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 thro...

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...

     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 leat...

     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 ...

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 a...

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 explod...

     Buddy-Comedy-Road-Movie-with-added-cathartic-death is perhaps an underpopulated genre of film. Between drunken stumblings and snap decisions to drive to Corsica, your three lead males from different corners of life have to calm down every now and then just enough to remember your lead female, tragically deceased. Don't worry, this isn't a spoiler- you'll find out as much from AlloCine 's page on the film. Point is, you might not get much more from the film itself.      Bitter and sweet are put very, very close together in this coming-of-age-slash-putting-feet-on-the-ground tale  of three friends united by their love, platonic or not, of Charlie (Mélanie Thierry), the vibrant sister-mother-lover of every Frenchman's dreams, with whose funeral the film opens. So our three musketeers Elie, Boris and Maxime (Nicolas Duvauchelle, François-Xavier Demaison, Pierre Niney) then decide to leap into a car and take the holiday they'd always planned with th...

     In the 50s, having a job as a secretary may have been considered modern, or even empowering, but mostly, as Rose Pamphyle (Déborah Francois) says in her job interview, it's the chance to work for an important man. Seen in this light, the rise and fall of a Speed-Typing champion is just as much to do with a woman's personal victory as it is to do with her boss' encouragement and coaching, as well as the freedom he allows her to have.      In the film, and in life, the Speed-Typing Championship probably stemmed from a cigar-fuelled "I bet my secretary types faster than yours" argument, and the exclusively female competitors inhabit a space somewhere between real sportsman(woman?)ship and simply being allowed to play. The rocky ground of post-war sexual power-play is tested with bright colours and the happy clack-clack of a typewriter, and leads us somewhere a little more patronising than first-time director Regis Roinsard may have been hoping for. ...

     A marriage rife with Bovarysme and ennui, this 1920s power-struggle follows the marriage of young Thérèse (Audrey Tatou), who sees only one route to life until her best friend shows her otherwise.      What is most interesting is that this girl, who crashes onto screen on a bike, kills rabbits and pidgeons for the family, takes a lover and is then imprisonned by her powerful parents, is not the protagonist. These are the actions of Anne (Anaïs Demoustier), the childhood friend of Thérèse, whose story, far more dramatic and classically cinematic, is told through letters and painful pleas for help. The two women are both destined for powerful marriages arranged to monopolise the ownership of riverside pine forests, and Thérèse, the elder, goes through hers first. As she does, Anne's story of forbidden love begins, and Thérèse sees that her path was not the only one available.      In some respects, this is a story we've heard before. U...

     There's a kind of irony in seeing a French-made film shot in New York. The city, like Paris, brings with it certain stereotypes and traditions of film-making, which will always creep into any director's vision, regardless of nationality. There will be a dramatic city-skyline shot, an inspiring panorama of downtown, a nice view of the Brooklyn Bridge. People like New York. People fantasise about New York. Even the French. New York is a kind of brand that can be put on a film to draw in an audience, but once we're there, we need a storyline to keep us there. This is when directors Géaldine Nakache and Hervé Mimran stopped trying.      Three French guys go to surprise-visit their two French girl mates in the Big Apple. And. That's about it. They make friends, they explore, they buy those annoying I Heart NY tshirts and they shout "Obama!" a lot. Between flash-in-the-pan arguments and on-the-spot personality changes we see the panoramas and the skyline sh...

     Goscinny & Underzo’s bandes dessinés are beloved by the French, and quite a few English people too. Trying to figure out how our copies of Asterix and Cleopatra and Astérix et Cléopatre corresponded with one another was the first time I really wanted to learn French. For those who have never read them before, it’s all about a tribe of Gauls who are the last stand against the Roman Empire, and spend their days hunting wild boars and occasionally chugging down some of Getafix’s magic potion so they can beat up their surrounding legionnaires with super-human strength and some very satisfying comic onomatopoeia. Oh, and they go on adventures around the world with their little white dog, meeting various different cultures, making jokes and sorting out people’s problems, so it’s kind of like Tintin, only, you know, good.      The studio may have been jumping on the Anglomania bandwagon following this summer’s Jubilee and the Olympics, but for a group...

     There are few things for which someone with a hangover as bad as this will trudge through the rain, and fewer still which take place in a converted church. But this band, this particular combination of formidable horn section, guitars, drums, orange beanie hats and dual vocalists, has proven itself all over Edinburgh throughout the festival and beyond. The Victorian Trout Conspiracy , a group made up of too many locals to count, begin their set with a wall of sound that dissolves into higher, janglier stabs on that lead guitar. As the beat picks up, its player, Fraser, pumps his legs up and down, bassist Calum becomes a swirl of hair and the whole front line is a blur of moshing, jumping musicians, and suddenly sleep deprivation and the Hive's unidentifiable gunk are things of the past.      The music is stompable, danceable, chantable, shoutable, and soon the Tron church is full of early drinkers and tourists curious about the noise, all of them sm...

