Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
> Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
The boys are back and on sparkling form with the debut of their Edinburgh fringe show at top venue the Pleasance Courtyard.
Dressed all in white with glittering medallions, the four lambasted the boy band format, bringing us poetry with personality.
As usual spin doctors and the manipulation of the media fell chief victim to their satiric lyricising, but added to this was some biting commentary on ID cards, mass paranoia and the bland hopelessness of the all-pervasive Essex boy mentality.
More prominent in this year's show was the desire to situate their work in relation to the dusty old masters of the past: Keats, Donne and T S Elliott all got a pasting.
But did this enthusiastic crowd really have the right to retell poetry history? Ross proved they did, in a poem that was pure Browning without the melancholy. Poetry he showed us, can be used to many ends, but ultimately leads to empathy and understanding. And that's why we love Aisle 16.
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