2017 - shite

I don't think it would be unreasonable for me to describe 2017 as being shite.

I didn't think 2016, 2015, 2014 or 2013 could be topped. But they all were.

In the interests of being cheery on Hogmanay, here is my list of five things that made me happy in 2017 ...

5) Selling The House

Very double-edged sword this one but I was quite relieved when Bro and I closed on the sale of the family home. That relief collapsed very quickly into depression, for a number of reasons, but we closed it. Binning people's lives is hard, but we did it.

4) The Edinburgh Festival

My love for the Fringe is well documented and this year didn't disappoint. I was over-ambitious, injured myself on Day 1 and ultimately limped away half-way through it, but it was wonderful to be a tiny part of the largest arts festival in the world. I had hoped to take a show to the Festival this year ... maybe next.

3) My Niece

Hard to believe she turned 18 this year, left school, moved out and started Uni. But she did. I was never a part of the day-to-day minutiae of her life but I was proud and privileged to be standing on the sidelines, cheering her on.

2) Anya Anastasia, Alice Fraser and Bananarama

My love for young Ms. Fraser is well documented and I will get to that in the next section. However, in the absence of m'beloved Ms. Lili La Scala at this year's Fringe then I had an enormous cabaret-shaped hole in my heart, which was adequately filled by Ms. Anastasia. The last show of my 2017 Fringe, although I didn't know it at the time, and the best. She was simply wonderful.

The 'Nanas gig was just brilliant.

Joint 1) The Kincaid

M'beloved local has been something of a lifeline this year, moreso than previously. John and Morag (Mr. and Mrs. Owner) kept me grounded, Chef Robbie indulged me, and the regulars, many of whom are now firm friends, provided exactly the sort of banter I needed.

Joint 1) My Companion

In all the shite of the year, it would be hard to underestimate the impact of my Companion. She was always there, virtually or in reality, while forging her own career or raising her family.

I had a sudden and brutal attack of the shitters after seeing Alice Fraser (it wasn't causal). My Companion patiently waited outside the venue while I died in the loos at the Gilded Balloon. Young Ms. Fraser emerged, de-costumed after the show, and happily chatted away to her. My Companion told her how we had seen her earlier before the show, how she had wanted to take me and introduce me to her, and how I had said, "No, don't annoy her. She's preparing for her show ..." Alice said, "You should just have come over ..." I'll know next time.

Conclusions

It was a truly shite year. Frankly I'm amazed I'm still alive. 2018 has to be better. But there were moments in 2017 that made me smile so that's at least something ...

Happy New Year everyone.

"Star Wars: The Last Jedi" - Glasgow Cineworld, 20-Dec-17, 1240 Showing

"Not so much a movie, more an ongoing existential crisis in cinema form ..."

Regular readers, if there are such things, will know I have some history with the series of small arthouse movies under the collective moniker of Star Wars. See the angst for The Force Awakens and Rogue One ... and one day I may even blog about my experience in Santa Monica with the Phantom Menace.

However I had read good things about Last Jedi and was quite looking forward to going. Partly because I was going to a "Superscreen" in the Cineworld but mainly because, for once, I wasn't going on my own. Just as an FYI, there are three "Superscreens" in the Cineworld - they are premium screens with upgraded screen, sound, projection and seating. For once, the reality lived up to the promise - the presentation was stunning. It it worth a premium of five pounds per person or thereabouts? For you to decide, but for me it was well worth it.

Non-spoiler brief review

I liked it a lot, but ... there are quite a few big buts (and I like big buts) which I'll get into in the spoiler section. But suffice it to say it is pretty good. Most of the main characters have interesting story arcs and their narratives make sense - things happen logically out of their actions mostly - and as such the screenplay gets a thumbs up. There are some things which I didn't like but I'll get to those.

The summary is it well worth going to see. It is entertaining, emotional in places, and has moments of genuine tension and wonderful design and is a thoroughly enjoyable 150+ minutes of your time. If you can, see it on the biggest screen possible as the detail is impressive. Most impressive. It helps if you're already invested in the all the existing characters so far of course.

