Scotland Archives - Page 11 of 154

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,...

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...

REDACTED: The Cover-Up of a Cover-Up of a Cover-Up – Pleasance Dome

15Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

REDACTED: The Cover-Up of a Cover-Up of a Cover-Up – Pleasance Dome

Sometimes reviewing at the Fringe is difficult. Sometimes you spend half the walk home wondering what on earth you have just seen and how you are going to write about it. And sometimes they make it very easy for you. REDACTED: The Cover,Up of a Cover,Up of a Cover,Up is brilliant. There is something here that reminds me of the extraordinary Foley work I enjoyed in Fly, You Fools! at the Pleasance Courtyard last year. Voloz Collective take that idea and turn it into something approaching live cinematic Foley, four actors creating an entire visual world while musician Jonny Venvell, tucked into the corner with percussion and strings, does much of the heavy lifting in establishing its sound. The integration is beautiful. Music, movement, sound effects and physical theatre...

Morning Sauna Rave – Sauna Theatre Summerhall

15Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Morning Sauna Rave – Sauna Theatre Summerhall

There is something slightly perverse about setting an alarm to go to a rave. Admittedly, Morning Sauna Rave does not start until 10.30am, but during the Edinburgh Fringe that still feels positively dawn-like. A sunny walk across Edinburgh past Arthur’s Seat certainly helps, and by the time I am stripped down to swimwear and heading into the heat, the prospect of starting the day with music, steam and a cold plunge seems increasingly sensible. This is my latest visit to Sauna Theatre, the extraordinary temporary structure occupying Summerhall’s rear courtyard, on the very spot where Paines Plough’s Roundabout was launched in 2014. Designed for 80 people, it is both the UK’s largest sauna and its first purpose-built sauna arts centre. Having visited before, I remain im...

15Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

This Shining Night – Usher Hall

The concert begins and ends beneath the same shining night, Samuel Barber first contemplating James Agee’s stars, Morten Lauridsen returning us to them at the conclusion. Much has happened in the darkness between. This Shining Night, part of the Edinburgh International Festival’s celebration of choral music, brings the Edinburgh Festival Chorus to the Usher Hall under conductor Sofi Jeannin for a journey through American choral music. It is an intelligently constructed programme; one whose dramatic shape only becomes fully apparent as the evening unfolds. It starts quietly enough. Barber’s Sure on This Shining Night, his 1938 setting of Agee’s poetry, establishes the idea which will eventually bring us full circle. There are beauty and restraint here, but initially I find my...

Dan Rath: Help Me Please – Monkey Barrel Comedy

15Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Dan Rath: Help Me Please – Monkey Barrel Comedy

I descended a labyrinth of stairs into the sub-basement of Cabaret Voltaire to find Dan Rath. Red and blue LEDs light the way through a grungy, stone-arched room, while great lengths of aluminium ventilation snake overhead. It is a fascinating venue, dark, subterranean and atmospheric. No windows here, folks. And, on this occasion, not really much of a window into Dan Rath either. I had been looking forward to this. Rath’s I’m Not Doing Well, Folks is hilarious, a gloriously peculiar, rapid-fire excursion through a mind that seems permanently several steps ahead of its owner. Help Me Please, however, feels surprisingly tired. Perhaps that is simply Rath’s demeanour, but tonight the delivery seems slower, the jokes flatter and the whole thing rather scattergun. There...