Edinburgh Fringe Festival Archives

Spontaneous Potter – The Stand’s New Theatre

8Aug

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

Spontaneous Potter – The Stand’s New Theatre

If you’re a fan of improvisation, you’ll enjoy Spontaneous Potter. As usual, the audience is asked to make suggestions and the suggestion with the loudest applause is the one that anchors the story. This time it was Harry Potter in Asbo Land. It worked. Jenny Laahs was a superb musical accompaniment to the action, sensing where things were headed and playing suitably emotionally laden music. Her contribution made a big difference. Stand up stalwart, Stu Murphy, took the reins to introduce the cast: Paul Connolly, Moira Jay and Emily. Just Emily. She was good! Between them they behaved in a silly way and carried the story forward smoothly. Stu Murphy seems to be the most experienced of the cast and he has a very sharp wit. His long hair is glossy and lush, his beard bristly and I tho...

World Premiere of Flesh the Musical at Edinburgh Fringe

28Jul

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

NEWS

World Premiere of Flesh the Musical at Edinburgh Fringe

A Fast, Funny and Furious Musical extravaganza resurrecting the grisly tale of Burke and Hare and their relationship with the Edinburgh Medical Establishment. A tale oft told – but not in this way! Two hundred years on, Surgeon’s Hall is once more the centrepiece for the story of the World’s first serial killers, William Burke and William Hare whose cosy relationship with the City’s prominent surgical anatomist, Dr Robert Knox, brought shame upon Scotland’s capital. John Montgomery, composer of the musical, Deacon Brodie, has aligned his considerable talents with retired QC Derek Batchelor to produce this musical spectacular. With elements of Rock, Ballads and a touch of the Celtic, these catchy tunes and dance routines will have you singing and dancing in the aisles and maybe br...

Ian McKellen to star in HAMLET at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

30Mar

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

NEWS

Ian McKellen to star in HAMLET at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Ian McKellen and Peter Schaufuss will collaborate and perform together at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the world premiere of HAMLET a new performance concept adapted from Shakespeare’s play from the 2nd – 28th August 2022 at Ashton Hall, Saint Stephens Theatre, 105 St Stephen Street, Edinburgh. In his long and distinguished career, Ian McKellen has played Hamlet twice, in productions 50 years apart. In 1971 he took the role on tour and in the West End and then last year, aged 81, he revisited it in an age, colour, and gender-blind production at the Theatre Royal, Windsor. Despite Covid, that four-month run was completely sold out. Now McKellen is to return to Hamlet in a world première at the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, performing with the Edinburgh Festival Ballet Compa...

AngloViking Invasion Before Naptime – Edinburgh Fringe Festival

20Aug

By Melissa JonesNo Comments

Scotland

AngloViking Invasion Before Naptime – Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Thor and Joshua were right. No one saw an invasion quite like this one. As Joshua Mason Wood waited on a boat with his bohemian parents, Thor Stenhaug stopped by the job centre and stumbled into comedy. The result? For the cost of nothing, you can see them for free. Yes, the Edinburgh Fringe is notorious for being hit and miss with it’s coming and goings of rising stars, especially amongst the free arm of the festival. But these guys stand out amongst what can be tawdry offerings of festival’s past and find themselves somewhere on the journey to paid tickets. While this may not be the gem of the Fringe (yet), they are the gem of the Free Fringe. Appreciating Stand Up is based on taste, and while I thought Stenhaug at times a little safe and Mason-Wood a little too crude, it’s undeni...

The Complications of Being Ernest – Edinburgh Fringe Festival

20Aug

By Nicky LambertNo Comments

Scotland

The Complications of Being Ernest – Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Take a famous Oscar Wilde play, throw in some actors with personal problems, questionable acting ability and over-large egos, perform the whole thing via Zoom and what do you have? An absolutely hilarious hour of entertainment written by Kieron Rees and brought to you by The Unknown Theatre Company. The entire play is done live via Zoom and you watch it via Zoom but with your own camera turned off and the sound muted. We join the actors a few minutes before the play starts and unbeknown to them, we have all been let in out of the Zoom waiting room so we see and hear all their issues with each other. Jen and Ren (Vicky Davies and Michelle Kay) are scrapping over Ben (Harri Herniman) and Shaun, the Director (David Millard) is a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Rebecca (Kimbe...