Spoiler-filled review

I'm going to assume you've already seen it so I won't regurgitate the plot.

There was a lot that worked. Rey, Ren and Luke's arcs were well thought out and developed pretty naturally - little seemed forced. Rey and Ren had the best sequence in the whole movie - after Ren kills Snoke he and Rey team up for the ultimate Galaxy Of Heroes style fight against Snoke's Praetorian Guard. This is a truly impressive sequence and is, to my mind, the best sabre fight yet in the Star Wars saga (trumping Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi's face-off against Darth Maul in the otherwise execrable Phantom Menace).

The visuals were, as you might expect, hugely impressive with levels of detail surpassing pretty much anything seen thus far. Sound design is stunning, with a wide dynamic range, lots of sudden cues and the most surprisingly effective sound effect in the whole film - sudden silence - deployed to quite superb effect. The music was a little understated but when needed the classic tracks were all deployed at the right time - John Williams' iconic score keeps getting better and better.

The screenplay is pretty funny in places, which I wasn't really expecting, with most of the humour coming fairly naturally rather than being clumsily forced. I was expecting to hate the Porgs but they turned out to be an excellent addition to the Star Wars canon - can Porg: The Movie be far away? Acting is a tad variable in places with Daisy Ridley appearing a little wooden at times - especially at the start of the film. Hamill, Driver, Boyega, Isaac and Serkis all do good work as Luke Skywalker, Kylo Ren, Finn, Poe Dameron and Snoke respectively. Laura Dern is pretty good in the initially cold and unsympathetic character of Admiral Holdo and gets a spectacular send-off. Benecio Del Toro is largely wasted and bizarre. There are some cameos from older characters - one strange (Maz Kanata) and one rather touching (Yoda). And, of course, there is the luminous Carrie Fisher bringing the gravitas and poignancy to General Organa - but I'll speak of her a little later.

If you have daughters then this is a great film to show them as women are everywhere, fighting and working together with men, aliens and droids. Pilots, admirals, leaders, engineers - it's a truly diverse cast without seeming forced and, apart from one painful and out-of-character moment where Finn basically hepeats a plan to Poe after Rose has just explained it (a truly awful and misjudged sequence) it is a pretty good example of proper equality.

There is a lot wrong with the film however. The strand with Finn and Rose on Canto Bite is depressingly routine - a mcguffin is found (the First Order can track us through light speed!), a solution is quickly found (disable the tracker on the first ship but it's encrypted!), a plan is hatched (find the Codebreaker!) and a routine, by-the-numbers video game level plays out including an outrageously clumsy coincidence - hey, an expert codebreaker just happens to be in the same cell Finn and Rose are thrown into! - and a largely superfluous stampede action scene.

There is a also an extended clumsy sequence showing the First Order fleet in "hot pursuit" of what is left of the Resistance forces. Apparently the entire First Order can't catch up with three frigates at sub-light speeds and these frigates just manage to stay out of range of their cannons (why not just send hundreds of TIEs at them then?). Even General Hux points this out when he asks in exasperation, "What is the point of all this (waves hands at the First Order fleet) if we can't even shoot down three frigates?". From a narrative point of view it stalls for time to allow the other characters to get into position, but jeez does it feel clumsy. Having said that it does have an almighty pay off ...

There are three main issues I have though and these are: Rey's parentage; the identity of Snoke and the utter misuse of Captain Phasma (again).

With regards to Rey's parentage, the revelation that they were nobody junk dealers who traded Rey on Jakku was surprising and troubling given Rey's immediate and sudden mastery of the Force at the end of Force Awakens. It may well be Ren was messing with Rey and there is a payoff in Episode 9 but the revelation immediately got me thinking of midichlorians and that is not a good thing. For one of the biggest mysteries of the previous film this was a pretty weak reveal.

