Scotland Archives - North West End UK

Magic Awareness Society – The Royal Scots Club

1Jan

By Jessie MartinNo Comments

Scotland

Magic Awareness Society – The Royal Scots Club

Set in the exuberant class of The Royal Scots Club, the highly esteemed Magic Awareness Society has gathered to instil the law - magic is banned and has been for decades. In this meeting we are informed on the dangers of magic, the tricks magicians historically used, and the ways in which we could be coerced by them today. Ironically being performed on the final night of the Edinburgh International Magic Festival, it is soon revealed to us that this meeting is a ruse. In fact, this meeting is a resistance - we are here to oppose the ban on magic and once again be filled with wonder. Leading this show is Tim Licata, accompanied by his right-hand man Dan Bastianelli. Both magicians are clearly very well experienced, dedicating a large amount of focus on the perf...

Jamie Leonard, Wonder Boy – Edinburgh International Magic Festival

1Jan

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Jamie Leonard, Wonder Boy – Edinburgh International Magic Festival

As my final show in this year’s Edinburgh Magic Festival, Wonderboy brought energy, charm and an undeniable sense of youthful confidence. Performed at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, Jamie arrives fresh from a successful 2025 Edinburgh Fringe run and clearly comfortable in front of an audience. This boy unquestionably knows his way around a stage. There’s a strong theatrical instinct at work here, allied to a rubber-faced expressiveness that plays very effectively to a mixed crowd. At just 17, his confidence is impressive, and he leans into his age with a stream of schoolboy humour and routines that feel knowingly pitched rather than apologetic. It’s a sensible strategy, and one that allows him to sidestep the trap of pretending to be more seasoned than he is. That said, ...

Insane Christmas Magic – Edinburgh International Magic Festival

1Jan

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Insane Christmas Magic – Edinburgh International Magic Festival

There’s always a faint risk with festive spin-offs that the tinsel overwhelms the craft. Happily, Insane Christmas Magic avoids that trap entirely. This is not novelty magic with baubles glued on, it’s proper, high-grade conjuring, lightly dusted with Christmas spirit and delivered by three performers who know exactly what they’re doing. The trio, Cameron Gibson, Elliot Bibby and Luke Osey, are no strangers to Edinburgh audiences. Gibson and Bibby in particular have been round these parts many times before, and it shows. There’s an ease to their stage presence that can’t be faked, relaxed, confident, and quietly assured in a way that instantly settles an audience. No visible nerves, no frantic patter, just a sense that you’re in safe hands. Magically speaking, that’s always a good ...

Tricky Ricky, Jingles All The Way – Edinburgh International Magic Festival

1Jan

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Tricky Ricky, Jingles All The Way – Edinburgh International Magic Festival

There’s a particular challenge to the Christmas morning family show: you’re dealing with excitable children, coffee-deprived adults, and a room that’s already humming before you’ve said a word. Jingles All The Way, Tricky Ricky’s festive offering at the Scottish Storytelling Centre as part of the Edinburgh Magic Festival, meets that challenge with confidence, warmth, and a good understanding of its audience. Ricky pitches his comedy in broadly Shrek-style territory, knowingly silly, fast-moving, and deliberately aimed across the child–adult divide. For the most part, it works. The jokes come thick and fast, the tone is inclusive rather than condescending, and there’s a sense that he’s genuinely comfortable working a mixed-age crowd. That ease is hardly surprising: Ricky has spent many y...

Four Magicians – Edinburgh Storytelling Centre

30Dec

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Four Magicians – Edinburgh Storytelling Centre

Fit like, loons and quines? If floundering in the fog of ‘Betwixmas’ the answer will have been overwhelmingly positive after 80 minutes in the company of this engaging quartet from the north-east. Tricks, illusions and mirages lurked within a pleasant, easy-going evening of chat and mild comedy, the odd well-aimed barb (mostly at a recently de-frocked prince) adding a note or two of spice. Especially amusing in a self-effacing, Corbett-style manner was Jeff Burns, making the most of his diminutive stature. Clearly the audience volunteers are bigger these days, to boot. All are members of or connected with, the Aberdeen Magical Society. Smith & Burns (Jeff Burns & Ivor Smith) are sometimes known as Fifth Dimension and have a track record in dispelling the tedium of business confe...

