@ Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until Mon 31 Aug 2015 @ 17:20
According to IMDB Stephen Tobolowsky has 238 acting credits to his name: Memento, Thelma and Louise, Deadwood, Heroes and Sabrina The Teenage Witch are just a few of the films and TV shows you might have seen him in, so, if you don’t recognise the name you’ll probably know the face.
Since the film Stephen Tobolowsky’s Birthday Party in 2005 and the subsequent Tobolowsky Files podcast, he has gained a second career as master storyteller.
These live versions of his podcast contain tales of his Hollywood career, but most of what he relates is about his life experiences, and like any good storyteller there’s a moral or at least a life lesson at the end of each tale.
This particular night his subject was young love with all its passion, self-belief, self-doubt and fragility, not to mention comedy and tragedy.
He told of his relationship with his first love, Beth from student meeting through struggle and onto success as she became a Pulitzer winning playwright and to their eventual parting.
Tobolowsky has the true storyteller’s gift of weaving his tale with different threads. He sticks to his narrative, but is able with ease to bring in what appear to be tangential details and thread them back into his story.
Anyone who can connect lice, astronomy, Stanislavsky and nude driving and still have time to fit an anecdote about his indirect responsibility for Radiohead’s name is well worth sitting around the proverbial campfire and listening to.