Greg Holstead, Author at North West End UK

19Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Trainspotting Live – Pleasance EICC

Stark, uncompromising, and more than a little filthy, Trainspotting Live at the EICC is an experience that assaults all the senses. If you thought Irvine Welsh’s story was dark on the page, or confronting on screen, this immersive production makes it visceral, unavoidable, and at times literally in your face. The staging is deceptively simple, two sets of bleachers flank a narrow walkway, with a bed at one end and a heap of sheets at the other. Centre stage, on one side, sits the infamously disgusting “worst toilet in Scotland,” which becomes as much a character as any of the cast. A word of advice, choose your seat carefully. The back row is safer, the second-back row ideal, but anyone who braves the front may find themselves in the splash zone. But in reality, nowhere is safe! ...

I’m Ready to Talk Now – Traverse Theatre

19Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

I’m Ready to Talk Now – Traverse Theatre

One audience member at a time, for 45 minutes, in a room dressed like a hospital ward. That is the premise of I’m Ready to Talk Now, an award-winning piece created and performed by Australian artist Oliver Ayres, and it is as bold and unusual as it sounds. Developed in Melbourne before arriving at the Traverse for its UK premiere, the show has already drawn acclaim for its innovation, but to experience it first-hand is something else entirely. You are welcomed gently, even tenderly. The host tucks you into a bed, adjusts the space for your comfort, and slips headphones over your ears. What follows is a guided immersion into his own story, spoken in his voice, paced by his movements around the room. At times he is by your side, at times he drifts into shadow, and once, when he gazes ...

19Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Alright Sunshine – Pleasance

All Right Sunshine, written by Isla Cowan and directed by Debbie Hannan, is a blistering one-woman play that probes power, gender, and the policing of public space, with a performance that holds the room in an iron grip. At its heart is Molly Geddes as PC Nicky McCreadie, delivering a turn of such intensity and nuance that it feels less like acting and more like possession. From the outset, we know this is about the police, but the framing is unexpected, Geddes’ McCreadie is just five foot tall, far removed from the towering physical ideal once required of recruits. The irony is not lost. Once upon a time, men had to be six feet tall and women five foot eight to join the force. Now here is a small-statured officer, pigeonholed as a “mother figure” on weekend shifts, yet treated with...

Will Rowland: Sunshine By Candelight – Banshee Labyrinth

18Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Will Rowland: Sunshine By Candelight – Banshee Labyrinth

Part comic, part philosophiser, part literary critic, Will Rowland returns to the Fringe with a solo hour that proves he’s more than just the funny man from Crizards. Alone in the Banshee Labyrinth, he blends sharp stand-up with musings on literature, philosophy, and the strangeness of modern life. Rowland’s “dimpled cavalier” presence makes him instantly likeable, but beneath the charm is a restless, analytical brain. He begins with friendships that have shifted from reminiscing on old times to marathons and wild swimming, joking that maybe people are running not for fitness but from life’s lack of meaning. Delivered with irony and sincerity, it sets the tone for a set that veers between profound and playful. One thread sees him praising Wordsworth’s genius wh...

18Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Because You Never Asked – Summerhall

Because You Never Asked is a clever, at times mesmerising performance by Montréal-based collective We All Fall Down. Conceived by Roger White and choreographer Helen Simard, the work draws on the recorded memories of White’s grandmother, Marianna Clark (née Goldmann), a Jewish teenager in 1930s Germany who eventually escaped to Edinburgh just before the start of WW2. It’s an emotionally charged blend of dance, music, and archived testimony, and its effect is quietly profound. The cast comprises four dancers, three women and one man, whose presence is physically stunning and emotionally evocative. Émile de Vasconcelos-Taillefer and Maxine Segalowitz set the tone with intense, expressive sequences early on, while Lina Namts delivers a haunting spoken passage before folding seaml...

18Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Hot Mess – Pleasance

The Fringe thrives on bold ideas, and Hot Mess, the new pop rom-com musical from Jack Godfrey and Ellie Coote, delivers one of the festival’s cleverest conceits. Earth and Humanity meet, date, fight, fall in and out of love, and in the process chart the fate of the planet itself. It’s a relationship comedy where the stakes couldn’t be higher. The show is anchored by two knockout performances. Danielle Steers (best known for SIX: The Musical and Bat Out of Hell), as Earth, has the kind of vocal power that can fill a West End house, let alone a Pleasance studio. She moves effortlessly from the low, smoky tones of conversational numbers to full-on belt, with songs like The Next Big Thing and Better With Time (appearing early and reprised later with even greater punch) setting the...

Nowhere – Here and Now – Traverse Theatre

18Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Nowhere – Here and Now – Traverse Theatre

The Traverse has always been a home for ambitious, politically charged theatre, and Nowhere – Here & Now sits firmly in that tradition. Created and performed by Khalid Abdalla, the show is an urgent, deeply personal exploration of revolution, displacement, and identity. It is at once sweeping in scope and intimate in detail, and though its ambitions sometimes spill over into excess, the experience is powerful and memorable. From the outset, Abdalla frames the performance with haunting questions: “This nowhere is safe. But there are places in the world where nowhere is safe. And when the unfathomable becomes persistent, where do you go?” That sense of uncertainty and statelessness runs through the performance, which draws heavily on his own experiences during the Egyptian u...

Smile: The Story of Charlie Chaplin – Pleasance

18Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Smile: The Story of Charlie Chaplin – Pleasance

If you want big budget spectacle, this is not the show for you. If you want to spend an hour wedged into a tiny basement with less than 50 people while laughing at the genius of Charlie Chaplin brought to life, then you have come to the right place. The Pleasance Below is a tiny venue, just a few rows of tightly packed raked seating, and when I was there, it was full. This is theatre in its most intimate form, no one more than a couple of metres from the performer, and absolutely nowhere to hide if you are picked for a bit of audience interaction. Marcel Cole, who both wrote and performs Smile, takes on the impossible task of distilling Chaplin’s life and art into a single hour, and somehow makes it feel both complete and personal. The show mixes physical comedy, mime, and a light s...

18Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Mary’s Daughters – theSpace Triplex

Three women, one legacy, and a ghostly reunion that’s far sharper than it sounds. I step into theSpace @ Triplex on the final day of the run, catching Mary’s Daughters just in time. What I see is well worth the last minute decision - a tight, intelligent piece of theatre with super acting that leaves me thinking that it should have run longer. We arrive to a thrust stage strewn with papers and feathers, as if the past itself has been ransacked. Out of this visual chaos, three figures emerge hurrying around in all directions, confused ghosts. Mary Wollstonecraft, played with commanding empathy by Megan Carter, her lesser-known daughter Fanny Imlay, portrayed with delicate intensity by Kaya Bucholc, and the more famous Mary Shelley, given a finely balanced mix of literary gravitas ...

Sh!t-faced Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Underbelly, McEwan Hall

18Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Sh!t-faced Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Underbelly, McEwan Hall

One actor drunk, the rest soberly soldiering on through Shakespeare. It’s a crowd-pleasing premise, and the chaos is real. But if you don’t know your Midsummer Night’s Dream inside out, a lot of the humour sails past. Funny? Yes, at times. Insightful? Not so much. On paper, this sounds like a perfect Fringe mash-up: take a cast of classically trained Shakespearean actors, lace one of them with enough booze to make Falstaff blush, then watch the Bard’s poetry get sideswiped by slurred asides, physical stumbles, and improvised derailments. In theory, it’s both a homage to the rough and ready theatrical tradition and a sharp parody of Shakespearean reverence. The night I saw it, the chosen drunk was Lysander, who gradually morphed into “the crazy little Greek kid who gap-yeared in R...