By Ron Bingham
NewsRevue is a regular feature of the Edinburgh Fringe, excellent for those wishing to catch up with all the news from the last year set to a number of catchy songs and a few quick sketches. The performers for this year’s show are Naomi Bullock, Kieran Mortell, Katriona Perrett and Simon Prag, and their targets are pretty much what you would expect in a review of the past year.
Highlights include an opening number about the economic crisis in Greece, pointing out the fact that many people have been forced to downgrade their supermarket, sharing the joys of the conservative party and the despair of all the other parties (especially UKIP), a few scenes involving various members of the royal family, delighted mentions of One Direction splitting up, and celebrating gay marriage being legalised in the US. Then there was Andy Murray making an important announcement and Nicola Sturgeon with her plans for world domination and much more.
There are good harmonies in the singing and the dancing is well choreographed, much of the mimicry is spot on and the backing piano is excellent (although I don’t think that every song needs the 20 second play off). The team worked well and the jokes were mostly well received (one or two were a bit too dark for the audience). It’s a good (mostly) fun hour of entertainment featuring pretty much every celebrity and politician in the news for the last year. Toe tapping, informative comedy.