WOMEN     SPOKEN WORD     FREE     DISCUSSION     POETRY      Yes, we've added in some extra boxes just so we can tick them here, since this year's Fringe programme contains a whole section devoted to the still hazy title of Spoken Word acts. First things first- DO NOT BE SCARED. Yes, You, the one who remained a wallflower during our forays into improvised comedy, You who skirted round the Physical Theatre section of the programme, You who baulks at anything involving a 'fascinating real-life story' or puppets (they are creepy). Yes, You is, in this respect, Me, but we've gone past that now. My first Spoken Word event was attended on a whim and I'm very glad I went. Ranging from rap to epic poetry, this section is small for now, but promises to bloom in future years. A large amount of the performers here give their words away for free, and the smaller venues they occupy create a more intimate atmosphere for any performance...

UNEXPECTED     PLAY     WOMEN     NEWBIES     LOCAL     IMPROV      There is an award, I learned this year, for Comic Originality, which bares the infamous name of Malcolm Hardee, a comedian who in life drove tractors into neighbouring performances who he thought to be too loud, and in death continues to encourage 'alternative' comedy and 'cunning stunts' similar to his own. The award is not given to run-of-the-mill stand-ups. No Michael McIntyres here, no family-friendly stuff and no knock-knock jokes either. We've already discussed the darkness in comedians in Mark Olver's Dancing About Architecture , and in acts like these it gets onto the stage. The line between dark humour and just plain darkness is so fine as to be almost imperceptible, so these acts can be forgiven for teetering over to the other side every now and then... Casual Violence: A Kick In The Teeth      Winner of the Hardee Com...

FREE     WOMEN     NEWBIES     UNEXPECTED     LOCALS      I've told you before about the merits of seeing free shows, and to that I wish to add with three of my favourites from this year's selection. It's worth knowing that the Free Fringe is split between two promoters, the directors of which apparently have beef with one another from a mysterious event that happened a few years ago (Laughing Horse hit on PBH's mum, or possibly vice versa), and as such there may be twice as many free shows to go to as you may expect. Programmes are organised by time, which is a godsend if you just have a couple of hours to spare and fancy a free giggle. Hurt and Anderson      Since we're vastly under-represented as a gender in the realms of comedy, I've been trying to head to female comedians' shows in particular this Fringe, but have still avoided them if they sound awful, or make a big deal about the whole not-having-a-peni...

CHAT          UNEXPECTED          HEADLINERS       Once you've seen X amount of stand-ups and sketch shows and improvised comedy troupes, patterns start to emerge. This is an art form, like sculpture or baroque music, and it has its precedents, classics, techniques and stories repeated time and time again. Comedians are a clever bunch, and they know all of this. Talk to one and you'll feel this experience beaming through, as well as a real love of their chosen profession.      Sit four of them down for an hour with a talented host, such as in Mark Olver's month-long chat show Dancing About Architecture, and all of this comes to light in a way it never can by simply watching Dave of an afternoon. Olver's guests vary by the day, and many of them are well-known faces on the comedy circuit- Seann Walsh and Gareth Richards today, Russel Howard on Saturday- and all seem g...

CHAT          IMPROV          WOMEN          UNEXPECTED      It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Fringe show must be in want of an audience. Since the best form of advertising seems to be word of mouth, it makes sense to promoters to give out a small number of free tickets in the initial stages of a show's run, so that seats are filled, laughs shared, and memories made. In these early stages it is therefore worthwhile for an audience member to not have a plan, to go out of an evening and see what you may stumble upon, even if it ends up being just a cheeky pint in the shadow of a huge up-turned cow.      On just such a night, a friend and I stumbled into Monkey Toast: the Improvised Chat Show, imported from Canada by David Shore. The format of such a show seemed alien at first (whi...

FAVOURITES          PLAY                   'Crying with laughter' doesn't quite cover it. If I smoked, I would have needed a cigarette, but instead settled for a walk, a twix and bashing out a review. Like the second album, the second Fringe show is a difficult thing to pull off, but somehow from Holmes and Watson last year to the crack team of Con Artists they portray this year, Max and Ivan have kept the standard breathtakingly high with a show so impeccable it's difficult to know exactly where to start.      Having developed a talent for moulding their two faces into a crowd of characters, Max and Ivan fly full-throttle into their double-act, with not two but eight main characters, each distinguished by accent, pose, expression and relationship to one another, so that a six-way hotel phonecall is pulled off astonishingly well with a cert...

FREE          STAND-UP          WOMEN          LOCAL          NEWBIES      If you're at the festival early in the month you may have to see someone's first gig. Don't be shy. Someone has to. The best place is the free Fringe circuit, where you can find some hidden gems and not have to pay a penny (and if it's really bad, walk out and don't worry about wasting the ticket price).      Ticking five of our boxes is the Edinburgh Revue's first show. Otherwise known as the Edinburgh University Comedy Society, the group provides an open discussion-based forum for comedic students to distract themselves from their studies, and has given us an hour of free afternoon entertainment on Grassmarket. The hour is comprised of four steadily improving comedians and a comper...