Edinburgh Festivals Magazine
| 06 August 2010
Having thoroughly, and threateningly, warned reviewers not to call him misanthropic, Andrew Lawrence ensures that the word is stuck front and centre in my mind as I watch him perform his latest show, Too Ugly for Television.
So how to describe the angry young man of the stand-up world? Cynical, certainly. Sarcastic? So he seems. Malevolent? Most definitely. Self-hating?
That’s harder to say.
The hot button topic of our warming planet is tackled in a unique way in Burning Ice, as 45 artists and scientists join forces in an expedition to Greenland. 
An eight-piece brass ensemble straight from Louisiana bring their own savoury brand of New Orleans jazz to the Spiegeltent, with the mission to “blow the roof off this tent”. What seems to be the whitest audience they have probably ever performed to happily consent to stand up, put their hands up and “get ready to party”. 
What are you expecting from this year’s Festival? I’m over the moon about coming to the festival this year, because I’m finally coming for the entire month and not just to work! I’ve rented a house with my husband, Neil Gaiman (who’s going to be taking part in the Book Festival) and I plan on drowning myself in music and theatre. It’s my idea of paradise.
Where to start? This production by the Shanghai Peking Opera Troupe, performing what is essentially Hamlet in traditional Jingju style, initially intrigues then becomes breathtaking, deeply moving and well deserving of its audience’s standing ovation.
