REVIEWS Archives - Page 2 of 610

17Aug

By Torya HughesNo Comments

Scotland

Steak Out – Gilded Balloon

Steak Out is the latest offering from Edinburgh born writer and actor Ruaraidh Murray, providing a dark comedy with a lot of local flavour. Set over two nights before Christmas, the play follows an Edinburgh family as they seek good fortune and revenge. Murray stars as Pilton butcher Archie, who hatches a plan to steal the best cuts from his ex-employer, Smedleys of Stockbridge. Aided by his girlfriend Karen and her out of work actor son Thomas, he finds himself committing a more serious crime than the one he'd originally planned. The performances are excellent. Murray is very believable as the rough and ready Archie, constantly being berated for his language by long suffering girlfriend Karen. Reanne Farley displays range as family matriarch Karen, scolding the men in her life for ...

Endometriosis the Musical – Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose

17Aug

By Torya HughesNo Comments

Scotland

Endometriosis the Musical – Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose

Blending musical comedy with medical commentary, Endometriosis the Musical tackles a global health issues with considerable energy. A musical about menstruation might not appeal to all, but this seven strong company make it a relatable and funny experience. Written by Maria Bartholdi and Kristin Stowell, who both have lived experience of endometriosis, the story follows business woman Jane as she tries to deliver the best presentation of her career. Her big opportunity comes when colleague Brad, a self-titled "business bro", becomes the latest victim in a spate of bear maulings. Despite trying to impress her boss Mr McKenna, she struggles to focus when her period turns up right on cue. Luckily her office bestie Miranda is there to stage an intervention, encouraging her to see a doct...

17Aug

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

Cocaine – The Courtyard Theatre

Written by Pendleton King in 1917 and relocated to the 1980s for this Camden Fringe production, ‘Cocaine’ is an intimate and affecting examination of addiction, dependency and a relationship pushed towards breaking point. Directed by Sushant Nair, this compelling two-hander succeeds through simplicity, placing its confidence almost entirely in King’s writing and two extremely strong performances. Joe, once a promising boxer, has seen his potential consumed by cocaine addiction. Alongside him is Nora, who wrestles with her love for him, her own dependency and the exhausting reality of trying to keep them both afloat. The play is not principally concerned with the sensation or spectacle of drug use, instead, it focuses on the emotional consequences, examining the ways addiction distor...

17Aug

By Charlotte MansfieldNo Comments

London

Improv the Dead – Bridewell Theatre

Zombie-themed group, Improv the Dead, performed their one hour long-form improv show last night at the Bridewell Theatre as part of this year's Camden Fringe festival. With shambling, moaning and sparkly intestines, they turn audience suggestions into a zombie film with more laughs than horror. Last night's show told the story of 'Delay of the Dead', where terrified TfL workers had to escape a zombie-infested Bakerloo line. Time travel, rat catching and experiments in cloning led to an underground teeming with the undead, who were eventually defeated by being trapped in the carriages of the London Eye, doomed to an eternity of circular sightseeing. To start with, the story rambled a little, with scenes going on for too long with no real purpose. I was worried that we'd be in for ...

16Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Evita Too – Zoo Southside

ZOO Southside’s Main House is a wonderfully generous Fringe venue, a huge wide stage, properly raked seating and not a bad view in the house. In fact, the stage is so large and voluminous that you could probably roller skate around it naked if you wanted to. Sh!t Theatre, it turns out, wanted to. Rebecca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole are one of the funniest double acts at this year’s Fringe. I’ve seen Sh!t Theatre many times before and they never disappoint. EVITA TOO gives them an unusually expansive playground, and they use pretty much all of it. Their starting point is Isabel Perón, Juan Perón’s third wife and the woman who succeeded him as President of Argentina in 1974, becoming the first female president of any country in the world. Yet ask most of us about a Mrs ...

Boy In A Box – Guilded Balloon Patter House

16Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Boy In A Box – Guilded Balloon Patter House

There is something wonderfully unsettling about Paul Coates’ Boy in a Box. This is a single hander that treads a remarkably fine line between humour and some very dark places indeed, including suicide, while somehow finding room for what becomes a fascinating, if increasingly unhinged, lecture on American history. And the box is not theoretical. It is right there. Every now and again, a thump comes from inside it. Whatever, or whoever, is in there wants out: the disenfranchised, the silenced, the forgotten majority? We are told one thing with certainty, whatever is in the box is definitely not white. So, what is it? Black? Brown? Asian? Honduran? All of them? And, more importantly, who is willing to open the box and find out? Coates veers between appearing like a madma...

Tamsyn Kelly (Rat’s Ass) – Monkey Barrel Comedy

16Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Tamsyn Kelly (Rat’s Ass) – Monkey Barrel Comedy

Tamsyn’s skint. So is her boyfriend. She works in comedy. So does he. They decided to move to London anyway. No doubt the drive and desire that took them there explains why she pops in each morning to the venue; just to check no-one’s opened a door that might disturb that damp subterranean ambience long ago patented by The Fringe. It’s a long way to the top, or maybe Blue Peter, but an even longer journey if you’re born to a homeless couple in Cornwall, though, as this show proves, it does provide better stories. She nips in the bud any conclusions based on her haircut. Though the drill collection is expanding and the shelving potential increasing for all the Hockey trophies. She dumps the obligatory ADHD diagnosis into the same category as an air fryer, since with either you’ll ...

16Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

ALOK: Eat, Pray, Leave – Pleasance One

If I had to choose one word for Eat Pray Leave, it would be confusing. ALOK is difficult to quantify and, for me, frequently difficult to understand. Having reviewed more than 30 shows at this year’s Fringe, this was comfortably the most densely challenging in terms of language. ALOK Vaid-Menon is an international star, writer, comedian, poet and leading non-binary voice, and there is no doubting the intelligence or purpose behind this hour. ALOK is not here to make trite jokes. They are here to provoke, challenge and demand recognition. I came with an open mind, ready to listen and understand. But I also needed to be let into the conversation. Too often, the language felt constructed for an audience already familiar with its vocabulary and cultural references. I could sense...

16Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

ROLEPLAY – Summerhall

Sex sells. It always has and judging by the sold-out run of ROLEPLAY at Summerhall, it probably always will. The skin-heavy posters are everywhere, the publicity machine has worked extraordinarily well, but there is an uncomfortable question here. Is ROLEPLAY exploiting the very thing it purports to condemn? Written and performed by Hannah Reilly, this one-woman show follows Danni, a feminist podcaster who discovers that sexualising herself brings the attention her more earnest work could not. There is potentially fertile ground here, the commodification of feminism, online identity and the uncomfortable intersection between empowerment and exploitation. Reilly is undoubtedly a committed and energetic performer. My problem is not so much with the performance a...

16Aug

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

Scotland

21 Days – Etcetera Theatre

Sushant Nair’s ‘21 Days’ takes a recognisably human crisis and places it against the increasingly blurred boundary between people and artificial intelligence. Set in 2030, although there is little to evidence this from the staging, Jay is struggling following a painful break-up, retreating into isolation, anger, alcohol and self-help books, before the arrival of the enigmatic May begins to disrupt his downward trajectory. Presented at Camden Fringe in a 60-minute abridgement of a longer 90-minute production, the play has an intelligent, contemporary premise. Its strapline, “As AI learns from itself, humanity must relearn itself”, provides a provocative starting point, although perhaps humanity has always been doing precisely that. We reprogramme ourselves whenever relationships end,...