The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show

By Ron Bingham

What a lovely start to the day. On the way in (and be warned that the audience is let in early), you are given tea/coffee, a croissant and fresh strawberries. The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show is referring to bite-sized comedic plays of around ten minutes each. The audience has the choice of three different “menu’s”  of six plays performed each day, although the day I went they had swapped one play due to time constraints. The flyer has the dates for each menu in case you wish to attend all three versions and, judging on the plays I witnessed, this is probably an excellent idea.

The following is a snapshot of some of the plays on offer. The day I attended was Menu One, with Mothra VS The Casting Director swapped for Intertwining Monologue.

Mothra VS The Casting Director is a very funny look at the problems faced when you have been typecast as a ravening giant moth whose only real hit was beating Godzilla.

I Thought I Liked Girls by Nicole Pandolfo, is a hilarious ‘coming out’ situation which has been twisted and bent until you’re not sure who fancies what anymore.

Violin by Jonathan Kravetz, is a solo piece which started with a startling premise and was performed well but seemed to peter out towards the end, leaving us with a bit of an anti-climax.

Bursting by Lisa Holdsworth, has a woman trapped in a locked department store with a strange man, it’s amazing what some people are prepared to confess. Some excellent writing and acting in this and I did sympathise with the fantasies they confessed to liking…..

Candy Likes Your Status by Matt Henderson, is a friendship dissected via Facebook, text and Twitter. One for the young people who understand all this new fangled so-called communication of the 21st century. It was very good but I spent much of the sketch trying to translate their LOLs and other acronyms into old person speak.

A Great War, a WWI sketch set in what would have been the Fox Newsroom if Rupert Murdoch had a time machine. Some brilliant jokes about the war, the battles, the military leaders and the attitudes of the time. You will probably miss a few of the jokes (unless you’ve been watching the History Channel) but the sketch as a whole was hilarious and heartbreakingly accurate.

One of the best ways to start a day at the Festival. And the strawberries were scrumptious.

The Big Bite-Size Breakfast Show is on at Pleasance Dome.
For Tickets and more information go to the Edinburgh Fringe Website:

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/big-bite-size-breakfast-show