Wednesday, August 26

Author: Greg Holstead

Garry Starr – Underbelly, George Square
16Aug By Greg HolsteadNo Comments
Scotland

Garry Starr – Underbelly, George Square

Some Fringe shows are clever. Some are chaotic. And some, like Garry Starr: Classic Penguins, gleefully throw themselves off the rails and somehow land in a place of dazzling, ridiculous beauty. Damien Warren Smith’s alter ego, Garry Starr, attempts to perform every Penguin Classic novel in the space of 70 minutes. Dressed in the publisher’s signature flippers and not much else, in fact, absolutely nothing else for most of the show, he cycles through Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, Little Women, Of Mice and Men and dozens more at a breakneck pace, each rendered in his distinctive cocktail of physical clowning, improvisation, and subversive silliness. Yes, he’s naked. The first thing an audience member needs to know is that this isn’t a fleeting gimmick, it’s the performance unif...
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A Monty Python Cabaret Singalong Circus – St. Mark’s Church
16Aug By Greg HolsteadNo Comments
Scotland

A Monty Python Cabaret Singalong Circus – St. Mark’s Church

There’s something deliciously wrong about sitting in an 1835 Unitarian church while a cheerful Australian pianist invites me to sing “Sit on My Face and Tell Me That You Love Me.” St Mark’s, designed by David Bryce, is a handsome bit of early Victorian stonework, high ceilings, clear acoustics, stained glass filtering the light, more accustomed to hymns than to songs about spam, lumberjacks, or finding myself in Finland for no apparent reason. Still, this is the Fringe, and in August the sacred and the silly often share a pew. The show is the brainchild of Antony “Dr H” Hubmayer, an award winning music educator from Adelaide who, if his own jokes are to be believed, never wants to be a cabaret pianist anyway. He wants to be a lumberjack. Obviously. He has the sort of avuncular charm...
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Pussy Riot: Riot Days – Summerhall, Dissection Room
16Aug By Greg HolsteadNo Comments
Scotland

Pussy Riot: Riot Days – Summerhall, Dissection Room

Political theatre turned punk gig turned call to arms, Pussy Riot’s Riot Days is an unflinching blast of protest art. At Summerhall’s Dissection Room, the Russian collective fire off pounding beats, stark captions, and unapologetic political fury. It’s powerful, messy, and confrontational, from the raw delivery to the deliberately provocative splashes of water into the crowd. You might not like every tactic, but you’ll leave knowing you’ve been in the same room as the real thing. There are protest gigs, and then there’s Pussy Riot. The Russian art-punk collective’s Riot Days tour has been roaring through cities worldwide, bringing their mix of punk gig, political rally, and theatre piece to stages that can barely contain them. At Summerhall’s Dissection Room, it’s all on top of you:...
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Lorna Rose Treen: 24 Hour Diner People – Pleasance
16Aug By Greg HolsteadNo Comments
Scotland

Lorna Rose Treen: 24 Hour Diner People – Pleasance

Well, don’t make the same mistake I made by queuing like an idiot at Below instead of Beneath. I should have figured when I was the only one waiting in line! Lorna Rose Treen follows up last year’s Skin Pigeon with a more cohesive, diner-themed hour that’s still packed with the absurdity and oddball characters she’s known for. From a long-armed trucker to a teenage orthodontic nightmare, it’s silly, self-aware, and frequently hilarious, even when it knowingly “fails” at its own stated mission. If you enjoyed Skin Pigeon last year, you will love this. Here, the whole thing revolves around an American diner, albeit a diner as seen through Treen’s surreal lens, and also around her tongue-in-cheek mission statement: having allegedly “broken comedy” in 2023 with her Dave’s Funniest Jo...
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Ohio – Assembly Roxy
16Aug By Greg HolsteadNo Comments
Scotland

Ohio – Assembly Roxy

One of the hottest tickets on the Fringe, maybe the hottest, from the producers that brought you Fleabag and Baby Reindeer. Sold out for most of the run before the Fringe even started, but if you are willing to hang around the ticket booth at exactly two hours before showtime you might just be lucky enough to snag the odd seat. This one’s going to tour, and it deserves to.The Bengsons, husband and wife, Shaun and Abigail, call Ohio an “ecstatic grief concert,” which sounds like something dreamed up by a marketing intern on too much kombucha. But within about thirty seconds you realise they mean it, every word. This is part gig, part confession, part secular revival meeting, and part science lecture for people who didn’t know they wanted to learn about the inner ear.Shaun Bengson, bespectac...
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Anthem For Dissatisfaction – Summerhall
15Aug By Greg HolsteadNo Comments
Scotland

