There are occasions at the Edinburgh Fringe when sitting in the front row feels like a privilege. There are others like, several minutes into Best of Burlesque, you begin to wonder whether you have made a serious tactical error.
You live and learn.
The problem is not burlesque. Quite the opposite. Burlesque has enormous theatrical possibilities. It can be funny, provocative, sensual, satirical, beautiful and absurd. There can be character, storytelling and invention in the simple act of appearing on stage and gradually removing what you arrived with.
But there has to be an idea.
Too often tonight, Best of Burlesque seems to consist of people taking their clothes off to music. There isn’t enough artistic interpretation or theatrical imagination to turn the act of undressing into something substantially more interesting. I’ve seen more artistic interpretation in my life drawing class.
Which is a shame, because when the show does find an idea, it suddenly becomes considerably more entertaining.
The compere provides one genuinely memorable sequence with a wonderfully dishevelled performance to Sway. Gin is consumed, clothes disappear and dignity gradually follows. She slumps across the stage and eventually slithers down the stairs while somehow continuing to sing. It is funny, controlled and increasingly ridiculous. Most importantly, it has a story.
Then there is the unicorn.
It’s not often that sentence provides reassurance.
One performer rides a unicorn around the stage before removing its horn and discovering increasingly imaginative uses for it. It is bizarre, suggestive and knowingly silly, but at least it is conceived as a complete theatrical routine. There is an idea behind it.
And those moments demonstrate what Best of Burlesque could be.
Perhaps what I feel most strongly about the evening is not that it is bad, but that it is rather sad. It could be so much more. It has a great venue, an audience ready to be entertained and an art form with an extraordinary theatrical history. It has music, costume, movement, comedy, sexuality and spectacle at its disposal.
Across Edinburgh, performers in tiny rooms and makeshift theatres are taking extraordinary artistic risks. I wanted Best of Burlesque to show the same ambition.
More of the wit of Sway, more of the sheer strangeness of the unicorn and considerably more imagination.
I know Burlesque can be an art form. Tonight, frustratingly, we only occasionally get to see it.
And next time, I’m sitting further back.
Playing until August 30th 2026, https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/2026BESTOFD
Reviewer: Greg Holstead
Reviewed: 7th August 2026
North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating:
Running time – 1hr