Edinburgh Medical Detectives, at the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh Fringe 2014

By Laura King

It is always a must for this Fringe reviewer to fit in a few genuinely Scottish gigs and events each visit and as a big Sherlock Holmes (and thus Dr Joseph Bell) fan, Edinburgh Medical Detectives caught my eye.

In the spectacular setting of the Great Hall in the Royal College Of Physicians, the illustrious scientist and raconteur Professor David Purdie joined forces with College Librarian Iain Milne to offer a riveting and entertaining slice of archive history.

You might not think this belongs on a predominantly comedy site. However, seen through the lens of the past, the perils of finding enough legitimate bodies for the dissection classes and the lengths gone to to protect the dead, the feuds between leading medics and the almost-rejection of chloroform as a useful substance to enable painless surgery owing to snobbery and medical rivalry have a surprising capacity to entertain.

Then there was the revelation of regicide in the middle of Edinburgh and how this came to be uncovered centuries before forensic medicine had even been thought of, or even the pioneering "medical police".

We were also exposed to the dark side of the age of enlightenment, where crime might have a blind eye turned if it led to medical breakthrough.

Edinburgh's medical pioneers were not merely pioneers of Edinburgh, but the world. This was the exciting place young Arthur Conan Doyle found himself in to undertake his medical training. And while he decided that being a doctor was not for him, he still derived the lifelong inspiration that we all came to know and love as Sherlock Holmes from the city.

The dark humour will remain with me for a long time to come. Superb edu-tainment! 

*****

Ursula Burns - Get Divorced and Join the Circus, The Stand, Edinburgh Fringe 2014

By Laura King

She has the Celtic sprite look of a forest dweller, fresh from her tree trunk hollow house, or perhaps a wild-eyed gipsy Queen in her tumbling gold-trim dress as she plucks the barren beauty of doomed love in a cold spell from her harp. 

Romantic ruminations were rudely interrupted by a broad Belfast accent gleefully informing us we'd been tricked into attending a harp recital and urging her techie to "lock the door". Ursula was from the Falls Road.

  

There followed a host of comedy harp songs starting with one bemoaning the difficulties of playing heavy metal on the harp, and then bewailing her fate as a reluctant harpist, interspersed with tantalising titbits about growing up in the Falls Road, an allusion to getting divorced and running away to the circus (several times). However we were given no cogent narrative as Ursula jumped from one subject to another.

An environmental rant about fracking did not really sit well in the middle of the show following a more inventive environmental update on the fate of Innisfree since Yeats' famed poem, which would have sufficed. Luckily, this section was followed by the song of surveillance, which was brilliant. 

I enjoyed the jokes about the dangers of confusing weddings with funerals when you suffer from mild dyslexia and indeed all the stuff about growing up in Northern Ireland, not least since I also grew up in Northern Ireland and acknowledge the comedy gold of the place.

On the whole I enjoyed the show, but was left with the decided feeling that it would have benefited from more structure, and perhaps more rehearsal, as Ursula forgot her material several times, despite her talent for improv.

Here was a lady with looks, talent and a comedy persona and accent many comedians would give their right arm for. Not only that but she'd evidently lived an amazing life. All the ingredients were there for a winning show, but somehow the recipe was lacking.

Nevertheless, Ursula is a complete one-off, so do go and see her if you get the chance.

Ursula, if you read this, please weave more of your extraordinary life into the show. There is a lot more you could do with it.

***** for talent and *** for material.