Scotland Archives - Page 19 of 93

Married at Fringe Sight — theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall

11Aug

By Olivia CoxNo Comments

Scotland

Married at Fringe Sight — theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall

Are you looking for love at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe? Whether you’re on the hunt for a quick fling or your future spouse, The Queer Comedy Club are here to help with their very fun new show Married at Fringe Sight. Hosted by comedians David Ian and Jeremy Topp, audience members are invited to scan a QR code and answer questions about topics such as their worst ever date, their ideal partner, and the worst thing about their last (or current) partner to help the duo play match-maker. But this isn’t just a show for singletons. We’re told that in this space, for one night only, relationship status, sexuality, and preferences are thrown completely out the window — handy, given that the ratio of straight women to straight men in my audience was approximately 20:1. Once the comed...

The Dreamer: Live – Underbelly Circus Hub

11Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Dreamer: Live – Underbelly Circus Hub

One of the most heavily (and successfully) promoted shows I’ve ever seen on the Fringe, the ubiquitous posters have foretold of the coming of the boy wonder, James Phelan, long before his arrival. But is it and is he really up to the hype? Well, yes and no. Without wanting to give too much away – no spoilers here – the show is certainly entertaining. In Underbelley’s giant Spiegeltent know as ‘The Beauty’, Phelan holds court from a raised ‘in the round’ centre stage, which suits his style of friendly bonhomie. His quick wit plays on the answers from various audience volunteers and draws easy and relaxed laughs, and never in a nasty way. The biggest surprise and to some extent, disappointment, here, is that this is not really a magic show at all, in the traditional sense, but m...

Divas of Jazz – theSpace @ Symposium Hall

11Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Divas of Jazz – theSpace @ Symposium Hall

Singer Hannah Hay exudes youthful appreciation of her genre, swaying barefoot before an excellent five-piece in the comfortable and intimate space that is quite possibly the best appointed live music venue in Edinburgh in August. The great acoustic, leather seats and ample legroom usually make it an easy and clever choice for music lovers. Particularly those of a certain age! Unfortunately, the music of jazz so often borne of toil and pain and heartache, and at home in happy, low-lit backstreet bars or clandestine hotel lounges, struggles to sound authentic or nuanced in this luxurious a setting and between these so directionally well lit walls. There is no atmosphere. Which is a shame, because Hay is an accomplished singer and the musicianship behind her is also excellent. St...

Me For You – Pleasance Courtyard (The Green)

10Aug

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

Me For You – Pleasance Courtyard (The Green)

‘Me for You’ is a fascinating play about two women who are in love. It has a sparkling, very funny script and is beautifully performed. The climate emergency provides an intriguing backdrop to this contemporary drama. Holly has been seeing Jake for quite some time. Now they want to have a child together. But Jake comes to regret the day he introduces Holly to his friend and workmate, Alex. The two women quickly fall in love. For a while Holly continues to sleep with Jake but, as she’s also having an affair with Alex, she stops taking the pill. Holly finally tells Jake the truth. Understandably he’s very upset. And Holly’s assurance that “It’s you, not me” and that she still cares about him, doesn’t really help Jake to feel any better. Two people had loved each other. But the r...

An Asian Queer Story: Coming Out to Dead People – Assembly Roxy

10Aug

By Wendy McEwanNo Comments

Scotland

An Asian Queer Story: Coming Out to Dead People – Assembly Roxy

Ricky Sim is a gifted storyteller. He talks beautifully about the complexities of coming out as gay to his Malaysian family, and his grief following the death of his beloved mother. He also tells a lot of dick jokes. Sim engages energetically with the crowd as he introduces us to the intricacies of “Gaysian” culture and the accompanying slang. Do you know why Sim decided not to major in computer science? Go to his show and you will find out. Just when Sim was preparing to come out to his mom, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He was afraid that he might break her heart. He wished that there was a gay Asian role model he could point to, so that she would know he could be happy. Sim fills our hearts with memories and little details about his mother. Years after her passing, w...

