It’s the final day of the Fringe and we’re eating a late lunch in the George Square Gardens and awaiting our final show, which brought to mind this anecdote…

Some days ago, as we were leaving The Dark Room show at the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, we were met at the exit by Megaman (or, if you’re from Japan, Rockman… Yes, we do have Japanese readers!). He was handing out flyers to this show; I appreciated the accuracy of his targeting, but told him that we did not need a flyer… because we had already bought our tickets months ago…

The premise of this show is thus: it’s the world’s first live-scored audience RPG… we decide the journey while a live band (Marc Dolgin on drums , Keytar Rex on keyboard and synths, and Michael Kohl on guitar) performs the video game soundtrack in real time. 

Despite it being the final day of the run the band had drawn a solid crowd. On this day our adventure included a journey through the music of Double Dragon, Gremlins 2, Mega Man, Super Metroid, Mario 64, Final Fantasy and many more.

The band (which also features Dave Maciel on bass, appearing on screen ‘from afar’) delivers each track to note-perfect perfection, and even though some of the slightly clunky linking filler needs an upgrade, the clever tech that encourages the crowd to get involved and the energy the band bring to each track more than make up for any glitches in material.

We really enjoyed this quirky little show (so much so that we actually bought their last merch hoodie) and would definitely catch it again to experience a different adventure – each night they perform one of three different odysseys.

This show is currently on tour – so far they have ticked off 15 different countries – so keep your eye out for them.

Clown Stars: * * * *

@Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh