NewsRevue – Canal Café Theatre
Posted on 14/08/2012 by one4review
5 Star
*****
There are a number of constants each and every Fringe. Everywhere is uphill no matter which direction you are going, the weather is at best mixed and the Canal Café Theatre will turn out an excellent hour of NewsRevue.
The format is fairly similar, four actors this year Jenny Bede, Luke Coldham, Rebecca Harper and Oliver Izod, perform short sharp sketches and satirical songs while MD Chris Peake tinkles the ivories.
As a previous cast was once dubbed the Smiling Assassins, this is still a suitable description for this years as they, and the audience, smile whilst knives are being applied to the celebrities being lampooned.
In a year when nothing much was happening (!!) they managed to turn out their normal impeccable performance. The pace is frantic, the writing cutting, the choreography excellent and the singing and acting under the direction of Adam Morley spot on.
Okay who got it then? Royalty, Rebecca Brookes, Andy Murray, Edinburgh Zoo pandas, Fearne Cotton were amongst those given the treatment, but the real vitriol, as always was reserved for the politicians and quite right too.
This top class show should not be missed.
SG Fringe
NewsRevue
Pleasance Courtyard
6.20pm (run ends 26th August)
The unstoppable Newsrevue returns for another year with more sketches and musical numbers satirizing current affairs. Newsrevue is capable of some very inventive work: Cameron and Clegg as lovers in a noir film, the Eurozone crisis as a particularly cut-throat round on the Weakest Link, and the short audio sketches during blackouts are a particular treat.
However, the majority of sketches fulfill their requirements in a rather predictable way. We have Clegg as an infant entrusted to the care of Cameron, Boris Johnson and George Osborne as Etonians with Clegg as their simpering whipping boy. Most scenes come, make their point, and go without anything unexpected: it is about as middle of the road as you can imagine. But the audience lapped it up and in an age where comedy is becoming progressively more alternative, perhaps it is important to have something more predictable to satisfy those who just want to laugh without having their boundaries pushed.
It must be mentioned that the performers are all excellent and demonstrate abilities to act, sing, dance and do impressions. If you want sharp, edgy commentary go elsewhere, but for those who want their satire boxes ticked, Newsrevue will do just fine.
FreshFringe
Review: NewsRevue
5 Star
London-based musical sketch show NewsRevue has been in the business of satire for 33 years now (in fact, they celebrate their 33rd anniversary on the 18th August) – with annual trips to the Edinburgh Fringe fixed in their calendar. The show has sold out at the Fringe for the last four years – and, based on their current performance, they look to be heading the same way again this year.
The production was masterful and slick from the very start, opening with a riotous “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” number about the pitfalls of Twitter. The writers of NewsRevue should be incredibly proud of their work; each parody and skit throughout the show was extremely observational and just a little bit cheeky. The years of experience of the creative team shine through (some of whom have been working with the show for 12 years) and they manage to tackle even some of the most serious issues of the past year with a wry humour. Although this is technically a ‘best of’ compilation, the writers are still keeping up-to-date as events develop – the ideal example being the addition of a short sketch about Andy Murray’s typical Scottish stoicism in the face of an Olympic gold medal. All credit to the team behind NewsRevue for a well-written and well-produced show.
Credit must also be given to the four performers who took on an impressive range of roles and accents in order to make NewsRevue come alive on stage. The four worked well when all together – in particular, their piece on the Queen’s Jubilee flotilla (including a rather over-excited Fearne Cotton, captured perfectly by Jenny Bede) was definitely “HASHTAG TOTES AMAZE”. Each performer had a stand-out character, and special mention must be given to Luke Coldham for his hilarious portrayal of David Cameron. The coalition featured heavily, of course, mimicking the Private Eye style of playing Nick Clegg (Rebecca Harper) as a naughty schoolboy. Their dealings with Alex Salmond (Oliver Izod) about Scottish independence went down especially well with the Edinburgh crowd.
Set changes were slick and the audience were kept amused by short, witty gags played out through the speakers as the lights were dimmed, ensuring no-one was ever more than a few seconds from their next laugh. The packed room seemed to love the show, laughing and applauding consistently at what was a fantastic hour of song, sketches and satire. Get a ticket while you still can – they’ll be selling fast.