I suppose there was really no need to give Snoke a backstory - he was just the latest big bad Sith guy apparently - but with nothing at all revealed about who he was and where he came from I felt a little short-changed. Doubtless the expanded universe will create one for him if it hasn't already, but as with Rey's parents, this felt as if a big question from the previous film was not just ignored but outright dismissed and that did not sit right in my mind.

Captain Phasma, as played by the wonderful Gwendoline Christie, had possibly the worst and shortest arc in Force Awakens and here she fared little better. For a character setup to be one of the ultimate First Order warriors she is barely in the movie, turns up at the end, gets in a fight with Finn then plunges to her (presumably) fiery death. I'm hoping that she somehow survived and crops up again in Episode 9 but I'm not holding my breath.

It would be churlish not to mention the obvious parallels with The Empire Strikes Back. From Rey's Jedi training and vision in a place "strong in the Dark Side" to pretty much a remake of the walker battle on Hoth to a low-key and downbeat ending with the Empire/First Order in the ascendancy it's clear where the inspiration came from. But it's nowhere near as obvious as Force Awakens was with A New Hope and doesn't distract too much.

Finally we come to the late, great Carrie Fisher. There is little more to be said about what a loss she is to the world after her sudden death this time last year. At the end of the movie as she is flying away in the Falcon with what is left of the Resistance she gives a little monologue to Rey and, well, if your heart isn't melting then you're a stronger person than me. Then at the end credits a message is displayed, "Dedicated to our Princess, Carrie Fisher" ... what a loss but what a good swansong she made of what turned out to be her final film.

Summary

I know it sounds like I'm a bit negative with the Last Jedi - I'm really not. It has a lot of very good points and even the negatives you can probably overlook if you want. I liked it, just didn't love it. My Companion and I were chatting for hours afterwards about what it all meant so it must have been okay. However it has set up Episode 9 rather well - effectively JJ Abrams and team have been given a pretty clean blank slate so where they take the story there is anyone's guess. Last Jedi made me want to see the next one, so in that respect job done.

Top 10 Fringe Binge 2017

*cue Phil Lynott and Yellow Pearl*

A countdown of my Top Ten shows of the 54 I saw at this year's Binge (excluding Best Ofs)

10) Heather Litteer
9) Rachel Parris
8) The Lady Boys Of Bangkok
7) Fern Brady
6) Sophie Willan
5) Bec Hill
4) Lauren Pattinson
3) Alice Fraser
2) Jan Ravens

*drum-roll*

1) Anya Anastasia

Saved the best 'til last.

Fringe Binge 2017 Show #54 - Anya Anastasia - Rogue Romantic; Assembly Checkpoint, 1930, 17-Aug-17

Anya Anastasia is an Adelaide-born singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, comic, satirist, chanteuse and burlesque performer, and those are just some of her many talents. I was unaware of her work previously but had seen the posters, knew it was listed as "cabaret" (catnip to me) so went along.

And what a performance it was. First off, this was a proper cabaret atmosphere with tables set up around the stage, some smoke and haze, a grand piano in the centre of the stage and multiple instruments setup around the stage. As we walked in Ms. Anastasia was slumped "asleep" at the piano (similar to what Alice Fraser had done at the start of Empire, where she was sitting with her impressive back to the audience as the crowd was settling in). As the show started she woke up and played and sang a sleepy wistful balled, dreaming about love and noting those really aren't tears on her cheeks but glitter. At the end of this touching song she realised an audience was in, the three members of the band came in - a keyboard player, a bassist and a drummer/percussionist - and the show kicked off.

