Basic Training @ Gilded Balloon
Edinburgh comedy: Immensely talented comic actor Kahlil Ashanti's one-man show, Basic Training, links his real-life experiences touring with US military entertainment squad Tops In Blue with his quest to find his father.
Amusing the troops from Greenland to Kuwait, Ashanti saw some extreme situations, recounted in a show which will leave you breathless with its energy, dumbstruck by its drama and touched by the human heart beating at its core.
Ashanti manages to squeeze a dizzying 26 characters into 75 minutes with hardly any respite.
He bombards you with anecdotes about the physical and verbal abuse he endured at the hands of a drill sergeant reminiscent of the vicious Sergeant Hartman in Full Metal Jacket.
But he soon swaps him for an array of much lighter but equally colourful characters, including his hilarious uncle Tony, never short of a wise word of advice gleaned from America's more paranoid theorists.
Ashanti is better at locating the humour in some of his experiences than others and while the fascist drill sergeant lingers to the point of distraction, the much greater tension of a near-death experience in Iraq is very quickly diffused.
But the best stories make you cry as well as laugh and when Ashanti drops the heavy bombs at the crux of his tale, he lifts it way beyond the realm of most Fringe shows.
- Until Sun, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 4pm, £9 to £10, £8 to £9 concs.
