Thumpety Thumpety Thump

[andrewducker]

In an early start to my birthday (which looks to be smeared out between now and the end of the month) surliminal got me a surprise ticket to see Chanbara - which contained both Taiko drumming and Samurai swordplay. The drumming was excellent, but the swordplay wasn't as exciting. The problem largely being that slicing bits off people isn't really allowed on the Edinburgh stage, leaving them to do things that were quite pretty, but not as impressive as, say, Jump which we saw last year.

Still, good fun, and worth seeing if you're a fan of the whole "Japan" thing.

Comments

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Yeh. Shame really. But the drumming was excellent, wot?

[makyo.livejournal.com]

I think I'd agree with that. I liked both the drumming and the swordplay, and thought it worked quite well together, but whereas I could happily watch (and, indeed, have watched) an entire show of drumming on its own, I don't think I'd have found the swordplay quite as enthralling without the drumming.

The show I saw, the chief swordsman (the one with the headscarfy thing) dropped his sword during the last display, and I wasn't sure if this was deliberate (in the way that circus high-wire walkers will sometimes `accidentally' stumble) or whether he had actually dropped his sword. Did he do it in the show you saw?

[andrewducker]

Nope, didn't drop it with us.

I was put off slightly by the fact they were using plastic swords - they seemed too light for reasonable use, and they went past their marks on several occasions. If they'd had wooden swords it would have looked more impressive.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Are we stalking you or are you stalking us (this AND Dr Who!)??? Are you here in Ed??!

[makyo.livejournal.com]

I was in Edinburgh from saturday until wednesday lunchtime (short holiday with a few friends), but I'm back in sunny Coventry now.

I wasn't intentionally stalking you - at least, I didn't think "I'll go and see this show, just on the offchance that Andrew and Lilian might be there" :)

These were most of the other shows I went to see - I also saw Janey Godley's Blog, Topping and Butch, and Brendan Burns, all of whom were ok, just not quite my sort of thing.