Good, bad and gimps kick off at Edinburgh Fringe
EDINBURGH (Reuters) - The good, the bad and the gimps of comedy got into full swing on the first night of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
U.S. comedian Janeane Garofalo got off to a shaky start with reviewers, earning the ire of Scots by talking trash about their fondness for deep fried Mars bars and alcohol, while ribbing them about the performance of England's cricket team.
"Interrogating cricket-apathetic Scots about The Ashes (a cricket series between England and Australia played in England and Wales this year) might have been the nadir, were it not for her labored Conservative baiting," Scotsman reviewer Jay Richardson wrote.
Elsewhere, rising talents Idiots of Ants put on a hilarious show that raced through gut-aching sketches involving a bachelorette party -- where four women wake up with hangovers and sex changes -- to a cheerfully morbid song about cannibalism for airline crash survivors stranded on a mountain.
"Late Night Gimp Fight" delivered some cringing humor but moments of pure hilarity in a show that reveled in bondage and wrestling gags and was littered with references to popular films. The dinosaur impressions from "Jurassic Park" had the crowd roaring, alongside Hitler as a pop music star.
Outside the traditional venues street buskers, revelers, tourists and office workers out for the end of the week drink mixed along Edinburgh's Royal Mile, creating a raucous party atmosphere under the brooding watch of Edinburgh Castle.
The 63rd Edinburgh Festival Fringe offers serious dance, theater, exhibitions and other artistic inventions alongside the wacky and wonderful comedy that has made the world's largest open-access arts festival a massive launch pad for performers, writers and directors.
Shakespeare and the life story of former poet laureate John Betjeman will share a bill of more than 2,000 shows with such offerings as a play entitled "The Assassination of Paris Hilton," a scheming gossip fest set in the ladies room of a Hollywood nightclub.
The global recession, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, extraordinary rendition and the class system are all themes that are addressed both in the Fringe's comedy and theatrical offerings that play alongside a raft of children's shows, events, exhibitions, dance and music.
(Editing by Jon Boyle)