30Dec

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Secret Room – Lauriston Castle

Perched on the edge of the Firth of Forth, Lauriston Castle is one of those Edinburgh buildings that seems to exist slightly out of time. Parts of the structure date back to the 16th century, though what we see today is largely the result of a late-19th-century transformation, when the castle was remodelled into a richly furnished Edwardian home. Passed to the city in the 1920s, it survives as a carefully preserved domestic time capsule, its rooms dense with objects, stories, and a quietly uncanny sense of lives once very fully lived. I’ve also seen performances here as part of the Edinburgh Horror Festival, and the building proves just as effective for horror as it does for magic, lending both genres an atmosphere that feels earned rather than applied. That quality is central to The Se...

Kevin Quantum ‘Christmas Special’ – Church Hill Theatre

30Dec

By Jessie MartinNo Comments

Scotland

Kevin Quantum ‘Christmas Special’ – Church Hill Theatre

Renowned Edinburgh Magician Kevin Quantum is joined by Taylor Morgan and Rebecca Foyle for an evening of showmanship, finesse, and artistry in Kevin Quantum ‘Christmas Special’ as part of the Edinburgh International Magic Festival. Founded by Svetlana McMahon as well as Quantum, the Edinburgh International Magic Festival has been around since 2010. Now being its fifteenth year running, the festival still continues to bring something fresh and exciting from the world of magic for its audiences. The lineup is certainly star-studded, with Morgan having recently represented Great Britain at this year's Magic World Championships and Foyle impressing with her versatility, using multiple disciplines to complete her act. Of course Quantum himself is a highly regarded magician, ha...

Jack and the Beanstalk – Festival Theatre

22Dec

By Susan CohenNo Comments

Scotland

Jack and the Beanstalk – Festival Theatre

What never fails to amaze about Edinburgh’s panto is that year after year, it seems to reinvent itself. This year the city’s beloved panto team delivered the most intriguing combination – an unpredictable quirkiness on a stage dressed with the most spectacular set. This production was exquisitely lit and its set extravagantly and effectively designed so that it felt like something special, something pretty swanky well before the first flash of (many) pyrotechnics. Indeed, it was so extravagant that the cost was comedically referred to by Allan Stewart (Dame May McTrot) on more than one occasion, pointing out that sacrifices had to be made in the budget elsewhere. Funny? Yes. True? Most probably. And so, there we all went, flying headlong into Panto...

22Dec

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Finding Balance – Traverse Theatre

Five writers, five directors and twenty five actors come together for the inaugural event from Balancing Act Theatre. Scratch nights are a little like winter allotments: the soil is cold, the beds are uneven, and what you’re really being asked to admire is not the harvest but the intention. Finding Balance, Winter, hosted by David Gardner and Benedict Hoesl, wears that honesty openly. This is an evening about writers finding their feet rather than actors polishing their shoes, and the Traverse’s Traverse 2 becomes a kind of rehearsal room made public, scripts in hand and possibilities hovering. The temperature of the night is best described as promising but baggy. Five short works in progress make for a long evening, and the cumulative effect can feel diffuse, particularly w...

15Dec

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

4Play – Traverse Theatre

The Traverse’s 4PLAY has form, a new-writing pressure cooker where short pieces are aired, tested, and occasionally launched into something much larger. Last year’s Colours Run was proof enough that this collective can produce work that grows real legs. This year’s quartet, though, is more uneven, with flashes of real quality offset by structural quirks and the odd misjudgement. The evening opens with Chips by Ruaraidh Murray, a micro-play in every sense. Running no more than seven or eight minutes, it dramatises a real-life Edinburgh gangland robbery, not for cash, but for microchips, with a premise that promises much more than the piece has time to deliver. There’s energy and intent here, but it barely gets started before it’s over. As an amuse-bouche, it’s intriguing, as drama, it’s ...