Greg Holstead, Author at North West End UK

10Feb

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Tess – Traverse Theatre

Part of Edinburgh’s Manipulate Festival 2024, Tess is an ambitious retelling of Hardy’s famous tale, Tess Of The D’Urbervilles, through a feminist lens by the acclaimed UK circus theatre company Ockham Razor. The original tale was set in Victorian England, but there are plenty of moral and ethical lessons which translate very easily into today’s Britain. The story of a naïve young girl, forced into low paid work by poverty, and then abused and violated by a rich arrogant seducer, seems all too familiar. The fact that the abuse becomes her almost unbearable cross to bear and yet means little or nothing to him also speaks volumes. In this production there are two Tesses, actor Macadie Amoroso who speaks the tale and Lila Naruse who physically enacts it. They are joined on stage by five...

10Feb

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Pickled Republic – Traverse Theatre

Part of Edinburgh’s Manipulate Festival 2024, Pickled Republic is advertised as an existential dip into the pickle jar of life from Glasgow-based creator/performer Rudy Cantir. Originally from Moldova, where apparently every food is pickled, this one-woman show sees Rudy morph into various pickled vegetables to highlight the universal themes of abandonment, being unfulfilled and unwanted, the fundamental need to be loved, or in the case of the pickled tomato, just eaten would be nice! It sounds zany and it is! Sound designer John Keilty creates an atmospheric, gastric gurgling soundscape and I assume also writes the witty songs which pepper this dish. But the real driving force behind this show are the consumes, which are fabulously conceived by Fergus Dunnet, and which takes t...

Evahisseurs (Invaders) – Traverse Theatre

6Feb

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Evahisseurs (Invaders) – Traverse Theatre

Part of Edinburgh’s Manipulate Festival 2024, Evahisseurs is a one-man show directed and performed by Olivier Rannou for Compagnie Bakelite. With tongue firmly planted in dead-pan cheek, Rannou shows that language is no barrier at all as he clowns his way wordlessly but very effectively through this short but nicely formed nostalgic, alien invasion caper. With little more than a table, and a handful of props, Rannou weaves his unlikely story, with just the hint of a glint in his mischievous eye! Featuring UFO abduction, human experimentation, dog decapitation and exploding jelly aliens, there are certainly plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. Rannou’s actions are nicely backed by a prerecorded soundtrack of weird and wonderful sounds and a miniature screen with scratchy black and white ...

5Feb

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Plinth – Traverse Theatre

Part of Edinburgh’s Manipulate Festival 2024, Plinth is created and performed by Glasgow-based, Al Seed. A darkly intense, wordless portrayal of human conflict, and a timely reminder that actions speak louder than words. A show that comes with a warning, that it contains loud music/sounds, flashing lights and smoke effects, and rightly so. At times this was certainly in the ‘uncomfortable’ zone. But then again, you could argue that the depiction of war should be uncomfortable. Reminiscent of one of my favourite shows from last year, As Far As Impossible (Lyceum), which questioned why some medics continually return to conflict zones, Plinth asks some similarly unanswerable wordless questions about the inevitability of conflict and the human thirst for ascendancy. Seed’s unquestion...

Elliot Bibby – The Best of Bibby – Scottish Storytelling Centre

2Jan

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Elliot Bibby – The Best of Bibby – Scottish Storytelling Centre

Perhaps more than any other performer at Edinburgh’s Magicfest 2023, Elliot Bibby is unashamedly a comedian and entertainer first and a magician second. There is certainly no shortage of laugh-out-loud moments from this cheeky and charming magic man which make it quite different to all the others I’ve reviewed so far on the programme. Of course, comedy within magic is nothing new. Add a funny hat to the tall, dark Bibby and the Cooperesque comparison would be inescapable. No more so than when Bibby carries out the hilarious Bottle Glass, Glass bottle routine, which was one of Tommy’s absolute highlights. A lady behind me was in total hysterics during this sketch as bottle after bottle appeared on the ever diminishing table! Whilst comedy, can, of course, be a strength when combined ...

