Back from the non-dead!

I’m back! I haven’t actually been asleep for the last month – in fact I’ve been in Edinburgh working on a play and reviewing shows. I saw 90 shows (yes, 90! I can’t believe it myself) and reviewed about 40 of them, so you can see why I haven’t had much time to blog. I have been checking Twitter occasionally to try and keep up with the pop news but otherwise I have no idea what’s going on, so anything I urgently need to know please tell me in the comments box! Since I can’t fulfil my usual role of informing you about the world of pop, I thought I’d tell you about the most poptastic shows at the Edinburgh Fringe this year instead…

1. Mercy Madonna of Malawi
You wouldn’t expect the most poptastic show to be from a country which doesn’t to my knowledge even have a pop music scene, but Mercy Madonna of Malawi was true pop brilliance and I recommend it to anyone who has a sense of humour and any taste in music. It is basically a musical about Madonna’s recent adoption controversy, with rewritten versions of her hits, a grown woman playing Mercy and a Malawian man in drag playing Madonna! The show won several awards so will hopefully be performed again in the UK and if so I strongly suggest you see it.

2. Up and Over It
An Irish dancing show doesn’t sound like it would be anything very exciting, but in fact Up and Over It was one of the best things I saw in Edinburgh. They were very talented dancers, their act was modern and fun, and they had some fab costumes, but none of this compares to the brilliance of their soundtrack, which included Fancy Footwork by Chromeo and Three Little Words by Frankmusik!

3. Sammy J: 1999
I didn’t enjoy 1999 as much as Sammy’s puppet show, Sammy J and the Forest of Dreams, but it had a great soundtrack. This is no big surprise, though, since it is a comedy musical about 1999! The original songs were unimpressive, but any show which involves I Want it That Way has my support automatically.