REVIEWS Archives - Page 30 of 406

Lads of the Flies – The Space @ Niddry Street

8Aug

By Jessie MartinNo Comments

Scotland

Lads of the Flies – The Space @ Niddry Street

STAG (Student Theatre at Glasgow), takes the Fringe by storm with their latest production written and directed by Grace Donaldson. This quick-witted, fast-paced show tells the story of four “lads” lost on their Duke of Edinburgh expedition - two of whom, are coming to terms with their sexuality. Throughout the play we see them accept that they are in love, and they do in fact fit the rugby lad stereotype – they’re as gay as gay can be. Donaldson’s writing is incredibly sharp, with well-thought, quick-witted remarks from each character. The actors were steadfast in their roles – so sure of themselves that I really did see them as lads (even the one with pigtails). The group played off of each other wonderfully, really giving the audience a good chuckle. The...

8Aug

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

Scotland

Dionysa – C Arts Aquila

I am on a roll with Greek tragedies at the 2024 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and the Wellington College Theatre Collective’s take on Euripides’ ‘The Bacchae’ is interesting. The company have loaded the play into a time machine and moved it into the 20th Century, 1920 to be exact. This play written by an Athenian playwright was set in Thebes, this remains the same, but we have a gender change, as the original play is based around Dionysus, a Greek god (also known as Bacchus to the Romans), of whom was originally a Thracian god, later adopted by the Greeks. This gender change makes Dionysus become Dionysa! The basic storyline is that Dionysa (Cressida Massey-Cook), is a god, born from a union between her father Zeus and her mortal mother Semele. Dionysa is enrage...

The Sex Life of Puppets – Pleasance Courtyard

8Aug

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

Scotland

The Sex Life of Puppets – Pleasance Courtyard

An interesting title, and an even more interesting show. Brought to the stage by Blind Summit Theatre, the play does exactly what the title suggests, it gives an insight into the private lives of a selection of puppets which sounds a wee bit twee, but this play is anything but twee! The puppets are not string puppets but hand-held puppets, which I assume would make them easier to manipulate for the subject of the show. The puppeteers use a table to sit the puppets down and the rest is down to the script and the puppeteers’ imagination. The puppets are all human puppets whose characters are brought to life by their handlers, they discuss subjects such as sexual wellbeing, what they like to name their genitals, nursing home sex, lesbian sex and many more. ...

8Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Nation – Roundabout @ Summerhall

Within the womb-like space that is The Roundhouse, at Summerhall, one of my favs in the scrum that is the Fringe, magic can happen. Nation might have been written for this space, and this time. It may not be the kind of launch pad writer and performer Sam Ward would have wanted, but the spate of xenophobic far-right riots sweeping the UK makes this story chilling pertinent. Ward welcomes us into the tent and asks us to exist in the moment, right now you are an audience listening to a storyteller. Right now, I’m a postman, on a High Street of an ordinary town. We are asked to imagine the ordinary town, not too big, not too small, and the ordinary people that inhabit it. The Butcher, the Baker, the Pilates Instructor, Ward points at people in the audience, assigning identities, ...

Reuben Kaye: Live and Intimidating – Assembly George Square

8Aug

By Torya HughesNo Comments

Scotland

Reuben Kaye: Live and Intimidating – Assembly George Square

Self-described “actress, model and award-winning cry for help” Reuben Kaye brings his new show to the Palais du Variete for its UK debut. An experienced and talented cabaret performer and comedian, Kaye has been impressing audiences and critics alike at the Fringe for several years now. He not only performs his own show, but also curates a late-night variety show amusingly titled The Kaye Hole. He welcomes the audience individually at the door, towering above the crowd in sparkly stilettos and a ruffled shirt split to the waist. There isn’t a hint of the intimidation mentioned in the title of the show – but then the performance starts. Kaye stalks amongst the front rows like some sort of impossibly glamorous praying mantis looking for its next victim. Audience members are serenaded,...

