Michelle Collins makes her Fringe debut
Arts Correspondent ANDY MOSELEY gives his verdict on Motorhome Marilyn; Ria Lina: Riabelliion; The Essence of Audrey; Olivia Raine Attwood: Faking It
Motorhome Marilyn
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Eastenders actress, Michelle Collins makes her Edinburgh Fringe debut in this new play by Ben Weatherill. Set in Las Vegas, Collins plays Denise, a once aspiring actress who is now earning a sort of living as a Marilyn Monroe tribute act, striking the pose immortalised by Monroe in The Seven Year Itch outside the city’s casinos.
Underneath this frozen in time moment lies a deeper story of heartbreak, missed opportunities and a reluctance, if not refusal, to accept that her dreams of stardom are destined never to be realised.
Collins brings to life the faded glamour of the now 60-something wannabee in a play that also strips away at the surface level nature of stardom both in its trailer park setting and the back story of how her fascination with Monroe emerged, the false hopes that led her from Southend to Vegas and the dark secret that is about to return to haunt her.
It’s a low-key drama with a thoughtfully understated performance from Collins that plays to both the tragedy and the comedy in the script.
Underbelly Patter House 5.30pm
Until 25 August
Ria Lina: Riabellion
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One of the side effects of Richard Osman’s departure from BBC’s Pointless has been a number of comedians getting mainstream exposure at teatimes as Alexander Armstrong’s new Pointless Friend. One of those was Ria Lina who brings her new hour of stand up to Monkey Barrel for the Fringe.
Delivering razor sharp and at times savage satire that has no regard for niceties, Riabellion also manages to be warm, infectious humour as Lina takes the audience with her into routines that show her rebelling against all ideas of what a mother of teenage children should be and how she should behave.
Her starting points are familiar topics, tiger mothers, helicopter parents frustrated with their kids, the casual and overt racism that led to someone telling her that her face wasn’t English looking, and more, but she takes each one in a new direction with a brutal honesty that picks out and plays up the things that a lot of comedians shy away from in favour of safer material.
That she does this at the same time as actively confronting prejudices and stereotyped images adds further to the success and uniqueness of the show, making it a not be missed show.
Cab Vol 1 at Monkey Barrel Comedy 2.25pm
Dairy Room at Underbelly Bristo Square 6.10pm
Until 24 August (not 14 or 21)
The Essence of Audrey
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Helen Anker is writer and performer of this biopic play about Hollywood actor and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Audrey Hepburn. Set in the later stages of her life, the play is set in Hepburn’s Swiss home as she hosts a private auction of her film memorabilia, which provides her with the opportunity to talk about her life and career.
By taking a strictly chronological approach to the story and focusing more on her accomplishments than her personality, particularly in the early stages, the show initially feels like a straight reading of an authorised biography rather than a real insight into her life beyond the movie screen.
Anker captures the essence of Audrey the movie star in her performance, but the essence of Audrey the person is a little more elusive.
It’s only when she starts to dive deeper into Hepburn’s anxieties, insecurity and desire for privacy that the story and the character really start to come alive. Hepburn’s struggle to have children, the difficult movies she worked on, movie stars she worked with, and the stories of her marriages and relationships, add extra layers, but it feels like more could have been made of the life of this iconic figure.
Pleasance Courtyard (Cellar) 11.15am
Until 25 August (not 13)
Olivia Raine Atwood: Faking It
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With the cost of taking a show to the Fringe continually increasing, it’s easy to see why performers will look to take more than one show to it. Faking It, a show from 2024, is one of two shows that Olivia Raine Attwood has on this year, bringing it back to Greenside alongside her new show Oops at the same venue.
The thing Atwood was faking was illness, working as Unannounced Standardised Patient, presenting herself at various New York hospitals with various symptoms so that doctors and admin staff could be monitored.
One of the illnesses she was asked to be concerned about was the one that went on to be known as Covid. As well as recounting the story of presenting for Covid in two halves of the same hospital, Atwood also delivers anecdote after anecdote to explain why she was perhaps the last person who should have been given such a role.
Her excitable and sometimes manic style of delivery, which incorporates gymnastic style movement, adds to the absurdity of the stories in a show where the energy and pace of the performance never drops as Atwood bring her experiences to full vivid life.
Greenside @ George Street (4.05pm Faking It, 5.25pm Oops)
Until 23 August (not 17)
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