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Edinburgh Live
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Edinburgh Live
'The Edinburgh show which may be the best thing you'll see at this year's Fringe'
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info 'Over The Top' might just be the best thing you see at the Edinburgh Fringe this year. Fringe newcomer Jessica Durand has brought her wacky solo show 'Over The Top' to Edinburgh– a fan fiction account based around one of the deadliest conflicts in history, The First World War… and also Downton Abbey. If you had told me last year I'd be going to see a Downton Abbey/First World War self-insert fan fiction about a bisexual woman who just wants Ms Trunchbull (yes, the one you're thinking of) to throw her about a bit, I'd have laughed at you. But how ignorant and closed minded I would have been, this show was fantastic. As the show's title suggests, Durand's over the top style and humour promises laughs regardless of her audiences age, politics or gender. Her careless demeanour creates an environment where everyone can't help but let their guard down and enjoy what's going on in front of them. The concept of the show is a bit weird but that's exactly what Fringe is all about. The show's effortless switching between the Great War and present day (and in some scenes combining both) was captivating and had a busy crowd laughing every step of the way. Join Edinburgh Live's Whatsapp Community here and get the latest news sentstraight to your messages. Jessica Durand was remarkably funny. Her well written, silly and unserious character, combined with jokes timed to perfection and a fantastic soundtrack set the tone for a show which had incredible pacing and humour. At times inviting the audience on stage to participate as written in cast members, Durand acts out pieces of her own writing with such conviction that her audience truly do feel part of her story. Per the words of the show's director Rowan Ellis, the show is 'a love letter to fandom and unhinged special interests' and I'd struggle to describe it in a better way. Seriously worthwhile and while at times it may be confusing, it will at all times be hilarious. My final review: ★★★★★ Jessica Durand's 'Over The Top' is running all month in Underbelly Cowgate's 'Dehli Belly' venue until the 24th of August with tickets available via the Fringe Website:
Telegraph
01-04-2025
- Telegraph
MI5: Official Secrets: A riveting look at the innermost workings of the secret service
Entering the National Archives' new exhibition about MI5 – the first to be sanctioned, and indeed co-curated, by the secret service – is an almost underwhelming experience. You feel disappointed that you don't have to sit next to a nondescript man on a park bench and exchange coded remarks about the weather in order to gain admission. Yet once you're in, this richly detailed and wholly fascinating show reveals the innermost workings of the organisation that has tried to keep the country safe since its inception in 1909. Somehow extraordinarily, it was not felt necessary to have such an agency before the 20th century. As MI5: Official Secrets demonstrates, it soon justified its existence, especially after the Official Secrets Act of 1911 was implemented. The first forays into spycraft were relatively limited, constrained both by budget and technology, but there is amusing insight to be found. We learn that MI5 originally employed Boy Scouts as intelligence gatherers in The First World War, but they were replaced by 'more reliable' Girl Guides, and potential 'enemy aliens' were kept on a central registry, with the worst category being labelled as 'BB' or 'Bad Boche'. These precautions were justified. One of the most interesting exhibits is a carefully preserved lemon, the juice of which was used by the German spy Karl Muller to send secret messages to his country's own intelligence service, although he claimed he used it to clean his teeth. The exhibition, perhaps inevitably, cannot cover the past 50 years of MI5's work in any detail – although a mocked-up bomb of the kind that Al-Qaeda had planned to use on seven separate transatlantic flights in 2006, only to be thwarted at the last minute, is chilling – but there is a comprehensive amount of information about its earlier work that will appeal to espionage buffs and casual visitors in equal measure. James Bond-esque gadgetry is absent, but there are miniature cameras, such as the Robot Star 50, which could be hidden inside a coat or bag, and, on the other side, 'flash transmission' radio equipment owned by the Soviet spies Helen and Peter Kroger at their modest Ruislip bungalow, which was used to transmit information to Russia in seconds. Famous spies and spymasters haunt the exhibition, whether it's the double agents Anthony Blunt and Kim Philby – the latter admiringly described by one anonymous MI5 officer as someone who 'stands up to the interrogation. He does not crack at all. That's the story of Philby for the next ten years' – or those involved in the famous Double Cross operation, which persuaded the Germans that the D-Day Landings were not in fact imminent. There are some surprising but riotous details – I didn't know that Hitler had described Neville Chamberlain as an 'arschloch' ('a---hole') – and MI5 are big enough to acknowledge their own failings, not least the 1986 'Spycatcher' case in which they tried and failed to gag their scientific adviser Peter Wright, which led Margaret Thatcher to moan, 'I am utterly shattered by the revelations in the book'. And the human cost is acknowledged, too. After one MI5 agent Eric Roberts, aka 'Jack King' successfully infiltrated the Gestapo, he later complained to a friend 'I still get nightmares'. This powerful and comprehensive show demonstrates why.
