Typically with only a few days at the Festival I end up seeing mostly, if not entirely stand up, but this time a friend lead me to see the Kindle Theatre presentation called In My Father’s House, with the by line “A celebration of the plum. A preparation for death”. Its a group of young (mid twenties) women based in Birmingham exploring themes of redemption and ritual, loss and damage through personal relationships in a moving, intriguiging and slightly dotty self devised, produced and directed play.
It was great to see Adam Bloom back at the Fringe after a break of a few years. When I first started going around ten years ago he was making a bit of a splash and partly for that reason, and for the theatricality and spirit of his comedy, I’ve always associated him with the Fest. This year’s show finds Adam revealing some self discovery and development he’s made in response to his temper, which has got him into a number of scrapes in the past. Adam’s frenetic delivery, self obsession are still there, but he is at the same time noticeably calmer and taking great delight in the part dealing with his experiences with an anger management consultant he came across who is palpable sham, not least because he is completely unable to contain his own temper.
Glenn Wool now sporting a fine moustache reports in that married life hasn’t quite calmed him down yet, relating a tale of a three day drink and drugs binge that caused him to miss a marriage counselling session. Despite this sort of blip tho, he seems now in good shape and happy perhaps, like a few of the acts that Ive now seen over a number of years (I used to manage Glenn) having exorcised a few demons through the therapy of comedy along the way. As ever, a wonderful mix of the downright silly and the deep.