Jake Donaldson: Spectacle – Mash House, Just the Attic

10Aug

By Ben PearsonNo Comments

Scotland

Jake Donaldson: Spectacle – Mash House, Just the Attic

Jake Donaldson delivers a hilarious hour of entertaining and at times informative comedy in his stand-up show Spectacle. Donaldson is partially sighted, meaning he sees things, in his words, ‘like a memory’. He has a picture, but it’s blurry round the edges. Donaldson uses his disability as a starting point for some truly brilliant humour. Most notably, there’s an ‘audio description’ recording that plays on and off throughout the show. Beginning as a simple description of Donaldson’s movements around the venue, the ‘voice’ soon goes off-piste, insulting both his appearance and his routine. I don’t want to give anything away, but the audio description even allows for a closing twist that made several members of the audience gasp (myself included). I had an enormous grin on my face...

The Picture of Dorian Gray – the Space On The Mile

10Aug

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

The Picture of Dorian Gray – the Space On The Mile

Oscar Wilde's famous novel (commissioned 125 years ago this month as it happens, during the same dinner that brought back Sherlock Holmes for his second novel) is, in case you didn't know, about a man who gives up his soul to have his portrait age instead of him. It is presented here in a new adaptation curtesy of ETC Theatre Company, promising "a fast-paced adaptation featuring music, slapstick and plenty of Wildean wit". While I'm not sure I'd agree with the last part of that description outside of the lines plucked straight from the novel - can anything be called Wildean when it includes dancing to Abba and Robbie Williams? - the first two are indeed here in buckets and the show is a joyously silly farce from beginning to end which had its audience laughing throughout. Playing...

Suggestions of the Unexpected – The Space @ Surgeon’s Hall

10Aug

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

Suggestions of the Unexpected – The Space @ Surgeon’s Hall

The creators of Any Suggestions, Doctor? The Improvised Doctor Who Parody (who are also called Any Suggestions) return after a limited 2023 Fringe run with their improvised anthology in the style of The Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, or whatever that Roald Dahl TV series was called. With three tales mixing the supernatural and the morality tale - always with humour of course - there is much variety on show, and being a show that changes every night, this is one of the rare occasions when I can illustrate my point without fear of spoilers. On the night I attended, the stories we saw involved an AI (kind of) taking over the world, witchcraft to win a tiddlywinks championship, and a pheasant infestation in an ancestral manor, all based on answers to questions asked of the audience by the...

Failure Project – Summerhall, Anatomy Lecture Theatre

10Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Failure Project – Summerhall, Anatomy Lecture Theatre

A new play by BAFTA nominee Yolanda Mercy (Quarter Life Crisis), in which Mercy plays Ade Adeyami, a young British-Nigerian playwright and actor who is still riding the wave of her first play, which has become an unexpected Fringe hit. With this success, and the realisation that she might even be able to make a living from her dream, comes an unexpected problem - a hierarchy of editors, agents and publicists who are there to help, nay manipulate, her. Ade’s second play, Day Girl, about a working-class black kid at a private school, has been commissioned, and paid for, and Ade finds she must now dance to her new masters’ tune. Before she knows it a B-list, minor celebrity influencer with no acting experience is cast in the lead instead of Ade, worst still she want to be ‘collabora...

Sleeping With The Yemeni: Mike Eshaq – Just The Tonic Legends

10Aug

By Wendy McEwanNo Comments

Scotland

Sleeping With The Yemeni: Mike Eshaq – Just The Tonic Legends

Mike Eshaq is an American Muslim on Yemeni descent, who has served in the US marines and loves bacon. In other words, he has plenty to talk about. He comes from Detroit, which used to be America’s murder capital. But the city has been colonised by hipsters and now, even Eshaq’s old friends use words like “delectable”. It is Eshaq’s first time in Scotland, and apparently we are hard to understand. In particular, Eshaq’s GPS does not like the Old Town. “Have you ever found a show.. and then found that you were above the show?” That’s my pet peeve about Edinburgh (my home city) too! Eshaq travels extensively, doing shows in all sorts of exotic locations - but the weirdest is Oklahoma. He is keen to learn about Scotland and what makes us tick. One joke falls flat due to the cultural ...