Wau Wau Sisters - Naked As The Day They Were Born Again, Famous Spiegeltent
✶ ✶ ✶ ✶
Whale Of A Time, C Nova
✶ ✶ ✶ ✶
Story's End, Summerhall
✶ ✶ ✶
They're outrageous. Or perhaps that should read "[expletive deleted] outrageous." Because the Wau Wau Sisters are no strangers to the f-word, either vocally or, as they candidly reveal, socially. But can we believe everything these two alleged siblings tell us? After all, here they are, wearing not a stitch as the name of their show suggests, having arrived in Edinburgh to find their luggage has been lost in transit. After much audience-bating and frank exposure, their suitcases magically appear, making this a strip show in reverse, and the madness begins in earnest.
To go into detail would spoil the fun for potential attenders but just to give a flavour: country songs are sung while one by now bewigged, cowgirl-outfitted sister is balancing the guitar-strumming other one on her feet and guzzling a bottle of beer, and much mirth, as well as a kind of identity theft, is extracted from the victims they select from the audience.
As ditzy, rude, lewd and libidinous as the Wau Waus (it's pronounced Vow Vow) get - and they are all these things and more - underneath their adopted hayseed, in-bred, kissin' siblings-and-anybody-else personas lie serious acrobatic skills. Their big number, a trapeze act that sees them slithering up and down each other's bodies and limbs, is as impressive a routine as I can remember seeing on the Fringe, and I won't disclose what revolving message the inscriptions on their underwear sends out. Go and see for yourself. Go on. Be brave.
Run ends August 20
The sounds of Korea - the band and the country - flow through Whale of a Time to create an at times magical show that is both exotic and strangely familiar. Korea are a kind of oriental Pentangle, using traditional instruments plus guitar and percussion, including a brilliantly played triangle, to accompany their charming singer, Ashin Kweon. The Beatles' Norwegian Wood receives a vaguely Scottish-Irish-sounding makeover and a Cossack dance-like insistence drives another number.
Other items stay closer to the band's origins, but what stays in the mind especially is the flute playing of Dong-Kun Kim, whose intense soulfulness gives this beguiling music a deeply expressive edge.
Run ends August 17
Story's End brings together film, live music and spoken word in a show that is big on atmosphere and has a certain Withnail & I quality as the writer who will eventually appear before us reading from an electronic tablet seems to be drowning in the paper carrying his discarded words on screen. As a piece it does not quite hang together for me, but the songs have a stoic strength that appeals and the incidental music and arrangements, including sparingly but imaginatively used brass, are genuinely haunting. Part of Made In Scotland 2013.
Run ends August 18
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article