Fringe Review
Edinburgh Fringe 2012
NewsRevue
Genre: Sketch Comedy
Venue: Pleasance Courtyard
Lowdown
Fast-paced comedy show with hilarious songs and sketches covering anything and everything that’s been in the news these past twelve months. Since they were here last year in fact.
Review
Newsrevue is an institution. Now in its 32nd year, the format remains refreshingly simple marking it out as a standard setter amongst musical sketch shows. Just take two boys, two girls, a musical director and a large team of writers, throw them together for a few days and then deliver thirty or more quick-fire pieces of topical humour and a bunch of one-liners based on literally anything that has been in the news over the last twelve months.
We had an opening number serenading the Tweeting phenomenon, set to the tune of ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’ and then got right down to the biting political satire that the writers specialise in with the first of a series of ‘Dave and Clegg’ sessions which got steadily crueller as the show progressed but were, nevertheless, an eerily accurate reflection of the way the relationship has developed (or foundered) over the past 12 months. John Terry’s indiscretions could probably have filled the whole hour, but we had the team’s take on that pillar of society’s more glaring transgressions which was followed, appropriately enough, by David Attenborough’s exploration of the London riot season. And no satirical show worth its salt could ignore the characters in the soap opera that is the Leveson inquiry which gave the chance for someone to don a ridiculously ginger wig to produce a passable Rebekah Brookes look-a-like.
Impersonations of the glitterati were never less than believable and more often were uncanny as the quartet bounced from sketch to sketch with breath-taking speed. Each sketch hits the nail squarely on the head with the sharp, topical, satire topped off with plenty of irony. Staging is suitably tight. Lights go to black after each sketch and, no more than two or three seconds later, inch-perfect spotting comes up to reveal the actors changed and ready to go for the next skit. Using a black base for their costumes, they add simple effects like hats, ties, scarves and other quickly accessible props to differentiate characters. It’s very professional, tightly scripted (not a word is wasted), involves split-second timing and contains an extremely broad range of characters, caricatures and accents for the actors to get their heads round. Music is provided from on-stage, allowing perfect synchronisation with the actors and the provision of slickly delivered pieces to link the sketches and songs.
The cast are equally at ease with music, text or physical theatre and no-one escapes their quick witted lyrics. To close we have a marvellous take on Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ –but with the Olympics as the theme, and whether we can really afford them. Given the outrageous success that the Games have been, one might question whether this was taking cynicism a bit far but the lyrics and the way they were delivered just about stayed the right side of the line and brought a deserved final ovation for this talented quintet.
Professional, precise and pitch perfect. A great hour of high-energy entertainment
Laugh Riot
Broadway Baby Rating: 5 Star
Veritable veterans of the Fringe, NewsRevue return with their unique whirlwind tour of the last year’s current affairs. As the turnover of actors and writers is even faster than that of the politicians they deride, one might expect that some troupes would be wide off the mark and as a result, that the act might flounder. However, this simply isn’t the case. By my estimation, they manage to perform 36 sketches in under an hour, which is in itself impressive. What’s even more admirable is that, in roasting everything from the Pope to Jordan’s lady garden (an unfortunate turn of phrase, I grant you), the hit rate of the sketches is near flawless, bridging the gap seamlessly between tattle and real, biting satire. The fleeting occasions when there is a hint of a tanking joke, the actors are skilled enough to whip the carpet from beneath the audience’s feet and glide on to the next sketch in the full knowledge that the peerless writing guarantees a laugh around the corner. To suggest that NewsRevue are solely interested in laughs, though, would be folly. Theirs is a comedy with an agenda of holding the rich and powerful to account. More than this there is a wonderful refusal to take any prisoners. References to Anders Breivik and Kate McCann constitute some of the darker moments of the hour but there is no sense of their allusions being unnecessary or gratuitous. While some sketches should soon be consigned to the archives, the overwhelming majority of the show is militantly fresh. In all, NewsRevue deserves its awesome reputation and is unmissable for current affairs aficionados and general punters alike.
