Festosaurus

You won't often find a Readosaurus outwith the wombed environs of an oak panelled library quaffing book. However, circumstances do occasionally conspire to thrust this noble beast into the thespian thicket of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  As with 'fringe science', this word can sometimes be found functioning as a handy euphemism for, 'shite'.  Thankfully, this 'saurus was lucky enough to have an exceptionally learned and cultivated guide ensuring that the most gratuitous excreta was circumnavigated.  Nonetheless, despite this expert assistance it would probably be generous to describe the 'saurus as a 'fringe reviewer'.  Its knowledge and natural talents lie firmly and decidedly in other, yet to be discovered, areas.  Here's what I have to report from this happy concatenation:


Backstage in Biscuit Land - Jess Thom & Jess Jones

This was almost unspeakably enjoyable.  Jess Thom, Tourette's sufferer and force of nature, blasts through an hour of anecdotes, jokes, education on Tourette's and extraordinarily unlikely verbal combinations thrown up by her ticks.  She is expertly assisted by the equally amusing Jess Jones who effortlessly effects set changes, improvisation and keeps the roller coaster ride vaguely on the rails.  The pair use Thom's ticks as a form of random linguistic comedy generator from which both elaborate and improvise in unfathomably clever and varied ways.  This makes for an incredibly vivacious show with none of the 'set piece' feel I usually associate with the theatre. Nonetheless, the pair somehow manage to mix pithy information on having Tourette's, how it feels and what it means to live with it into the riotous avalanche of biscuits, cats, C-list celebs in unlikely scenarios and sexy Roman centurions. I was dazzled by the way these two create such a smooth, enjoyable cocktail from seemingly immiscible ingredients.  Bravo!

Score: Three Stegosaurus


Sophie Wu is Minging She Looks Like She is Dead

I suppose if you're going to write a show featuring your actual name in the title it's probably better to err on the side of self-deprecation. People like self-deprecation and may emphathise with your strife. In this case, with the hideous awkwardness and hilarious fuck ups we all experience growing up.  Alternatively, if you use an arrogant and self-congratulatory title there is a slight risk people will think you're arrogant, and self-congratulatory. If I were Ms. Wu then I would have called it 'Sophie Wu is a famous actress now so how'd you like them apples, shit-munchers?' but that's because I'm amazing and the best person alive. In either case, I was left wondering, "is this actually about the actual person who's actual name is in the title or is it actually just acting? But if it's actually just acting why has it got her actual name in it?". Pithy.  Similarly, she isn't minging and doesn't look like she's dead, which gives the performance near murder mystery complexity before it has even begun.  The what-the-hell-is-going-on cherry on the fucking-with-your-head cupcake is a pre-performance announcement, "did anyone go to The Edinburgh Academy between 1998-2000?".  No one says anything or raises a hand, but I wish they did.  What would happen? Probably something fucking awesome.   The monologue is impressively performed and is redolent of the candid, slightly revolting brand of childhood reminisce that 'The Inbetweeners' got so spot on for teenage boys.  Some of the writing is hilarious; 'I scuttle along behind like a crab; only not sideways', and the impressions of teenage Scottish tarts are bang on.  However, words like 'sashay' and 'sans' aren't really that funny of themselves.  Is it really about her though? I kept wondering and, all told, it surely isn't.  The situations are simply too far fetched even for the absurdity of adolescence. However, this begs the question why they're being presented as reality or reminiscence?  Is it 'scripted reality'; like TOWIE or Made in Chelsea?  Is it a joke?  Is it something so conceptual, so highbrow and avant garde that I don't even know about it? Probably the latter.  So, following these extensive and erudite ruminations the final analysis is:  It should be called 'Sophie Wu is a good actor and has written quite a funny play about growing up, which isn't autobiographical but does feature her actual name'. I've fucking nailed it!