It was a great show. Ms. Anastasia was a startling, tall, stunning figure who played the piano beautifully (clearly classically trained given her wrist position and fingering), sung wonderfully, also accompanied herself during a song on the ukulele and was generally awesome. The songs (all self-penned) were witty, occasionally mucky and both touching and enormous fun. There was quite a bit of audience interaction which was fun (at one point a number of us were pulled up on-stage and ordered to play away at the piano - between Ms. A's legs - I nearly accidentally head-butted her which would not been a great ending to the set) and Ms. A was not backward in coming forward. All raunchy good-natured fun. The accompanying band was tight and efficient and all got a brief solo spot and a couple of contributions to the show in addition to their excellent playing. The show ended with a hugely energetic and dripping-with-double-entendre number about how she really didn't need anyone else to have a good time (basically it was about masturbation without ever mentioning the word) and then a touching final coda bringing the show full-circle by admitting no, it wasn't glitter on her cheeks ... but tears.

Really enjoyable show, and Ms. Anastasia was a tremendous, charismatic presence with a great voice and enormous musical talent, not to mention a stunning tall figure. She immediately joined the ranks of phenomenal cabaret performers and singers I've seen - joining the likes of Lili La Scala, Lady Rizo and Christina Branco. I shall certainly keep an eye out for more shows from her and if you like this sort of thing then you should seek her out. Highly recommended.

My enjoyment of the show was slightly hampered at about the three-quarter mark when a dark, lurking thought that I'd been suppressing all Fringe leaped unbidden (and had nothing to do with Ms. A - perhaps something had been said on stage which might have triggered it) into the frontal lobe, which really put me off my stride. Afterwards I had one further show to go to at the Grassmarket so hobbled down to there. However with more than an hour to go, the pubs all heaving and my feet, knees and back all shouting their discomfort I decided to skip it. Which was a shame - three execellent shows and a fairly good one is a pretty decent strike rate.

Fringe Binge 2017 Show #53 - The 5.30 Cabaret; New Town Theatre, 1730, 17-Aug-17

This was a showcase cabaret-style show with a compère and four guest acts. The line-up changes each day, and as I keep saying such shows are excellent for seeing new talent and performers you might not have seen before so any Fringe schedule should include at least one of such shows I think ...

The compère was a Scottish chap called Bruce Devlin. I was aware of some of his stuff as he's quite a popular stand-up and broadcaster. He's also gay - a fact I only mention because he kept mentioning it so must be important to him - and quite camp. He worked the crowd pretty well at the start, chatting away to the audience and generating a lot of laughter. All pleasant enough but he left me a little cold - I wasn't a big fan of his schtick before the show and wasn't much of one after ... decent enough but not for me.

The first act was the excellent Tom Crosbie. I had seen a snippet of his act last year at one of Lili's shows (here) and this was just as slick and impressive - I really must catch up with his full set, You Can't Polish A Nerd, before I leave this year. As this is just a short snippet of his full set he started with some banter with the audience, then launched into a number of immensely impressive tricks with a Rubik's Cube. He had done these tricks at Lili's show but I was still blown away - I had learned way back how to solve the Cube (and it got me tons and tons of ladies *cough*) so had some particular interest. Very good start to the bill.

The second act was some burlesque! Yay! And it was my old Glasgow pal Gypsy Charms (who I'd seen earlier this Fringe run in Tits, Tease And Ten Pound Notes (here) and another past show of Lili's (here). She danced to two numbers and she was just as impressive as previously. All very pleasant. Just as a note though - the audience was significantly older than you might expect and I suspect many of them were unfamiliar with burlesque and strip-show etiquette. It had been explained to me several times, by artists, that the performers WANT cheers, applause and general enthusiasm, similar to comics who want you to laugh and clap as they can't hear a smile. So I did, which seemed to annoy the couple sitting folded-arms next to me. Fortunately I wasn't the only one who understood expected cabaret audience behaviour but it did feel a little odd. Anyway ...

The third act was a comedian called Christopher McArthur-Boyd, a young comic from the East End of Glasgow (yay!). A new act to me, I was initially a little unimpressed but as his set progressed he grew on me. Funny and engaging I ended up enjoying it (helps there were plenty of gratuitous Glasgow references) although probably not enough to seek out his solo show. But pretty good.

The final act was a chap called Dusty Limits. He was introduced as the heart and soul of cabaret, and the Fringe doesn't really start until Dusty arrives. Ahem. A rather camp chap his first number was a variation of the song Whatever Lola Wants (appropriately enough retitled Whatever Dusty Wants) and it was impressive. He stepped off the stage and roamed around the audience, sitting on folk's knees, touching people up ... all quite fun. So far so good. However after this he then launched into a charity appeal about a concern he was a trustee of and was collecting for after the show - a very worthy cause but such a lengthy appeal has no place in the middle of a cabaret set. His final song, which he said was different from the prepared one, was a variation of Twelve Days Of Christmas but retitled Twelve Days Of The Fringe. Initially amusing it went on and on and it was quite a relief when it stopped. I suspect he could and does do far better but I ended up unimpressed.

A real shame about that last act as otherwise it was a pretty solid, enjoyable show.

Fringe Binge 2017 Show #52 - Andy Zaltzman - Satirist For Hire; The Stand Comedy Club, 1500, 17-Aug-17

I had seen Mr. Zaltzman on television, was vaguely aware he was a big cricket fan and he was part of the popular podcast The Bugle (memo to self - listen to more podcasts). He's been around for quite a while and I was looking forward to seeing him.

The theme of the show is, literally, "satirist for hire" - he had solicited ideas via email and on his blog for suggestions of topics to satirise. As the audience was gathering he also wandered up to the gathering folks asking for topics - the first few folks he asked offered fairly predictable responses, Donald Trump, Brexit, and he then asked me; my mind went blank as I had been trying to think up something different and so I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, "The portrayal of female characters in video games". To his credit he laughed and replied, "Not my field of expertise but I'll give it a go."

The trick I'm beginning to see repeated in these improvised shows is to have plenty of prepared material, styles, props or whatever, then work the audience suggestions into the pre-prepared and rehearsed structures - hugely difficult of course and requires immense talent, skill, quick-thinking, sharpness, quick wits (all traits that I totally lack) and rehearsal. I suspect the old adage of practice, practice and more practice is highly relevant to all comedy but especially improv.

I'll cut to the summary - Mr. Z was brilliant. He was highly entertaining, very funny and immensely engaging. His Trump and Brexit material was excellent - using a diary he read to us extracts of what he had thought at the time of the Brexit vote and the election of Trump; needless to say he was unimpressed and communicated so in a very funny way. He did pick up my video-game suggestion and managed to come up with a Grand Theft Auto joke. He also worked cricket (it was the first day of the England/West Indies Test match and he explained that missing it was a very special torture - I sympathised) into a very tortuous metaphor for life, which I greatly appreciated. Plenty of other stuff.

His show only started this week so many people might not know he's playing. His show is definitely worth your time, and as it starts at 1500 it's pretty easy to fit into a schedule (note to programme schedulers - please stop scheduling every second show to start between 1800 and 2000).

On leaving the Stand I was feeling quite buoyant. Two good shows to start the day with three more to go - perhaps my mid-Fringe blues were passing.

Fringe Binge 2017 Show #51 - Eleanor Morton - Angry Young Woman; The Stand Comedy Club, 1205, 17-Aug-17

Eleanor Morton is a young Scottish comedian, based in London, who has been writing and performing for 4 or 5 years. She was a new name to me and I was unaware of her previous work or stand-up so I was quite keen to hear what she had to say.

The theme of the show was how she is getting increasingly angry at the world, but admitted up-front she generally struggles with maintaining anger, it usually expressing itself through frustration and tears. From that expectation-reset there then followed an excellent hour of stand-up with a very positive feminist slant. She talked about how on any comedy line-up, festival, TV panel show or showcase there is one woman but no room for any others - as if there is a quota system (it's getting better but still a long way to go). She talked about the inherent everyday sexism she encounters, from older, male producers and agents giving her advice while leaning in and touching inappropriately to being told "Hey, you shouldn't talk about sexual assault so much, it's a bit of a downer". To be fair, she had just beaten the chap who gave her this advice twice at Laserquest so he was probably feeling touchy and vulnerable.

