Articles by James Macnamara

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Is Your Marmite Watching You?

Is Your Marmite Watching You?

The point of a thought-experiment is to provide a way of exploring the consequences of an idea, not through a metaphorical prism, but through a literal imagining of what might happ… 

Jazz Rite of Spring

Jazz Rite of Spring

The Rite of Spring lends itself extremely well to jazz interpretations: those wild off-beats and dissonances must be a jazz artist’s wet dream. 

Government Inspector

Government Inspector

In this production of Nikolai Gogol’s satirical masterpiece, Sedos, ‘The City of London’s premier amateur theatre company,’ have forwarded the action a hundred years to 1… 

West Side Story

West Side Story

Youth Music Theatre Scotland return for another successful year at the Fringe, this time with a remarkably professional and well-executed production of West Side Story, perhaps t… 

Classical Guitar - Jonathan Prag

Classical Guitar - Jonathan Prag

Combining an interesting program with an intimate setting and impressive technique, this concert of classical guitar music will be of interest to specialists and those who will enj… 

Occupied

Occupied

Harry Buckoke’s Occupied is an intelligent and refreshingly light-hearted dissection of the 2011 occupation of Lady Margaret Hall by students of Cambridge University. 

Hamlet

Hamlet

I really hope there wasn’t an adult in charge of this. 

Phill Jupitus is Porky the Poet in Juplicity

Phill Jupitus is Porky the Poet in Juplicity

Before Phill Jupitus was a panel show staple (but in a good way) he was a performance poet. 

Sophie Wu is Minging, She Looks Like She's Dead

Sophie Wu is Minging, She Looks Like She's Dead

Hang on. 

Jay Rayner: My Dining Hell

Jay Rayner: My Dining Hell

Jay Rayner is a real presence, a big guy with a big voice who is very comfortable with addressing an audience. 

Ride of the Wagnerian

Ride of the Wagnerian

There’s nothing I would like to do more than go for a pint with Giacinto Palmieri and discuss Wagner. 

Half Baked

Half Baked

Oh, boy. 

The Dispute

The Dispute

Who was first unfaithful: woman or man? A scientific experiment designed to recreate the garden of Eden and answer this question “once and for all” is the premise of this he… 

Julius Caesar in Original Pronunciation

Julius Caesar in Original Pronunciation

Fighting a giggle fit is not what an audience member should be doing during the first half of Julius Caesar. 

Title and Deed by Will Eno

Title and Deed by Will Eno

Plays by leading contemporary playwrights are becoming more common at the Fringe. 

Cabaret Nova

Cabaret Nova

Cabaret Nova has undergone a transformation since last year. 

Pomme is French for Apple

Pomme is French for Apple

You can sense when an audience is tense even without turning around. 

Kitty in the Lane

Kitty in the Lane

An intense, poetic study of loneliness, cruelty and rural isolation, Kitty in the Lane is a mesmeric continuation of the Irish literary tradition, a reminder that our cousins over … 

Demi Lardner: Birds with Human Lips

Demi Lardner: Birds with Human Lips

As a recipient of the Gilded Balloon’s So You Think You’re Funny? Award Demi Lardner belongs to an elite group of comedy talent. 

According To His Need

According To His Need

Oddball alert! A guy wearing headphones sits strangely close to me and asks whether I like “communist romcoms. 

Rachel Stubbings: Doing It for Himself

Rachel Stubbings: Doing It for Himself

Rachel Stubbings gave me a Maoam. 

The Shape of Things

The Shape of Things

Neil LaBute’s 2001 play has big themes: the morality of art; the morality of love. 

Captive Minds

Captive Minds

Ironic isn’t it? A show about a psychopath and it made me want to kill someone. 