Score: Racoon's dinosaur ancestor

Unfaithful

Auld boy drinking alone in a bar gets propositioned by hot, young bird who says she's a maths student.  The pair spar entertainingly about whether or not she is going to buy him a drink and whether or not he is going to fuck her.  Auld boy's wife calls and he chins her right off before leaving with the young lass.  Later on he's back at his gaff getting torn off by his missus.  He tells her, in graphic detail, how he shagged this young lady in a doorway, which goes down fucking terribly.  Auld boy's missus takes revenge by hiring a rent boy and shagging him in the same hotel where her husband picked up the young bird.  Back at the rent boy's yard we find out he is in a relationship with the young lass! Moreover, she's not a maths student at all; she works at Tesco! She tells him she tried to pick up a random auld boy to see what it's like being a gigolo but that the guy only kissed her and then bottled it.  Back at the older couple's abode a reconciliation of sorts is being effected.  I liked a lot about this play.  The script is funny, the characters are engaging and the set is clever and convincing.  However, it was the subject matter that really made it so good for me.  We're all liars, mugging off our nearest and dearest, random people we meet and, most importantly, ourselves.  However, amidst this cesspool of untruths we remain indelibly and irrevocably ourselves.  Something we once thought was exciting now bores us to death. What was once cherished is now detested.  What we thought would be exciting turns out to be empty and meaningless.  Despite these somewhat depressing realisations, the play also offered hope that the kind of internal insanity displayed by the protagonists may be overcome by honest self-assessment and open discussion.

Score: Tyradactyl cheats on husband with older Diplodocus but never tells anyone

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi

Levi shows a mastery of literary metallurgy in this collection of reflections on chemistry, life and his life as a chemist. Pellucid descriptions of chemical processes are expounded with the inimitable passion of a man who loves his subject and sees its reflections and redolences all around him. A passage from the chapter on carbon illustrates:

“The air contains 0.03%; if Italy was air, the only Italians fit to build life would be , for example, the 15,000 inhabitants of Milazzo in the province of Messina. This, on the human scale, is ironic acrobatics, a juggler’s trick, an incomprehensible display of omnipotence-arrogance, since from this ever renewed impurity of the air we come, we animals and we plants, and we the human species, with our 4 billion discordant opinions, our millenniums of history, our wars and shames, nobility and pride.  In any event, our very presence on the planet becomes laughable in geometric terms : if all of humanity, about 250 million tons, were to be distributed  in a layer of homogenous thickness on all the emergent lands, the ‘stature of man’ would not be visible to the naked eye; the thickness one would obtain would be around sixteen thousandths of a millimetre” 

Having shown us the nature of different elements and their behaviour under certain circumstances; he beautifully and effortlessly interweaves these very physical and material properties with the more ethereal and temporal experiences and characters he's encountered in highly varied life. From the chapter on uranium, he explains his experience of being a customer service representative (CS):

“All of a CS’s strategies and tactics can be described in terms of sexual courtship. In both cases, it’s a one-to-one relationship; a courtship or negotiation among three persons would be unthinkable.  In both cases one notes at the beginning a kind of dance or ritualised opening in which the buyer accepts the seller only if the latter adheres rigidly to the traditional ceremonial; if this takes place, the buyer joins the dance, and if the enjoyment is mutual, mating is attained, that is, the purchase, to the visible satisfaction of the two partners.  The cases of unilateral violence are rare; not by chance are they often described in terms borrowed from the sexual sphere.”  

As with many writers I’ve found inspirational, Levi shows us things we instantly recognise:  A particular dynamic within a relationship with a friend or lover, an atypical characteristic or unusual pair of traits discovered in a colleague or relative, a poignant scene remembered across decades. I know some of the characters he shows me, just as I know some of the characters in Shakespeare, Cicero, Seneca and Sophocles. Their essence, or some facet of it, has been collected and preserved through the writer’s art.
Chapters take the form of one chosen element and one chosen person or experience from Levi’s life; although it is not followed with rigidity.  What arises from these two, seemingly isolated, subjects is an almost inconceivably rich alloy that Levi conjures with all the breathtaking skill of an alchemist. My favourite chapter is ‘Iron’, chapter four, where Levi mixes the ingredients of iron’s characteristics with a sketch of a young friend who died resisting Fascism in Italy during the second world war. In this chapter, I feel he describes something universal that I too have glimpsed through a childhood friend; selfishly, I hope my friend lives longer but, somehow, in the world of elements this seems an irrelevance. Iron is iron and cannot be otherwise.

The Towering World of Jimmy Choo by Lauren Goldstein Crowe & Sagra Maceira De Rosen

Fashion meets corporate history in this giddy mix of high heels and big deals co-authored by a fashion journalist and an investment banker. This pair of female high flyers promise, 'a story of power, profits and the pursuit of the perfect shoe' alongside an enviable collection of endorsements from the great and the good of the fashion world. In the main, they do not disappoint. It's a thoroughly researched and clearly accounted beginners' guide to Jimmy Choo's history and the major characters in the cast. It introduces and intertwines fairly disparate subjects with considerable poise and is highly readable. If I had to point to a fault I'd say, very occasionally, it reads like it was written by committee or by authors taking turns to choose words! I’d guess the best chapters were sculpted by an individual and the few sections where the writing is muddled are the product of collaborations or, perhaps, areas of disagreement. My favourites were chapters eight and nine; a potted history of the luxury goods market and a character sketch of former Jimmy Choo CEO Robert Bensoussan respectively.

