Our first show, Brainsex, is probably the main reason that you are now viewing this blog. Sorry to disappoint but it is not as dodgy as it sounds. My own interest was purely educational. Honestly. The show took place in what seemed to be a small shipping container called the George Square Box, which was a bit strange. As my friend Alan retorted, we were half expecting to find ourselves in Afghanistan on rendition by the end of the show. Regardless, we dutifully lined up in a fairly long queue - obviously many other people were interested in Brainsex from a purely educational point of view. I felt sorry for the girl collecting the tickets. "Are you here for Brainsex?" she would ask. We were all very mature about this of course and did not emit a single giggle or chuckle. The show itself proved to be an interesting and amusing hour about the differences between the male and female brain. The science part went a bit over my head at times, but the presentation was often injected with much needed silliness and humour. Overall it worked quite well and I can think of many less pleasant ways to spend 60 minutes in a small shipping container. Our next show was a stage adaptation of The Shawshank Redemption at the Assembly Rooms Music Hall. It was an impressive venue, complete with glittering chandeliers, for a much loved film and novella and I wasn't surprised that the hall was packed almost to capacity. It was always going to be impossible to live up to the emotional power of the film but despite watching the play from a slightly defensive position I still managed to enjoy it. I particularly liked Omid Djili as Red, the convict who befriends the main protagonist. His American accent was so convincing that I wasn't sure it was him at first. The set props, movable steel cages, were cleverly used to create each prison scene and there was an authentic prison feel to the stage presentation. (I've never been in prison, in case you are wondering) The story unfolds fairly well and the acting is thoroughly solid but the screenplay doesn't really capture the intimacy and importance of the relationship between the two main protagonists. Also the twist at the end could have been given more thought by the director, it just doesn't work as well as the film. Alan was impressed, being one of maybe ten people in the world never to have seen the film before. He promptly resolved to put that on his to do list, so I guess that in itself is a good testimony to the stage version. Our final show of the day was Canadian stand-up comedian Craig Campbell, at one of the smaller venues within the Assembly Rooms. We had seen him last year as part of a trio of Canadian comics and having been the best of the three we decided to give his solo show a go. He is a very likable, winning character and there is just something naturally funny about him, like Tommy Cooper or Eric Morcambe. Even some of his weaker material of the night still got a laugh due to the way he would tell the story or the facial expression he would pull. He started the show off by interacting with the audience and for a few minutes I thought he was going to go fully improv on us, but somehow he managed to overlap the audience jokes with his prepared material. Funny guy and it was good to end the day on a cheerful note.
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