She covered a number of other areas - she had an emotional breakdown at St. Andrews University (her condition improved considerably when she transferred to Glasgow, of course) which meant she couldn't really watch emotionally engaging movies as it would make her too anxious - she's over it now and this formed an ongoing theme in her set where she asked for titles of movies and she would rework them with female leads (the Taxi Driver one was inspired - "A woman in the 70s is working as a taxi driver ... nah, sorry, that could never happen ..."). She told excellent and thoughtful stories about some of the forgotten female figures in history who have just been airbrushed largely out of history such as Margaret Hamilton (not the actress) who led the software team at NASA that developed the navigation software for the Apollo programme, and Mary Seacole, a Jamaican nurse who founded and ran the British Hotel (a hospital and care home behind the lines in the Crimean War). She told a fabulous story about Marilyn Monroe, which may or may not have been true but I really liked her interpretation. Lots of other good tales, including an etiquette question about smear tests and a baffling paper published by an American doctor about women and how anger in women is picked up and reinforced by vibrations in the Earth - seemed legit to me.

Her set ended with an impassioned plea for tolerance, understanding and celebration of equality, which was amusingly and deliberately cut short by a man, allowing her to flirt and apologise and "be the nice girl".

A great set from a very charismatic and distinctive performer, and a good start to the day.

Fringe Binge 2017 Show #50 - Aditi Mittal - Global Village Idiot; Underbelly Med Quad, 1835, 16-Aug-17

I had heard of Ms. Mittal before - she has a Netflix special which I've not watched yet - but hadn't heard much of her stand-up. Being a female Indian comic I was looking forward to what she might bring and any perspectives she might share.

It was quite a small venue with a smallish audience so the atmosphere wasn't great. Ms. M proved herself a very pleasant host happily chatting about how thrilled she was to be at the Fringe - her first. She then told a brief anecdote about how incredibly lucky and statistically unlikely it is for her to be standing in front of us - out of a population of 1.3Bn, there are about 1000 comedians of whom 200 perform their comedy in English; 12 of those 200 are women. So you can't quite count the number of English-speaking Indian female comics on your fingers - need to press-gang a toe or two into the tally - but there aren't many.

Her comedy was generally quite genial and good-natured. She cheerfully satirised a number of Indian customs and traditions - from the panic of her Mother as Ms. M is in her thirties, single and childless (a big no-no in a traditional conservative country such as India) to the number of religions and Gods which means about 1 in 3 days is some kind of holiday. She railed against the Western method of going to the toilet - being initially shocked at the concept of toilet paper instead of washing - and how she had been utterly confused in Italy at the very concept of a bidet (apparently her hosts had been waiting for her to ask them about it - Ms. M had just used it to wash her clothes). She lamented that of all the stereotypes one could have picked to satirise Indians why did it have to be Apu from The Simpsons. She touched, but didn't dwell too much, on the British influence in India, how it still informs much of Indian life and emphasising that India had a much longer and richer history than  just Empire.

Overall I found her interesting and funny, but not terribly engaging. She was humorous, amusing and had a decent presence - just, for me, didn't really engage in the way others have this Fringe. Will still check out her Netflix special though.

Filing out I had two more shows to go to. I even walked up to the next venue and had a pint next door in the Hard Rock Cafe. But my feet and knee were in agony, the two shows so far had been a tad indifferent and I just couldn't be bothered so went back to the flat. Definite case of hitting the half-way wall. Hopefully the next day would be better.

Fringe Binge 2017 Show #49 - Next Best Thing - How To Be Good At Everything; Pleasance Courtyard, 1645, 16-Aug-17

I hadn't booked many shows this day - my first wasn't until 1835 - which allowed me to catch up on reviews but did leave me at something of a loose end about 1430. A quick look online for something that might fit into the time slot and locale revealed a new (to me) comedy duo called Next Best Thing.