Founded by the unlikely duo of a youthful, high octane, fashion obsessed, party girl Tamara Mellon and middle aged, Malay-Chinese, master cordwainer Jimmy Choo. The business that started in a workshop in London's East End changed hands for £525m in 2011 and the current owners are discussing a potential £1bn floatation this year.  

The book makes reference to a 'keeper of the brand's vision' and Tamara Mellon strikes me as just that during her involvement. She appears the very personification of the glamourous, sexy, international world of Jimmy Choo. The man himself is cast in a secondary role as technical maestro and craftsman; the 'back office' to Tamara's flamboyant 'front office'. This alone strikes me as an awkward structure, not to mention the minefield of culture differences that must have existed between the two. Jimmy's wayward niece from Hong Kong, Sandra Choi, may have helped to bridge differences in culture and personality. She dropped out of Central St Martins College to help Jimmy with the business and is now the company's creative director. Robert Bensoussan, who was brought in by the first private equity backers to professionalise management, also clearly played a big part in the company's success.

Two bits of history from the luxury goods market were of particular interest:  Bernie Arnault, the billionaire CEO and Chairman of mighty luxury group Loius Vuitton - Moet Hennessy, was from a French construction family that built vacation homes in France. In 1984 he was working on an expansion into Florida when he quit and gained control of a bankrupt French textile group called Agache-Willot, which in turn owned Christian Dior. He sacked almost everyone at the sclerotic conglomerate, sold assets and made lots of money keeping the Dior brand aside as the foundations of a luxury group he hoped would rival LMVH one day. However, in 1988, the boss of Louis Vuitton, Henri Recamier, called Arnault and asked him to invest in the LVMH group, which had been formed by merger with Moet Hennessy the year before. Recamier hoped to gain Arnault as an allied shareholder against the Moet Hennessy CEO with whom he was having a internal disagreement. However, after gaining a controlling stake and a place on the board Arnault turned against Recamier and had him ousted in a bitter, two year, board room battle eventually gaining control for himself. Such ruthlessness seems commonplace amongst the seriously ambitious; this particular incident reminds me of fellow Frenchman and renowned investment banker Andre Meyer (1898 - 1979).

An equally interesting tale, albeit less bloodthirsty, is that of fellow luxury giant Kering.  The owner of brands like Gucci, Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney started out as PPR, a mid-market department store operator and mail-order catalogue operator in France. It gained its entry into the market in rather unusual circumstances. Again, Arnault plays a prominent part. Gucci had been trading as a public company since 1995 when Arab-backed owners Investcorp floated it. In 1998 the share price fell precipitously owing to the Asian financial crisis and the affect this had on luxury goods sales. The CEO of Prada bought c.10% but then LVMH, led by Arnault, announced a 5% stake and the Gucci share price rocketed in anticipation of a bidding war. However, Prada sold to LMVH  at the newly elevated price increasing LVMH stake to c.15%. Arnault, a voracious corporate shop-a-holic and seriously ambitious as we've seen, continued to buy up to c.35% and began asking for board seats in order to gain control. Gucci CEO, Dominic De Sole, was not happy about having his biggest competitor as the largest shareholder and so began “The Handbag Wars”. Gucci employed Morgan Stanley to dream up ways of diluting LMVH  and eventually elected to sell PPR a 40% stake, diluting LVMH to c.20% stake with no control and no seats on the board; the two things Arnault coveted. Arnault sued Gucci over this 'white knight' arrangement but lost the case. PPR encouraged the management of Gucci to expand the group and CEO De Sole and chief designer Tom Ford bought several brands and encouraged big name designers to the group creating a luxury conglomerate to rival LVMH. It was not all bad news for Arnault either, he agreed to sell his 20% to PPR at a pre-determined minimum price at any time before 2004 just before The World Trade Center was destroyed by the attacks of 9/11, 2001. Gucci's share price fell 50% after the attacks.

FUN FACTS AND QUOTES

• “Where the consumer goes, Wall St. follows” 

• Johann Rupert principle “price per kg of a product is highly correlated to the inherent profitability of that industry”

• Year-on-Year sales in EVERY Jimmy Choo store in the US increased 30-40% in the week after 9/11. Shoe therapy?