Saturday 5 August 2023

Big Bite-Size Breakfast Menu One, Pleasance Beyond, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

This is one I look forward to every year, and it's never let me down so far. The format is as it's always been, with 3 'menus' each providing 5 or 6 mini-playlets. Minimalist sets, rapid costume changes, and a lot of laughs. Today's peformance was Menu One.

PROMOTION

Two women, colleagues, rivals, one a company veteran, one a newcomer, both up for the same promotion. A surprising challenge arrange to decide who comes out on top. Can rivals work together and what is really going here? A quick fire opener with some good one liners.

DATING WITH DOSTOYEVSKY

A woman and man in a bar. She sits at one table reading Crime and Punishment, he at another looking a bit lost. Could Dostoyevsky bring them together, or with that really odd guy get in the way? There's a hint of Truly, Madly, Deeply in this little romcom, and a challenge for the actors to keep it all making sense. Clever and funny.

BASIC

Two sisters getting for a night out. And is younger sis looking for the impossible? Buy why are they drinking out of baked bean tins? A sharp comment on the stresses of trying to live up to social media and the latest 'thing'.

INEVITABLE

My personal favourite of the quintet pitches a self confessed nerd into the perils of dating. If he works out all the possible outcomes then surely he can make the right choices? Or do they all end in misery? The dangers of overthinking writ large in the search for love.

JUST STOP

We see a lot about environmentalists protesting, but what happens when they stage one of their stunts in the wrong place? And why is that cat prancing about? Hypocrisy on show as two cultures collide.

All 5 are enjoyable, all funny, and most provide something to think about. Plus you get coffee, croissant and strawberries. Not to be missed.


The Big Bite-Size Breakfast shows, with 3 alternating menus, are on at 10.20 in Pleasance Beyond until the 28th.

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