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.