The Studio, Edinburgh International Festival
Four stars
“I made some notes,” Creed says, after breezing on with two large jotters under his arm. He looks somewhere between a 1970s social studies lecturer and the same era's edition of Donald Sutherland. “But whatever the opposite of taking notes is, I don't want that.”
Over the next eighty minutes, Creed's obsessively symmetrical lines of inquiry are guffaw-inducingly funny and chin-scratchingly profound. It's as if he is the result of some Frankenstein's monster style experiment that fused Billy Connolly, Albert Einstein and a friendly Mark E Smith, and lived to tell the tale. Creed revels in his own perceived failures, and muses on what might happen if he met himself and was too polite to point out the rubbish he was talking. He explores the soup of his own mind, and sings raw minimalist ditties that put him in attractive opposition to himself. As waywardly joyful as this is, be aware none of it may happen tonight. Visit often.
Four stars
The words 'YES' and 'NO' flash up in
turn on a screen at the back of the stage. The array of guitars,
speakers and a laptop in front of it suggest an intimate gig of a
grassroots persuasion. Whether any of this is still in place by the
end of Turner Prize winning polymath Martin Creed's three week late
night run remains to be seen. Creed, as he is at pains to point out,
doesn't want to repeat himself in any way. In the spirit of such good
intentions, no spoiler alerts are required here, for a show which
effectively does what it says on the tin, but which finds its
eccentric auteur questioning his every action.
“I made some notes,” Creed says, after breezing on with two large jotters under his arm. He looks somewhere between a 1970s social studies lecturer and the same era's edition of Donald Sutherland. “But whatever the opposite of taking notes is, I don't want that.”
Over the next eighty minutes, Creed's obsessively symmetrical lines of inquiry are guffaw-inducingly funny and chin-scratchingly profound. It's as if he is the result of some Frankenstein's monster style experiment that fused Billy Connolly, Albert Einstein and a friendly Mark E Smith, and lived to tell the tale. Creed revels in his own perceived failures, and muses on what might happen if he met himself and was too polite to point out the rubbish he was talking. He explores the soup of his own mind, and sings raw minimalist ditties that put him in attractive opposition to himself. As waywardly joyful as this is, be aware none of it may happen tonight. Visit often.
The Herald, August 7th 2017
ends
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