it's what one hippopotamus sings to another hippopotamus

I have been doing The Festival. 's good.

For some reason all the stuff I've made plans to see so far wound up being within a densely packed six day block (from Thursday to Tuesday) and I'm about half way* most of the way through now. So far I have seen (presented for your perusal in hrefs and parentheses) Janeane Garafalo (who was far funnier than that review sounds when I saw her three days later, if just as unfocussed and rambling), The Penny Dreadfuls (surreally hilarious as ever), Castle Rocks Breakdance Championships (link goes to a long-ish youtube-grade video of the final which does not do it justice and which has such dreadful sound I'd recommend muting it, but is the best thing I could find. Not the kind of event that gets reviews it seems... utterly spectacular anyhow), Words with A L Kennedy (link is a pleasing counterpoint to the previous, being Ms Kennedy writing about it herself in the Independent, show was excellent but could have been ten minutes shorter: you spoiled it a little by grafting on a "point" at the end of your engaging musings on language Alison, it didn't need one. I'd still recommend it though), Tom Tom Crew (linked is the same show reviewed when they were warming up earlier this summer down in London. The reviewer's po-faced dismissal of the acrobats makes me think she either doesn't like acrobatics, or wasn't sitting in the front row. I do and was, they're astounding, and it hasn't "all been done before". It's a mind blowing show. I'm going again), and last to date Stephen K Amos: The Feel Good Factor (which I just got home from seeing, and do indeed feel very good after).

So there that's my Festival so far. I'm thoroughly enjoying it - as witnessed by my urge to spend the last hour** scouring up links and writing about it all, rather than going to bed as I should have, what with having work to go to in the morning - and it's only been slightly marred by having a bug of some sort. I'm hoping I haven't either passed that on to anyone, or turned any stomachs with coughs and/or blowings of nose.

No theatre as yet this year which I'd like to rectify. Anyone with a suggestion for that let me know? Monday and Tuesday I have radio recordings to go to (never done that before, quite excited about being in the audience for Just a Minute.) Also several of the shows have engendered desires to either see them again (see above re Tom Tom Crew) or to see other shows that cameoed in them... so there'll be more happening and I might write about that too. Now though I must sleep.

*I started thinking about this post yesterday when that was true, but it isn't now
**I realise that since most of these links take you to articles from the Independent it may not look like I took great pains to find reviews and stuff, but I did, it's just the Indie articles kept being the ones I wanted to link. Even when I disagreed with bits of them.