8Aug

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

Eleanor – the Space @ Niddry Street

Eleanor, the youngest daughter of Karl Marx, was a socialist and feminist activist. But this play concentrates mainly on her relationships with her lover and friends. All of the characters in this well written drama by Agnes Perry-Robinson were real people, intellectuals who lived in late nineteen century England. The play is based on research. But Perry-Robinsion has used her imagination to recreate some of the interactions between Eleanor and her friends. We see laughter-filled soirées full of stimulating conversations, charades and acting. The group shares a love of Shakespeare and even play the mechanicals performing ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. It’s all great fun - at first. Eleanor (nicknamed ‘Tussy’) has a particularly close friendship with ...

Sing Along With the Fairy Song – Scottish Storytelling Centre

8Aug

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

Sing Along With the Fairy Song – Scottish Storytelling Centre

Sing Along With the Fairy Song is Edinburgh Fringe for Early Years. An elegant wooden chair, a stool, two pedestals of white roses, a projection of frolicking fairies, bird song and the veteran storyteller for children, Janis Mackay, warmly welcome a select audience. Mackay is experienced with little ones and greets the fairy-winged and magic-wanded little people with charm and encouragement. This is an interactive piece and the young audience repeat the actions and songs with enthusiasm as they join Mackay in an imaginary hunt for fairies in the woods or hiding amid the flowers and maybe secretly living under miniature hillocks. It took a little time to teach the songs and draw out flower and tree names from the youngsters, but once over their shyness, three little girls did not...

Sheeps: The Giggle Bunch – Pleasance Courtyard

8Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Sheeps: The Giggle Bunch – Pleasance Courtyard

This 3 for 1 offer is for the most part good value. Sheeps with pedigree, Ladhood creator Liam Williams, Stath Lets Flats star Al Roberts and writer Daran Johnson. Former Fringe favourites return after a six year hiatus with a new suite of sketches which are in turn brilliant, tricksy, silly and just plain weird, in what they promise is their final Fringe run together (probably!). Given their already high-flying status, this is more of an excuse for the ‘boys’ to get together one last time, rather than a serious career or financial move. There’s an intriguing boy band dynamic and comedic palsy bickering throughout the show which is part of the show’s charm. The quality of the sketches is varied to say the least, the opening skit, possibly the high point of the show, features a...

8Aug

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

Please Right Back – The Studio

Please Right Back is awesome. Comics, film, animation and music are magically and seamlessly interwoven in this touching, visually addictive family tale. Join Mr E as he explains his absence through vividly imagined tall tales, swallowed whole by his loving offspring. A 1927 and Burgtheatre Vienna joint production, Please Right Back was written by Suzanne Andrade. This creation is based, loosely, on her own experience. The company, 1927, was founded in 2005 by co-artistic directors, Andrade (Writer and Director) and Paul Barritt (Film, Animation and Design). They work out of London and that not-to-be-forgotten seaside town of Margate in Kent with its sunshine, sand, funfair and ice cream cones. Known internationally for their repertoire in theatre and opera, this multi-award winni...

My Last Two Brain Cells – Underbelly Cowgate

8Aug

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

My Last Two Brain Cells – Underbelly Cowgate

Joe Pike, Tom Hazleden and Hannah Tudge, all graduates of Fourth Monkey Drama School, Finsbury Park, return with My Last Two Brain Cells after their run-away success at the 2023 Edinburgh Fringe, where Chortle rated them the seventh highest comedy show of the Festival. “It’s a whacky, zany, chaotic hour of madness,” to quote Pike. The protagonists are the last two brain cells of a dying man called Gary Kane. In an effort to save him, the pair try all sorts of crazy shenanigans, drawing in the audience to help them. It is Hysterical. This is theatre of the absurd for the twenty-first century. And it has sold out for three of its five shows so far. Inspired by the pressure to develop a scratch play for their finals and the ever-popular humour of Sponge-Bob Square Pants, Pike ...