MY MOTHER’S FUNERAL: THE SHOW★★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
MY MOTHER’S FUNERAL: THE SHOW at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★★ “The prowess of Jones’ writing and Charlotte Bennett’s direction is unique and utterly refreshing” My Mother’s Funeral: The Show is a crucial and stunning piece on trauma mining in the arts. Based on the experience of losing a loved
FLAT AND THE CURVES – ROSÉ-TINTED★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
FLAT AND THE CURVES – ROSÉ-TINTED at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★ “the audience for last night’s performance left happy and entertained, and you will, too” Flat and the Curves are back at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with their new show, Rosé- Tinted. If you’ve never seen this talented group
ELVIS MCGONAGALL: GIN & CATATONIC?★★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
ELVIS MCGONAGALL: GIN & CATATONIC? at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★★ “like all good whiskies, McGonagall’s lines slip down smoothly with just the right amount of burn” The fabulous tartan-jacketed Elvis McGonagall is holding forth at the Patter House for this year’s Festival Fringe, and you do not want to
PENTHESILEA★★★★★Edinburgh International Festival
PENTHESILEA at the Edinburgh International Festival ★★★★★ “a memorable reimagining that must be seen” In Eline Arbo’s adaptation of Kleist’s classic play, Penthesilea becomes a deeply queer and transgressive. That’s in keeping with the spirit of a drama deemed “unplayable” in its own time. So if you have a chance
KAFKA’S APE★★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
KAFKA’S APE at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★★ “Kafka’s Ape is a powerful opportunity for a solo performer. Tony Bonani Miyambo takes it, and delivers” The Noma Yini Company from Johannesburg, under the direction of Phala Ookeditse Phala, brings an extraordinary adaptation of a short story by Kafka to this
THE SHOW FOR YOUNG MEN★★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
THE SHOW FOR YOUNG MEN at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★★ “an innocent, wondrous delight” The Show for Young Men will not change the world. It doesn’t have an obvious “point”, or “message”, or even structure. But none of that matters. Because in its simplicity and tenderness, it touched my
IS THE WI-FI GOOD IN HELL?★★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
IS THE WI-FI GOOD IN HELL? at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★★ “a personal and gorgeous reflection on queerness, place, and boyhood that will leave you laughing one second and reaching for tissues the very next” Is The Wi-fi Good in Hell? is a gorgeously flawless meditation on gentrification, platonic
COME DINE WITH ME: THE MUSICAL★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
COME DINE WITH ME: THE MUSICAL at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★ “an absolute treat” Come Dine With Me is a national treasure of British television, having been on our screens on Channel 4 since 2005. It’s contributed greatly to the world of meme culture and is much-loved (and watched)
INSTRUCTIONS★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
INSTRUCTIONS at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★ “The play is an interesting experiment, but as a dramatic piece, full of plot holes” Nathan Ellis’ experimental drama is a tantalizing piece. The situation is this: every day a different actor is invited to the space where Instructions will take place. The
IN THE LADY GARDEN★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
IN THE LADY GARDEN at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★ “a charming and very funny play” Things have never been the same for Alice since that time when she was a kid when she took all her clothes off and ran naked into the living room. She couldn’t understand what
ASSEMBLY HALL★★★★★Edinburgh International Festival
ASSEMBLY HALL at the Edinburgh International Festival ★★★★★ “The dancers lose themselves among a host of ambiguous landscapes. It’s all mesmerizing to watch, and to listen to.” Fans of Kidd Pivot’s work will delight in Assembly Hall. This piece has all the hallmarks of choreographer Crystal Pite and playwright Jonathon
EDWARD’S TALK: WHAT’S DRIVING YOU?★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
EDWARD’S TALK: WHAT’S DRIVING YOU? at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★ “less successful when assessed as a piece of theatre, than it was as an informative and engaging lesson” Edward delivers speed awareness sessions, the type you can opt into to avoid points for speeding, or according to Edward’s experience,
BELLRINGERS★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
BELLRINGERS at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★ “Paul Adefeya and Luke Rollason command the small space of the Roundabout Theatre without difficulty” Daisy Hall’s Bellringers is a vividly imagined take on climate change, set somewhere in a possible future for the Cotswolds. A shortlisted play for the Women’s Prize in
DUCK★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
DUCK at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★ “a very personal story in the midst of an institutional one, with plenty of humour and compassion throughout” Duck is vivid in a way few pieces or storytelling, let alone theatre, manage to be. It tells the story of Ismael “Smiles” Akhad, a
CRYING SHAME★★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
CRYING SHAME at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★★ “a masterclass in creativity and playfulness” Crying Shame is a masterpiece of heartfelt and fun-filled cabaret, made perfectly for all of Edinburgh’s lonely hearts. Exploring what it means to be lonely, how to cure it, and how to identify it, this show
FAULT LINES★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
FAULT LINES at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★ “the choreography was extraordinarily creative, sharp and inspired throughout” Fault Lines, written by Nick Walker and performed by Lîla Dance, pulls no punches. Whilst it’s not exactly a theatre of cruelty, the immediacy of its metaphors and the emotions there within strike
LYNN FACES★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
LYNN FACES at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★ “a provocative piece that isn’t quite ready for primetime” Laura Horton’s new play, Lynn Faces, is a raw take on a woman who is on the verge of turning 40, and trying to escape from a coercive relationship. For protagonist Leah, this
A JAFFA CAKE MUSICAL★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
A JAFFA CAKE MUSICAL at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★ “It’s a very fun, very silly hour of musical comedy that’s super self-aware and makes the most of this” Following their previous musical hits Timpson: The Musical and RuneSical, Gigglemug Theatre are back, this time with a musical based on