Fairytale: 20/20 – Edinburgh Fringe Festival

18Aug

By Donna M DayNo Comments

Scotland

Fairytale: 20/20 – Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Fairytale: 20/20, devised and performed by choreographer, Sheenru Yong, and actor, Sara Lessmann, shows the creative process as two live performers try and transfer their skills into filmmaking. Opening with a typewriter sound effect and take 68 ¼, both Lee and Jung describe their usual roles in the creative process and what they bring when devising a piece of art. They are aiming to make a film called Happily Ever After, but before they can they need to agree what “happily ever after” actually means in order for them to capture it. It’s also important that whatever they produce isn’t pretentious as they want to avoid that. It quickly becomes clear that neither of them really know what they’re trying to achieve with the end product, so they go out to get input from others on what “happ...

17Aug

By Nicky LambertNo Comments

Scotland

The Clones – Edinburgh Fringe Festival

“The Clones” are Lloydie James Lloyd and Liam Webber. They take an audience suggestion and weave a whole play around it, totally improvised and on the spot. With no set (except two chairs) and no idea of what the audience are going to suggest, this is the stuff of nightmares as far as I’m concerned, and I do think you must have to be some kind of masochist to want to perform improvised theatre. Tonight’s audience suggestion for the location was the International Space Station. I had assumed there would be other requested suggestions as to a vague storyline, characters etc but it was just the location. It took a little while to get going and there were a few long(ish) stretches of silence to start with, and I felt they struggled initially to get it off the ground. However, the per...

Warhol: Bullet Karma – Edinburgh Fringe Festival

17Aug

By Kiefer WilliamsNo Comments

Scotland

Warhol: Bullet Karma – Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Garry Roost’s one-man performance of Andy Warhol starts at the point where he survived a murderous attempt on his life by Valerie Solanas, who was convinced that he wanted to steal her script. From there on Roost gives a breathless and sometimes overly hectic account of Warhol’s creative and emotional life. The screen is split into four smaller screens all in day glow primary colours to give the effect of Warhol’s iconic pop art structure and I must say it actually works very well indeed. The set is minimal and keeps to the pop art theme Warhol: Bullet Karma is so well written and researched throughout and Roost’s outstanding impersonations of that Warhol era are quite remarkable but on reflection I did feel it was a touch rambling in some parts and although it would definitely ...

Under The Floorboards – Edinburgh Fringe Festival

17Aug

By Kiefer WilliamsNo Comments

Scotland

Under The Floorboards – Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Simon Shaw’s unsettling one man horror show based on the infamous serial killer Ed Gein is one very intense ride. Gein (Shaw), who was mother dominated for most of his life, was the influence for Alfred Hitchcock’s classic movie Psycho and also inspiration for many horror films since then. As you would probably expect, this show is not for the faint hearted and Shaw pulls out all the stops in his powerful performance. During the course of the show Shaw’s character moves through many transitions and the attention to detail in Shaw’s well-judged performance is excellent throughout. This is totally gruesome stuff and quite unrelenting. If you are a horror fan (which I am) you’ll be morbidly fascinated by his “conversations” with his persistently screaming and angry mother as we beg...

25Feb

By Paul DownhamNo Comments

London

Typical – Soho Theatre On Demand

Having premiered at Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2019 to sold out audiences, then transferring to Soho Theatre, ‘Typical’ has now taken on a hybrid digital form to begin an online season from the 24th February, on Soho Theatre’s On Demand platform. Created by Nouveau Riche and Soho Theatre and written by Ryan Calais Cameron whose previous work includes Rhapsody, Retrograde and Queens of Sheba co-written with Jessica Hagan; Typical is based on a true story and tells of the life of Christopher Alder played by Richard Blackwood. The play is set in the late 1990’s, and a selection of 90’s music, VHS tapes and Whigfield, help to transport us back to that era. Alder is in his mid-thirties, an ex-paratrooper, and a British Nigerian. We learn that he is divorced with two chil...