Burnt out, overwhelmed and delighted to announce that we’ll be taking a break from regular (ahem… intermittent) programming to focus on all things EDINBURGH FRINGE this dizzying and hallowed (and busy) August. For the whole month I’m kicking about, burning the candle at both ends, and committing to sharing incontrovertible highlights of theatre making and winsome little gems on @theunendingode. Lucky me, lucky you. Follow to keep up to date with my artfully well researched schedule of comedy, music, drama (sometimes all at once) that I cannot wait to devour. 

If you have a hot tip… I want to hear about it! I pledge to indulge this mayhem as deep as it will go. Stay tuned: 

Namaste Bae – The Bijou, Assembly Rooms, George Street

I was both lost for words, and lost for breath. Nothing could have prepared me for the deranged comedic wallop of Namaste Bae, in the Bijou at George Street. And I still don’t know what it would take to walk into that performance physically and spiritually ready. Maybe it’s too original to ever know. 

A man in a packed out loin cloth, drenched and reeking of coconut oil, gave me an unsolicited hug on his way in. “Kombucha and blessings,” he whispered in my ear, and as I narrowly overtook him to take my inconspicuous seat up the back, he roared onto the stage. 

The premise loosely ties the chemical process of making kombucha to a rehabilitative healing journey and knots it together with an unhinged pyramid-scheming-onomatopoeia-diarrheaing guru leading us in ceremony. Every line a one liner of psychedelic ridiculousness and pinprick satire; every crack in character (as the concept became even too funny for the emcee) an uproarious farce. 

I’d rather not over-explain the rabbit holes this daring feat of comedy wrenched us down along with it. It is as vivid a trip as you’ll take this August. I have never seen anything like it, and therefore have no metric to compare it to. My imagination cannot fathom a competing production trying to do what this one is trying to do and doing it any better. I laughed so hard my throat and abdomen needed massages afterward. So I guess, baffled, I award it 5 stars. 

I’ve got a greedy little weekend of about 10 shows ahead of me… I’ll be back with plenty more to say when I can catch a sober breath in between. Up next: Heartbreak Hotel at Summerhall.