Son of Barnum: A Stunt Too Far the first review in todays Scotsman

SCOTSMAN http://www.edinburgh-festivals.com/reviews.cfm?id=925692004
Son of Barnum: A Stunt Too Far
KATE COPSTICK
ASSEMBLY ROOMS (Venue 3)

“I AM not,” says the cherubically charming Mark Borkowski, “a PR guru. I am a publicist.” But not a practitioner of what, in his final, admirably hard-hitting section, he calls “the art of the dark publicist”.

Borkowski is Gandalf to the political spin doctors� Sauron. And a real wiz of the biz he is too.

Mark Borkowski is a man truly, madly, deeply in love with the art of the business he is in. Not just the industry today, but its history and its heroes. It and they are his show. With added Borkowski.

Opening with Moses and Jordan (the model, not the river), he warms us to his theme with stories of Phineas Taylor Barnum, the showman and self-publicist extraordinaire, of guys hiring girls to faint and puke, of the great midget flypast over New York and plane wrecks in Selfridges.

Borkowski�s own boyish likeability masks the man who made the legendary, chainsaw jugglers of Circus Archaos legendary, who masterminded the rise of Jim Rose and who killed the Tap Dancing Dog of Stratford East. He is so in touch with his inner Barnum, he performs his own stunts live on stage.

Borkowski makes you want to listen to him for hours more. You can�t but, luckily, you can buy his book as consolation.

Until 14 August.