How Do I Get Up There? - The Good Review

Original review - http://thegoodreview.co.uk/2013/08/how-do-i-get-up-there-assembly-rooms/

The Good Review is a website that only reviews things they like. Exactly why they have a 5 star rating system is unknown. Perhaps they reserve the one and two star reviews for things they didn't bother going to see but heard had potential.

Reviewer Clare Snape has never seen a comedy sketch show live before, which is an unusual thing to admit in a review of a comedy sketch show, but since comedy is an accessible art form aimed at the general public, this perhaps does not diminish her opinion. The fact that this piece reads like the diary entry of a self-centred 16 year-old does however diminish her ability as a writer.

Completely unable to detach herself from the event, Snape spends one third of the review describing her big fat sloppy tear-drenched face, whilst spending another third listing various things that she is not aware of.

The final third is thankfully reserved for covering the nature of How Do I Get Up There's performance and chemistry, neatly observing that there is always a member of any sketch group that is "the fat one who is also the one who doesn't get it". Having never seen any sketch groups before, one can only assume that Snape is referring to Harold Bishop, or at a push, Gunther from Friends. Try watching Keenan and Kel, it might change your opinion on these social dynamics.

The rest of the space is filled up by re-mentioning two specific sketches with in the space of three lines and general lazy ways of describing how good things were.

This reviewer can confirm that How Do I Get Up There? are "well observed and really well executed", it's just a shame that in this case they have been reviewed by a writer who can not expand their descriptions beyond "well" or "really well". Try using a "very" next time Clare. (Classic!)

Rik & Mix - Arts Awards

This blog will be reviewing reviews from this years Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The first one is Rik Carranza - Rik & Mix by Arts Award

Original review here http://artsawardvoice.com/magazine/reviews/rik-carranza-rik-mix

Reviewer Tom get's off to a unique start with an opening sentence that immediately plugs another show and then finishes off with a phrase that would be more at home coming out of the mouth of the Sherrif of Rottingham.

"playing a musical role in the astounding of the audience's mind"

We then learn that the first act Rod Hunter was "comedically weak". The word "comedically" obviously reinforcing what kind of weakness was in question in this review, clarifying that in no case had Rod come out and challenged some kids to an arm wrestle. And lost.

Gareth Waugh is then outlined as "actually being funny". Such succinct description is not with out it's own subtext that reads "if you like comedians actually being funny, then this comedian is your guy". Comedy these days is often laboriously divided into categories like observational, surreal, story-telling and other such uninformative labels. Tom's refreshing approach cuts the bullshit and operates a much simpler "funny" or "not funny" scale, the same one probably used in Nuts magazine to rate grotesque pictures of foot injuries.

After describing the panel of carpet in the Lizard Lounge as a stage, Tom tells us that the headliner's set consisted of "songs, stores and jokes". Whether Rik Carranza opened a small tuck shop between playing the guitar and doing some funnies is not entirely clear, and leads to an intrigue that this reviewer believes could be expanded on. What did the store say about society? Was it a self-deprecating store? How much did it charge for a packet of Space Raiders? And was that incorporated into a topical routine about the credit crunch? Only the mood-salvaged audience on that day can tell us. Excluding the reviewer that was in the house.

Tom trips over his own brain on the way out clearly mistaking the word "cliques" for "cliches". Luckily they look fairly similar, and anyone reading fast enough will get the general gist. I had initially assumed an editor might have given this piece a once over, but then again, I once assumed that my pet cat wouldn't shit on my slippers.

Every comedian likes a solid quote from a review to use for future use, well Tom is happy to furnish Rik Carranza with a "I would pay for a full hour of his material". This is confusingly put under a picture of Rik, making it look like he, himself, is saying it.

Well Tom, I'd happily pay for an hour of your material, however there is no longer a market for failed Standard Grade critical essays.

"I'LL PAY FOR THIS!"