Awards Coverage
Hunt is on to find the real Hendrix
Keith Bruce [Monday, August 24th, 2009]
Singer, actor and author Marsha Hunt is in town to set the record straight about Jimi Hendrix with a single performance of Brown Sugar on Jimi Hendrix at the Assembly Rooms today at 12.40pm. She is returning to the same space, the Wildman Room, where she performed her show Joy, co-written and directed by her daughter Karis Jagger, 15 years ago. The following year she became one of the first presenters of the Herald Angel awards and on Saturday she performed that task again, presenting this week's winners of the Bank of Scotland Herald Angels in the company of the bank's head of sponsorship, Sarah Cran.
Although theatre, dance, and mime were represented it was a week that was dominated by music and Hunt presented the week's Archangel, for a sustained contribution to Edinburgh's festivals, to Christopher Bell, chorus master of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus. Although appointed to that post only after the 2007 festival, Bell's association with the Edinburgh International Festival goes back much further, through the contribution of the National Youth Choir of Scotland, which he also directs, to the programmes. This year the Edinburgh Festival Chorus is having one of its busiest, with acclaimed contributions to the opening concert and Verdi's Macbeth, and performances of Berlioz's Romeo and Juliet and Elgar's Dream of Gerontius still to come.
Romania's culture minister Teoader Paleologu and a television documentary crew from his homeland were also in attendance to witness the presentation of an Angel award to Ofelia Popii for her stunning contribution to Silviu Purcarete's staging of Goethe's Faust.
The show, which its creators never imagined would be seen outside the abandoned factory in Romania where it was created, had been playing to capacity houses at the Lowland Hall, Ingliston, ending its run on Saturday night. Popii's extraordinary performance as Mephistopheles has attracted universal praise.
So too did Frank Woodley's portrayal of Candide in Tom Wright's Optimism, adapted from Voltaire. He and the Malthouse Melbourne company have now returned to Australia, so his award was collected for him by the Festival's managing director Joanna Baker.
A kilted Patrice Thibaud arrived to accept an Angel in the company of his partner in Cocorico, Philippe Leygnac. The French mime duo are part of the international programme at the New Town Theatre, home of last week's Archangel winner, Universal Arts, celebrating 20 years on the Fringe.
Dancer and aerialist Claire Cunningham said she would be having special miniature crutches added to her Angel, reflecting the difficulties she has overcome to become a brave and original performer. After much acclaim overseas, her show ME is being presented by Dance Base at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall in Dalmeny Street.
The live music at Saturday's event came from two of this week's Angel-winners. Cynthia Hopkins plays accordian and sings with four-piece band Gloria Deluxe in her show Accidental Nostalgia at the Traverse. Her performance is a multi-layered, technology-embracing, exploration of the mind and the way that it works, and she and the band performed its opening song Change Your Mind on Saturday morning.
At the end of the ceremony the gathering also heard from Barbara Morrison, in the company of pianist Tom Finlay and bassist Eric Harper. The jazz singer has been a frequent visitor to Edinburgh but her Up Close and Personal show at the Outhouse is a rare opportunity to enjoy her versatility and wit at close quarters.
Marsha Hunt also presented this week's Little Devil award, given to those who best illustrate the old adage that "the show must go on". This week's gremlin-vanquisher was Michele Gallagher who stepped into the role of Mary in the Citizens' Theatre production of Ron Butlin's play The Sound of My Voice on only a few days notice, but was "off the book" and on stage opposite Billy Mack in the two-hander for opening night at the Assembly Rooms.
It takes optimism to be a winner
Keith Bruce [Saturday, August 22nd, 2009]
TWO sensational performances at the Edinburgh International Festival, and a new member of the Festival's year-round staff, top the list of winners at the Bank of Scotland Herald Angel Awards at the Festival Theatre this morning.
Comedian Frank Woodley, once half of Perrier award-winners Lano and Woodley, was on superb form as Candide in the Melbourne Malthouse production of Tom Wright's Optimism, an adaptation of Voltaire's novel, which had just four performances last weekend. Ofelia Popii has been the sensation of this week as Mephistopheles. She is on stage throughout Silviu Purcarete's visceral Faust in the Lowland Hall at Ingliston, where it has its final performance tonight.
This week's Bank of Scotland Herald Archangel for a sustained contribution to Festival Edinburgh goes to Christopher Bell, chorus master of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus, which was one of the finest ingredients in the Festival's opening concert performance of Handel's Judas Maccabaeus. The chorus is having one of its busiest Festivals ever, singing Verdi's Macbeth last night, Berlioz's Romeo and Juliet this coming Friday and Elgar's Dream of Gerontius on the final weekend.
Bell was appointed chorus master in 2007 but as director of the National Youth Choir of Scotland his association with the Festival has previously included appearances by his young singers performing Messaien and Britten. NYCoS joins the Festival Chorus on the Usher Hall stage for the Elgar event this year, and another NYCoS ensemble performed last week as part of the British Festival of Youth Orchestras, which takes a long established feature of the Fringe to the RSAMD in Glasgow.
On the Fringe in Edinburgh, yet another show at the Traverse is an Angel-winner with the opening of Cynthia Hopkins's late-night show Accidental Nostalgia. Subtitled An Operetta about the Pros and Cons of Amnesia, Hopkins's performance recalls the techniques of her countrymen in The Wooster Group and features a superb four-piece band, Gloria Deluxe, accompanying her own excellent singing.
The career of Claire Cunningham, a performer who has not allowed disability to stand in the way of daring aerial work, has been championed by The Herald's Mary Brennan, but her shows have been seen more overseas than at home. That situation has been remedied by her presence at the Out Of The Blue Drill Hall in Dalmeny Street in Leith with the highly acclaimed ME.
Last week's Archangel winner, Universal Arts, is presenting the UK premiere of French duo Cocorico - physical comedian Patrice Thibaud and acrobatic pianist Philippe Leygnac. Together they give mime a good name for hilarity.
One of the world's top jazz vocalists, Barbara Morrison, is in residence at The Outhouse in Broughton Street Lane for the duration of the Fringe, and these intimate performances are winning her many new admirers. Not only is she a great singer across a wide repertoire, she'd give a few Fringe comedians a run for their money as well.
This week's Little Devil, given to those who insure that the show goes on in the face of adversity, is awarded to Michele Gallagher. She was "resting" and planning some home decorating and realising an ambition to cycle round the Isle of Cumbrae when the call came from Glasgow Citizens for her to step into the role of Mary in Ron Butlin's play The Sound of My Voice for its Fringe run at the Assembly Rooms. It was July 31 and she learned the script and was ready to open opposite Billy Mack in the demanding two-hander in just a few days.
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