Scout Durwood at the Edinburgh Festival
Thursday 12th August 2010
Words: Alisande Orme
It turns out that putting 6 ‘theatre artists’ into a confined space (the wee Edinburgh house) and letting them stew in their own performance anxiety is not a recipe for preserving friendships, so much as an instruction manual for how to prepare explosive material. Killy, Scout’s other housemate who I’ve yet to mention by name because, well, she has her own room and thus gets to stay out of the more dramatic incidents, yesterday spent time instructing us all to nurture our ‘inner children’ after a couple of incidents over the last few days led to, respectively, tears before bedtime, tears before show time, and tears in front of a pub full of people that led to one member of the crew having to be comforted by five stand-up comedians after she was ‘abandoned’ by everyone else (there’s a joke in that scenario somewhere, I’m sure, that doesn’t involve me becoming hysterical again). But we’re better now, we promise.
Following a much needed day off, Thursday went a little something like this:
Scout filled in as a stand-up in a variety show at the very beautiful Voodoo Rooms. She’s always thrilled during her stand-up sets at how well her self-penned paean to the travails of womanhood, ‘The Period Song’ goes down, particularly amongst men, who seem to especially enjoy belting out lines such as “I just got my period/ I want to eat nachos and criticise your life choices.” It’s a singalong, obviously.
After teaching mankind about the social impact of menstruation w then moved along to see Delilah Dix and Her Bag of Tricks at Fingers’ Piano Bar. Delilah, a seasoned show biz professional (read: slutty alcoholic who dresses like a drag queen and once dated Queen Latifah), sings the audience through her career in the style of a lounge act and, honestly, I don’t think we’ve laughed so hard since we got here.
At the end of the day, Hi! How Can I Help You? once again played to a packed house. It feels to some extent like stuff is still being worked out in terms of the show and audiences. No-one had anticipated, for example, how much audiences up here like to be included in a performance. But, one week in, it’s all coming together, and for that we are immensely grateful.
No comments:
Post a Comment