 On
Friday 25th August Gilded Balloon Productions & Cahoots
presented a ‘one off’ charity gala show celebrating the comedic and
performing talent that was the late grate Richard Pryor.
Looked upon by many Fringe performers past and present as an
iconic figure in comedy circles, Richard is known to many of the worlds
population for his performance in many feature films including ‘The
Wiz’, ‘Stir Crazy’, ‘Superman III’ and ‘See No Evil, Hear No
Evil’ .
Introduced
by his daughter Rain, who is following in her fathers footsteps by
herself becoming a performer, she is in two separate Fringe shows,
‘Rain Pryor’ in the Teviot Wine Bar and ‘Ella meet Marilyn’ in
the Pleasance Acedome, both of which are mainly musical in content.
The
evening started with Tim Minchin on his white grand piano providing us
with his unique weird and hilarious musical entertainment.
Rain
came on with the hunky and talented Stephen K Amos and between them they
introduced the aim of the evening and went on to bring on the other
guests. This show was a
gathering of some of the top talents in Edinburgh on the day celebrating
the life of a man they all admire as well as raising cash for multiple
sclerosis.
We
then had the gorgeous Adam Hills, Geoff who saw this years show wanted
to give him six stars, who is as charismatic and hilarious as ever. One
of his catch phrases is ‘Go You Big Red Fire Engine’ and this was
yelled out from the audience even before he had reached the centre of
the stage. His ability to gather an audience in moments is always a
pleasure to see.
Antonio Forcione has regularly played music with
Boothby Graffoe and therefore facing a crowd who are mainly expecting
comedy hold no fear for him. On the night he came on stage with ¼ of
his Quartet Brazilian Adriano Pinto, who is one of the most inventive
and amazing percussion players I have ever seen, I suspect that no
matter what object you gave him he could get a musical sound out of it.
Antonio on guitar and Adriano on what I can only describe as a miked
tambourine, played three extraordinary numbers.
Ex-pat-Australian Julia Morris, along with 'bump'
presented her own unique Aussie-Britt type humour. With my nursing
background I spent the time half rolling about with laughter and half
praying that her waters stayed intact.
Possibly the surprise of the evening was the
appearance of Jimmy Carr, I have seen him lots of times on TV but never
live, I am not personally sure if he is quite what I was expecting nor
whether I would actually choose to go and see his full show.
Reginald D Hunter was selling out so fast I did
not get the chance to see his full show, but having seen him recently at
The Stand Comedy Club, was not totally devastated. His small stint
during this show proves what a fantastic time I was missing.
We then had a stint from Mickey D the presenter
of the Gilded Balloon’s Night Club ‘Phat Cave’ running from 00.45
to 04.00 most mornings during the Fringe. His short segment was
augmented by him taking over from Stephen as co presenter then further
as he became translator for the next act Brendon Burns.
Brendon or alter ego Burnsy is totally new to
me as a performer as it seems to be Geoff who gets to see him most of
the time. Although suffering from a sore throat and trying to rest his
voice, hence the use of Mickey D as translator, but on this performance
I think I’ll be fighting Geoff next year to get to see him, but I will
be hiding at the back.
Finally Rain herself took to the stage joined
by her accompanist and sang a few numbers giving us a taste of the
superb voice that she has. For the final numbers they were joined on
stage by the opening act Tim Minchin.
Along with this wealth of talent on stage there
were a few well kent faces in the audience and a silent auction for a
signed Poster from a Harry Potter Movie and an autographed guitar which
was owned by Bill Bailey.
This was a superb evenings entertainment and if
you can only get to one Fringe show choose one like this where you get
maximum exposure for minimum output and help charity at the same time.
*****
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