reviews
14 September 2005
Stop Not Going
Holy Crap what are you doing? Do you want to see the evolution of comedy? I can’t, I can’t breathe. The entire audience, in fact, were paralysed with laughter for the entirely of Mark Chevez’s and Shenoah Allen’s Stop Not Going. Previously known as Sabotage last year, this is the absolute best comedy of the Fringe. Perhaps of any fringe ever. Did I sound effusive in my other reviews above? Once again, this is the best fringe I have ever attended, and I did Edinburgh, baby! However, ignore everything I’ve said. Everything else is hyperbole. This is cold hard, statistic-laiden fact. Go see this show. Please. These two boys wander back and forth between each other’s rhinestone brain with the same ease with which you stick your hand in the communal fridge and steal your roommate’s food. A glorious achievement I can not do justice to. You will simply have to see it, this is my absolute number one pick of the Fringe, followed by Ricardo Garcia’s Flamenco Flow, and I’d eaten three or four weed chocolate chip cookies for that one.
Ricardo Garcia’s Flamenco Flow
Was I effusive above? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Ricardo Garcia, a Spanish Gentleman living in Edinburgh with his Scottish flamenco genius wife, combines Latin stalwarts like Rumba, Flamenco, Tango and others (every region of Spain has specific flavours and music themes) with Asian, African, Jazz and, I’m pretty sure, occasional Heavy Metal rhythms, to create a unique and devastatingly original, awe-inspiring sound. I’m going to go on a bit more. They have this guy slapping on what looks like an obscure piece of Ikea furniture for whatever sound he needs to accompany the guitar. They have a guy… let me tell you, the point of break dancing I have never understood. Please. Break dancing? Forget about it. Until now, suddenly I understand the point of hip-hop footwork. Suddenly break dancing is meaningful. The entire history of break dancing has been leading up to this show. The hip hop guy and the flamenco dancer have dance-offs demonstrating, like you have never seen, the common language and familial connection of all dance forms. I never give standing ovations. Everybody does standing O’s in this town. For Flamenco Flow I stood up to clap so fast my eyebrows fell out and I ran over the heads of the audience to buy the CD.