Richard Wiseman – The Worlds’s Greatest Card Trick – Scottish Storytelling Centre

2Jan

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Richard Wiseman – The Worlds’s Greatest Card Trick – Scottish Storytelling Centre

Prolific writer, Psychologist and magician Professor Richard Wiseman, who has attracted more than 800M views on YouTube and worked with the likes of David Copperfield, Penn & Teller and Darren Brown, comes across as a very unassuming and likeable chap who excels at interacting and entertaining the audience and also has some surprisingly good tricks up his sleeve. Combining erudite wit, a cardboard box full of self-made tricks and a deep knowledge of the subject matter is a compelling combination. The upper studio of The Scottish Storytelling Centre is an intimate space, with an audience of perhaps twenty, ranged in a semicircle around Wiseman. He happily gathers us into his tight spotlit table. Wiseman takes us on a brief tour of the life of some of the unseen and unknown inv...

Vincent Gambini, “Out Of Thin Air” – Wonder & Co. Edinburgh

2Jan

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Vincent Gambini, “Out Of Thin Air” – Wonder & Co. Edinburgh

Edinburgh’s only Magic shop, Wonder & Co, near Haymarket Station, hosts Vincent Gambini in a spell-binding show of close magic which will take your breath away, as part of Edinburgh Magicfest 2023, now in its 14th year. Gambini’s ability to weave a wonderful story around his magic set-pieces makes this as much a theatrical event as a simple magic show. Poetic, magical, lyrical and mystical, and short, this brief 30-minute monologue doesn’t put a single foot wrong. Gambini is as careful in his script and his delivery as he is in his manual dexterity – this is the full deck folks! Including the trick ‘disappearing aces’ and the ‘conundrum of black and red’ on a simple black cloth table, with the audience leaning in only a few feet away from the sleeveless Gambini, this is surel...

Street Magic Masterclass with Cameron Gibson – Wonder & Co. Edinburgh

2Jan

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Street Magic Masterclass with Cameron Gibson – Wonder & Co. Edinburgh

Edinburgh’s only Magic shop, Wonder & Co, near Haymarket Station, only opened its doors a few months ago, but the youthful ambition of owner/host, Cameron Gibson is clear to see. Looking like a mixture between Wonka and Potter, the charismatic Gibson seeks to induce magic and wonder to all, and certainly succeeds to some extent. The first wonder is the hidden magic room accessed via a small stair and a hinged bookcase; I feel like I’m in an episode of Mr Ben! Providing a deck of cards and a coin to the twelve seated guests, Gibson explains some simple card tricks and touches on the art of misdirection, in an almost scholastic setting. It is perhaps testimony to the success of the Edinburgh Magic Festival, now in its 14th year, and the health of the ‘Magic’ genre in general, that all...

Kevin Quantum – Waldorf Astoria (The Caledonian Hotel), Edinburgh

23Dec

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Kevin Quantum – Waldorf Astoria (The Caledonian Hotel), Edinburgh

A fantastic and intimate performance in front of an audience of just 30, by one of Edinburgh’s finest magicians kicks off this year’s Edinburgh Magicfest 2023, now in its 14th year. On top of the multiple shows involving Kevin and many other talented magicians over the next eleven days, he is also the programme director for Magicfest and recently a father as well! He is certainly juggling quite a few balls. Kevin Quatum, once described by David Williams on Britain’s Got Talent, as ‘like a sexy Dr Who’ has come a long way from the Channel 4 show ‘faking It’ that launched his career in magic in 2006. An inexplicable an unexplainable levitation trick involving a dollar bill floating in midair is the undoubted star of the show tonight. A t...

Same Team – A Street Soccer Story – Traverse Theatre

16Dec

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Same Team – A Street Soccer Story – Traverse Theatre

From the pens of Robbie Jack and Jack Nurse, comes the story of five disparate women all struggling in their own way, but brought together as a team to represent Scotland at the Homeless World Cup in Italy. Created alongside the women from the Dundee Change Centre, an initiative which uses football to inspire and empower the excluded, the marginalised and the homeless. The high-charged atmosphere of the five-aside pitch is brought brilliantly to life in a cleverly conceived gymnasium set by Alisa Kalyanova, complete with floodlighting and pitch lines. The Traverse 1 auditorium could hardly be better proportioned, with its steep terraced seating and wide rectangular stage, and successfully turns normally placid audience into screaming spectator by the end of the production. ‘The Bee’,...