpart. So why did you stop there ? No sir I ain't fakin' / When I say I don't eat bacon There are plenty of other Saints in the Roman Catholic calendar just begging to be used for money-making ends, and a lot of them are better documented than St Valentine. These lesser-known saints come prepared with their own celebration day, traditions and a pre-defi

           A recent article in the Guardian's Student section offers a veritable cornucopia of advice on how to water down a social networking profile in order to score in the job market. But if we're talking about a candidate's Facebook, and Googlability, we need to look at what else is out there. Issues of privacy and the multiple personalities of an internet-user make this kind of character research nigh on impossible and, ultimately, useless.      The original article, written by 'digital expert' Bernadette John, presents a pretty naive view of what employers want. We are told to 'play nicely, and never talk negatively about anyone online', and to 'never use social media when you are angry, tired, drunk or under the influence of anything else.' By all means I agree that you shouldn't use social media as a platform from which to hurl abuse at your ex or announce all the illegal substances in which you've partaken, b ut it's not a ca

(originally published by EdinburghExchanges blog)           Freshly-rested and a little over-stuffed after Christmas, we're all back in Aix to knuckle down and try to pass an exam or two. I'm sure I'll get round to writing about them soon, when I'm not actually doing them, and when my hesitant daily excursions into the outside world stop providing me with such interesting things to see.      One of I'm sure many unannounced public art installations, Joséph Donten's simply-named 'Arbres Cours Mirabeau' certainly brightens up the street now the twinkly lights of Noël are gone. It's as if the trees have become incredibly tall, incredibly chic French fashionistas declaring that Polkadot is, very much, in. Though with my anglo-eyes I can't help being reminded of Pudsey Bear.      With January comes sales, and if you add to that a love of Franglais and sensationalism in shop-fronts, you get something like this. A phenomenon I'd only ever

(originally published by EdinburghExchanges  blog)      Monaco is a city built on pure money that became a principality thanks to tourism, and which over the years has bred the richest, most densely-packed population in the world. It is kind of ironic, I think, that we got to go there for free.      Our oft-neglectful Student Housing association threw the free bus tour of the teeny weeny country at the end of term, deciding that a bunch of students would love to see the Old Town of the world's smallest country, as well as a stuffy perfumery on the way home. From start to finish we were complaining that they were treating us like children. We trailed a couple of tourguides up to the changing of the guards, round a cathedral and up to Prince Albert's Nautical Museum, all of us grumbling all the way round until we saw the fish.           We liked the fish.      It was at about this point that we took off our jumpers and started to count our blessings. On the day we hit Mo