Anthem For Dissatisfaction – Summerhall

A loud, brash, and unapologetically political coming-of-age tale set to a killer soundtrack of working-class anthems, Oasis, Reverend and the Makers, the Manics, Springsteen. Anthem for Dissatisfaction bursts with energy and heart, but in Summerhall’s small Red Lecture Theatre it sometimes plays like it’s still aiming too big. Big performances, big music, big feelings, and just a bit too much of all three. It starts strong, with Jamie talking about his big sister, Sarah, his “own personal NME”, and their shared love of music and the first record they owned from 2008: The State of Things by Reverend and the Makers. From there, we’re into austerity Britain (and Northern Ireland), and a 12-year-old’s question: “What the hell are we spending our money on?” When there’s no lavish lifesty...
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Benedetti & Sitkovitsky: Tribute to Menuhin – Usher Hall
14Aug By Greg HolsteadNo Comments
Scotland

Benedetti & Sitkovitsky: Tribute to Menuhin – Usher Hall

Nicola Benedetti kicked off the evening with a warm welcome, telling us it was going to be “a lot about the violin” and a tribute to Yehudi Menuhin. She mentioned that in her early career she had often played second violin to Alexander Sitkovetsky, but tonight she certainly wasn’t playing second for long. The atmosphere was set, intimate, personal, and just a bit cheeky.The concert opened with Elgar’s Serenade for Strings, lush and romantic, a soft embrace of a piece that filled the hall with warmth and a gentle nostalgic glow. Its three movements flowed effortlessly, a perfect opener that drew the audience in with grace rather than bombast.Then, Alexander Sitkovetsky took the stage for Panufnik’s Violin Concerto, a deeply spiritual work written for Menuhin. It’s reflective, lyrical, and q...
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Wild Thing! – Summerhall
14Aug By Greg HolsteadNo Comments
Scotland

Wild Thing! – Summerhall

A riotous eco-comedy that shape-shifts into a moving requiem for our planet’s vanishing creatures. Wild Thing! - Laugh Now, Cry Later! Summerhall’s TechCube 0 is already a bit of a womb for oddball creativity, and Wild Thing!, the latest creation from Tom Bailey’s Mechanimal, is like an ecological fever dream with a sense of humour. It’s part comedy, part requiem, and part, “what on earth did I just witness?”, in the best possible way. We enter the performance space together, the audience in single-file, like a school trip with no teacher. Bailey is already mid-flow, becoming a carousel of creatures, some endangered, some right on the edge of existence, some that sound like they’ve escaped from a Monty Python sketch. “Cheerful Pheasant,” “Fearful Owl,” “Polymorphic Rubber Frog...
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Bury The Hatchet – Pleasance, Queen Dome, Potterrow
14Aug By Greg HolsteadNo Comments
Scotland

Bury The Hatchet – Pleasance, Queen Dome, Potterrow

Bluegrass, courtroom drama, and Victorian murder meet in a sharp, witty retelling of the Lizzie Borden’s story. “Myth always makes for a good story.” Quite right. We get the back and forth on whether we’re here for drama or history, and before you know it, they’re breaking the fourth wall to bicker about the whole thing. At one point, an exasperated “Come on, this is GCSE drama level!” gets lobbed into the audience. It’s all very knowing, very winky, and the crowd laps it up. The set up is straightforward, Lizzie Borden, accused of axing her father and stepmother in 1892, faces us, the jury. It’s clear in this telling that she cannot stand her stepmother. Old Yankee stock, dripping in mill money, she hardly needs the inheritance, which makes the whole “why would she?” question al...
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Escape the Past, Escape Room: The Deacon’s Cabinet – 25 Nicolson Square
12Aug By Greg HolsteadNo Comments
Scotland

Escape the Past, Escape Room: The Deacon’s Cabinet – 25 Nicolson Square

History, high stakes, and a heap of puzzles, Brodie’s neck isn’t going to save itself. I’m standing in the cramped workshop of Edinburgh’s most notorious thief, Deacon William Brodie, with an hour to save him before the hangman comes calling. It’s my first escape room. My friend’s done a couple before, but neither of us is exactly Sherlock Holmes in a hurry. Before we begin, the ever-vigilant assistant, Ronak, greets us and with a quick waiver to confirm that neither of us are wearing a pacemaker; jump scares and magnetism within the game are noted, we begin. Cloaked, lantern in hand, we are given a quick primer on Brodie’s life, gentleman by day, burglar by night. Then we’re off! The clock is ticking, and we aim to make the leader board! The first task, which I don’t think gives ...
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