Festival team

Yep, it's that time of year again. Tourists and thesps take over. Buttoned-up Edinburgh becomes, for a month, overwhelmingly theatrical and even a wee bit camp. It's fab, but infinitely distracting. A's working hard on Teamtastic (what do you mean "what's Teamtastic?"??? - you haven't been spammed yet? - well get in there and check it out), and I've been helping out a bit, but we've managed to fit in a wee bit of festival distraction too. Sleep? Pah, who needs it?

Today we saw the eye-popping Kataklo - "athletic dance theatre". We were right in the front row - close enough to see every breath, sinew, and bead of sweat on the amazing troupe of 7 dancers, as they interpreted sports like football, swimming, tennis and skiing through dance. It was my favourite Fringe show of all time (3 yrs so far) - for the art, physicality, wit and sheer endeavour of it all. How did they make their bodies do that?

Yesterday was MyoSung, a Korean show fusing jazz, hip-hop and classical Korean dance. Yep, dance is my thing this festival. Not as slick as Kataklo or last year's Jump, it felt young, raw, and full of energy (tempered with a bit of angst), and had plenty of amazing moves to keep things interesting.

Later, a freebie from A's work led us to Tim Minchin, an Aussie comedian (former glam rocker) who sings like a glam rocker should (maybe better), plays the piano, and composes wickedly funny, perfectly rhymed lyrics - with the odd off-rhyme moments hammed up for comic effect. Entertaining but nothing mind-blowing - although his resemblance to a Mr Smith I know was slightly spooky...