REVIEWS Archives - Page 22 of 629

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,...

16Aug

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

Fagbreak – Cockpit Theatre

As its first and only staged performance, ‘Fagbreak’ arrives with the understandable rough edges of new writing, but unfortunately, in its current form, Purnima Rai’s play feels lengthy, unfocused and in drastic need of editing. Following 4 young people working together in a hot-dog takeaway, there are potentially interesting ideas around friendship, work and personal struggle, but these never coalesce into a sufficiently coherent narrative, and at around seventy-five minutes, Director, Estrella Mabika’s production feels considerably longer than the limited material can sustain, scenes frequently outstay their purpose and conversations meander without advancing either character or story. There may be a sharper, more impactful thirty-minute play buried somewhere within the material, ...

Amanda Knox: Cartwheel – Gilded Balloon, The Wine Bar

15Aug

By Jessie MartinNo Comments

Scotland

Amanda Knox: Cartwheel – Gilded Balloon, The Wine Bar

Amanda Knox’s show has been the talk of the town at the Edinburgh Fringe. With protests calling for the show to be removed, Knox is quite the figure of controversy. Being convicted for the alleged murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher during their study abroad programme in Italy in 2009, Knox was sentenced to 26 years in prison. Released after four years, Knox was finally acquitted in 2015. In Amanda Knox: Cartwheel, part one-woman show, part stand-up, Knox tells of the continuous impact the accusation played on her life as a young woman, and now mother. Using a voiceover of her four year-old daughter, Knox provides an imaginary dialogue showing the difficulties she has had in explaining the events to such a young child. Furthering this image, Knox te...

Beethoven 7 & Ortiz: Los Angeles Philharmonic – Usher Hall

15Aug

By Saira KunjuvalappilNo Comments

Scotland

Beethoven 7 & Ortiz: Los Angeles Philharmonic – Usher Hall

Marked as one of the definitive anchor classical events of the 2026 Edinburgh International Festival, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s appearance at Usher Hall was an evening of striking contrasts. Conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, the orchestra presented Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 alongside Gabriela Ortiz’s Revolución diamantina, a work inspired by Mexico City’s 2019 Glitter Revolution and its protests against violence towards women. The 1 hour 45 minute concert, with one interval, was the first of three appearances by the LA Philharmonic at this year’s Festival. It also carried a particular sense of occasion. Dudamel, who has led the orchestra for seventeen years, is coming to the end of his remarkable tenure before taking up his new role with the New York Philharmonic. His long-standing re...

15Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Spencer Jones (Dogs) – Pleasance Dome

‘You off to work Dad?’ ‘Yeah son, I’m off to work.’ Observing the prop-strewn set one can only speculate on who has the tidiest room in the Jones household. It definitely won’t be a dull place. The title of tonight’s show is ‘Dogs’ and it’s not so much a theme as a frame on which to hang each chaotic episode. Brilliant, illuminated chaos, the set a physical representation of our performer’s unruly, hilariously distracted mind. Surreal, and fascinating, too. Surveying this as we take our seats a geezer we’ve all encountered in the night-time economy blunders into our midst, apologising, ‘I’m a man with three pints’, cranking up the anxiety with the plea ‘I need a wee.’ With the fourth wall in ruins and the tone established, Jones arrives at his set, removes his ‘big heid’ an...

Andrew White (What A Life) – Edinburgh Cab Vol 2

15Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Andrew White (What A Life) – Edinburgh Cab Vol 2

Wasn’t he lovely? Just ask Phil the celebrant. But seriously, he was. OK, funnily, he was. Very Funnily as it happens, nicely illustrating how to compose an hour of laughs with few swear words or much fabricated controversy in sight. But he didn’t neglect dark. There was plenty about death and what’s one to expect when you were reared by a mother obsessed with murder documentaries and the idea that bad things (death, chiefly) come in threes? Or insisting that any track from the radio meeting approval be added to the ‘I want that at my funeral’ list. In this potted account of his life Andrew’s inspirational Mum took top billing, co-stars being his partner, sundry friends and mentors from teenage years when White’s social circle consisted of 60-year-olds. Precocious, him? Johnathan...