@ Summerhall, Edinburgh until Friday 28 August @ 21:30
Shift/ is a spoken word show that is different for each day off the week. If you are lucky enough to go on a Saturday evening then you will see Ali Maloney perform the excellent performance poetry show Hydronomicon.
It is the end of the world. The apocalypse is coming and Ali Maloney is willing on the end of days. He enters the theatre space after being dragged through the mud. He is beat up and his clothes are torn. He looks like a dishevelled clown and this clown stalks the stage and informs the audience about the end of the world and the madness that ensues.
At times the performer almost feels like a monster from a forgotten David Cronenberg body horror film and uses an array of enthusiastic expressions and contortions to deliver the unholy message. The story for the evening has it’s influence in the literature of Jules Verne, H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe. It is a horror story about the apocalypse, told through performance poetry and physical theatre.
During Hydronomicon Maloney occasionally bursts into rap, where he delivers rhymes and verses at a break neck rate. Maloney is a talented performer who clearly has a love of hip hop and rap music. The soundtrack for Hydronomicon was produced by Asthmatic Astronaut and the fusion of words and music is the highlight of the show.
As a performance Shift/ is a great idea. It gives the audience a chance to see and hear seven original voices and showcase the diversity of the spoken word scene. Unfortunately finding the time to see all seven performances during the busy Fringe period may be a stretch, but if you make it to Shift/ on a Saturday, then you will not be disappointed.