SUITCASE SHOW★★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
SUITCASE SHOW at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★★ “takes a bunch of second hand materials of all kinds, and creates magic with them” New Zealand Company Trick of the Light Theatre has made a career out of performing shows that leave as small an environmental footprint as possible. Suitcase Show
OEDIPUS REX★★★★★Edinburgh International Festival
OEDIPUS REX at the Edinburgh International Festival ★★★★★ “As immersive theatre, it doesn’t get much better than this” If you’ve never seen opera performed in a museum, don’t waste a moment in getting your ticket for the Scottish Opera’s Oedipus Rex at the National Museum of Scotland. There’s a wealth
THE SEX LIVES OF PUPPETS★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
THE SEX LIVES OF PUPPETS at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★ “it really is quite an eye-opener to see how many naughty positions the puppets can get themselves into” I remember working on a puppet show a few years ago and one of the first things the puppetry director said
TIT SWINGERS★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
TIT SWINGERS at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★ “a tidal wave of laughs, stomps, and smiles rolling over the participating audience” There is something for everyone at Fringe. An 18+ punk opera musical about Bonny and Read is certainly an acquired taste but Tit Swingers exceeds doing what it says
THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO★★★★Edinburgh International Festival
THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO at the Edinburgh International Festival ★★★★ “a provocative and often ingenious take on one of the greatest operas ever created” This production of The Marriage of Figaro, brought to the 2024 Edinburgh International Festival, may not please everyone. It’s an updated, plot tampered, gadget laden sparkler
THE DAUGHTERS OF RÓISÍN★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
THE DAUGHTERS OF RÓISÍN at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★ “There’s a real active effort to get us involved in the storytelling, and this is brilliantly effective” Aoibh Johnson’s play, The Daughters of Róisín, explores the history of church and state abuse of women in Ireland who were pregnant out
LONG DISTANCE★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
LONG DISTANCE at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★ “the dialogue is funny, elastic and fizzles with energy” Contemporary living, for most, has become inextricably intertwined with technology. It crops up in more and more places, knitting segments of our lives together. In Long Distance, the phone is the connective tissue
AUSTENTATIOUS★★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
AUSTENTATIOUS at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★★ “they really lean into the jokes of each moment, which makes it just really, really funny” Austentatious: An Improvised Jane Austen Novel does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin. A group of talented improvisers, with support from a pianist and
THAT’S NOT MY NAME★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
THAT’S NOT MY NAME at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★ “occasionally funny, often angry, frequently absurd, and sometimes quite sad” Honestly, this one is really hard to review. Writer-performer Sammy Trotman, in her one-woman ‘not a show’ (Press copy) about the mental health system, even talks about having a reviewer
GODFATHER DEATH: A GRIMMS’ MUSICAL★★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
GODFATHER DEATH: A GRIMMS’ MUSICAL at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★★ “The carefully crafted and deftly performed musical score has earthy tones of folk and blues” Godfather Death: A Grimm’s Musical is a commanding and energetic musical adaptation of a dark, morality fairy-tale first collected by the Brothers Grimm. It
LA BELLA★★★½Edinburgh Festival Fringe
LA BELLA at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★½ “Greenhalgh’s writing is phenomenally impressive” La Bella is the story of a single relationship discoloured, fragmented and exhilarated by the many others around it. It is the love between Sandro Bottecelli, the charmingly uncharming up-and-coming Renaissance artist and his muse, the ever-conflicted
UGLY SISTERS★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
UGLY SISTERS at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★ “It’s messy, muddy, beautifully chaotic but in a way which feels totally composed and in control” On the day that The Female Eunuch was released in America in 1970, a transgender woman ran up to its author and one of the key
JULIETA★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
JULIETA at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★ “It may seem like a sad story to some, but Muñoz turns her character’s life into something oddly upbeat” Julieta is the poignant story of a woman at the end of her life. Confined within a tiny space, she goes through the same
NIGAMON/TUNAI★★★★Edinburgh International Festival
NIGAMON/TUNAI at the Edinburgh International Festival ★★★★ “We emerge from the experience wiser and somehow purified of the noise and bustle of the world outside the performance space” Nigamon/Tunai, brought to the Edinburgh International Festival by Onishka Productions, is a joint collaboration between artists and water protectors from indigenous peoples
THE KAYE HOLE★★★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
THE KAYE HOLE at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★★★ “a tremendous night of outstanding queer entertainment” I mean, where do I start with this one!? ‘You going to Kaye Hole?’, I kept being asked last year, having never heard of it and missing getting my hands on a ticket before
DID YOU MEAN TO FALL LIKE THAT?★★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
DID YOU MEAN TO FALL LIKE THAT? at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★★ “has all the ideas for a really interesting production, but perhaps just needs a bit more focus” Charlie (James McGregor) is an FX trainer in his mid-30s and he’s going through a divorce. So, he does what
THE CROW, (THE PRINCESS), AND THE SCULLERY MAID★★Edinburgh Festival Fringe
THE CROW, (THE PRINCESS), AND THE SCULLERY MAID at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe ★★ “it has the potential to be what it intended, a funny, charming short play for children who love fairy tales” I’m a big fan of children’s theatre, and always try to see at least one kid’s
GRUPO CORPO★★★★★Edinburgh International Festival
GRUPO CORPO at the Edinburgh International Festival ★★★★★ “you will leave taking the beauty, the energy and the joy that is part of everything that this extraordinary company does” Grupo Corpo is a Brazilian dance company that draws on both classical ballet and contemporary dance rooted in African folk traditions.