Next Best Thing are London-based duo Katie Davison and Jay Bennett, with the former playing the role of the earnest, serious one and the latter playing the role of the kooky, eccentric one. The theme of the show was they were going to teach us everything about everything, which was a nice hook but was a springboard into a series of surreal mimed sketches, audience interactions, bizarre scenarios and improvisation.

For a good while I thought I was experiencing my first genuine bust of the Festival. The duo bounced in and ran around the audience high-fiving, whooping and cheering, then launched into quite a bizarre set of scenarios. They asked for topics from the audience, each selected a male "victim" who they would shamelessly flirt with throughout the show (including an extended masturbation mime Ms. B carried out on her choice) and the topics covered included how to house a pet salmon, miming hats and first-date scenes, needing a wee and poo in one's pants, choosing a new housemate, explosive nose bleeds and all manner of other nonsense. It was initially very grating (to me) and was not working for me at all. Fortunately the girls won me over and by the end, while I wouldn't say I was fully onboard, I was at least starting to have some fun. I will admit that they were both young (terrifyingly young - surely they were some kind of A-Level drama-studies group), pretty and enthusiastic and that goes a long way in my shallow book.

They concluded the show by admitting they had failed to teach us everything about everything, but they went around the audience, including me, to see if anyone had learned anything. Guess what? We all had ... so it ended on a cheery upbeat note. As we filed out the girls were handing out "Good At Everything" stickers but I declined to put one on my jacket (boo, spoilsport).

They were good performers, and you couldn't deny the energy and imagination they brought. But I just couldn't escape the nagging feeling that, despite the duo rescuing it, I had just seen my least favourite show of the Fringe so far.

Fringe Binge 2017 Show #48 - Sophie Willan - Branded; Pleasance Courtyard, 2000, 15-Aug-17

I had seen Ms. Willan at last year's Fringe (see here) - being dragged up onstage to learn to dance (the twerk, the tit-shimmy and the hip square) traumatised me for some time. That show was excellent but also quite harrowing given the subject matter so I hadn't actually bought any tickets for this year's show. However I had read a number of good reviews and decided to see this one.

I'm glad I did. Ms. Willan is quite the bundle of energy and bounded in (sadly the setup of the small theatre wasn't conducive to her clambering through us this time), dancing around the stage, shimmying at various folks and generally getting the atmosphere going. The introduction to the show was her chatting to various audience members (she lives in Manchester, and there was quite the contingent of Mancunians in).

She explained that after the previous year's show she had received quite a bit of media interest. She ticked a number of boxes - a woman, northern, working-class (proper working-class, not some Southern dandy pretending to be, while hiding his First in PPE from Oxbridge). This made her "grittily authentic". And so the theme of the bulk of the show was set - she was branded and labelled by the media, dominated as it is by white, respectable, middle-class, earnest professionals (similar to themes developed earlier by Twayna Mayne) and this stereotyping provoked expectations about behaviour, background and attitude. As you might imagine Ms. Willan did not fit into any of the neat little silos she was being forced into ...

She talked about her own background - drug-addict mother, coming into possession of her complete social-work file (the theme of last year's show), living with her grandmother, being convinced Richard Ashcroft of the Verve was her Dad (SPOILER - he isn't, but the story is a good one). Lots of family tales. Good punchlines, energetically and enthusiastically told.

The final part of the show really demonstrated her point about labelling and how people react to the label, rather than the person. She revealed something about herself and her past. I won't spoil it but I certainly didn't see it coming. And, of course, she was absolutely correct. The revelation brought with it lots of respectable middle-class cliched mental reactions - reacting to the label - which she totally refuted given her own experiences. I'm being deliberately vague here as if you get the chance to see her perform this show the less you know the better.

It was a great show, with an enthusiastic, honest and open performance from Ms. Willan and genuinely affecting and thought-provoking ideas. It's a shame her show is in such a relatively small space as more people need to go and see her - one of the best shows of my Fringe trip thus far.