Vernon God Little

Vernon God Little

Someone once wrote of the novel Vernon God Little that it ‘was a work of unutterably tedious nastiness and vulgarity’, and its author DBC (Dirty But Clean) Pierre ‘a man with… 

South Downs

South Downs

Based on David Hare’s knowledge of 1960’s private school politics from the position of a boy attending on a scholarship, South Downs is an excellent play: funny, intelligent an… 

Vanity

Vanity

On the first night I tried to go to Vanity the tiny room was completely full: I couldn’t even see past people hanging around at the door. 

The Mad Hatter Bum Party

The Mad Hatter Bum Party

The Mad Hatter Bum Party confers a false and fairly nauseating dignity on being without a home. 

How Hard Do You Hum When You Cum?

How Hard Do You Hum When You Cum?

The funniest piece in this collection of performed poems isn’t about the human body. 

Junk

Junk

If the fringe has a competition for ‘the most cool stuff a director can think of and put into a show’, Junk is a shoe-in. 

Find Me

Find Me

Find Me manages to reveal simultaneously how far we’ve come and how far we have to go in our attitudes to mental illness. 

Casual Violence Presents: House of Nostril

Casual Violence Presents: House of Nostril

Jamie Hamilton is an energetic and inventive sketch writer, with an unusual ability to take conventions from other genres and spin them until they become surreal. 

George Galloway’s Fighting Talk

George Galloway’s Fighting Talk

George Galloway arrives on stage chewing gum and wearing a military style jacket. 

The Bear Goes Walkabout

The Bear Goes Walkabout

Events like The Bear Goes Walkabout are premonitions of the future of British classical music. 

Moraletry - PBH's Free Fringe

Moraletry - PBH's Free Fringe

Ethics and morality aren’t typically seen as trendy when it comes to comedy, poetry and performance; they are often seen as unfun and old-hat. 

Bristol Improv Presents... / PBH's Free Fringe

Bristol Improv Presents... / PBH's Free Fringe

Watching actors improvise can be the most fun thing ever. 

Waves

Waves

Alice Mary Cooper ushers us into a tiny black room, onstage are a cup, saucer and red cork cricket ball resting on a cardboard box. 

Harder Please

Harder Please

Our bodies are not challenged in the way our ancestors would have been used to. 

Roughs

Roughs

Last time someone ‘breathed new life’ into Beckett they were issued an injunction. 

Verb Garden: Radical Scotland

Verb Garden: Radical Scotland

Our host Bob Starrett is a cartoonist, writer, trade unionist and political activist heavily involved personally and politically with the history of the Glasgow shipyards. 

Comedy, Evolved

Comedy, Evolved

Watching Americans do sketch comedy can be painful for the British. 

Tejas Verdes

Tejas Verdes

It was strange returning from Tejas Verdes. 

Edinburgh Science, Edinburgh Magic!

Edinburgh Science, Edinburgh Magic!

Ron Butlin is the Edinburgh Makar (poet laureate) and he is a skilled and sensitive writer. 

Macbeth

Macbeth

Director Matt Dann writes that his production of Macbeth is ‘informed, not by an imposed concept, but by the texture of the text itself: lean, taut, bristling with muscular tensi… 

Duvet Dave

Duvet Dave

Who is Duvet Dave? I’m not really allowed to say exactly who, but I can describe him. 

Titty Bar Ha Ha

Titty Bar Ha Ha

Some good friends snubbed the opportunity to see this with me: I was made to see my first cabaret all alone. 

A Brief History of Beer

A Brief History of Beer

We really don’t know much about beer. 

Seann Walsh: The Lie-in King

Seann Walsh: The Lie-in King

Though a wayward arachnid hanging from the ceiling threatened to steal Walsh’s show on the night I was there, his genuine reaction to it – ‘HOLY SHIT’ – turned into ten m… 

Squidboy

Squidboy

People who have seen Squidboy will be competing to find the best way to describe it. 

Milo McCabe: Schiz

Milo McCabe: Schiz

It can be annoying when someone points out that being schizophrenic has nothing to do with split personalities, but they would be right. 

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