Edinburgh Fringe Review 2026 Archives - Page 5 of 6

22Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Hole! – Underbelly Bristo Sq.

If it is done with enough passion, commitment and sheer musical ability, apparently you really can make a musical about absolutely anything. HOLE! is the proof. Created and performed by American Sing-Song's Jake Brasch and Nadja Leonhard-Hooper, and directed by RJ Tolan, its premise is completely bonkers. A fundamentalist Christian community in Nebraska prepares for an apocalyptic event called The Great Sucking, and survival depends upon having something firmly lodged where the sun doesn't shine. That's probably enough plot. What I wasn't expecting was just how controlled, sophisticated and ultimately joyous this would be. The musicianship is superb. Brasch and Leonhard-Hooper move from big, life-affirming harmonies into exquisitely intimate passages, sometimes accompanied...

22Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Two Little Pigs – Pleasance Courtyard

There is a problem before Two Little Pigs has even begun. Sitting in the front row of The Green at Pleasance Courtyard, the glare from the lighting is sufficiently fierce that I resort to sunglasses. That shouldn't happen. The Green itself is a wafer-thin temporary structure seating around 60, full tonight, but with external noise penetrating the space. Nevertheless, director Merle Wheldon and her two performers have an intriguing hour ahead of them. Written by Caitlin McEwan, produced by Patrick Bone Productions, and performed by McEwan as Pig alongside Caleb Hughes as Mark, Two Little Pigs takes us into the increasingly troubling world of the manosphere. Mark's relationship with Martha has collapsed and she has walked out. Into the void comes a pig. The slight...

The Great Shakespeare Showdown – theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall

21Aug

By Ross MackieNo Comments

Scotland

The Great Shakespeare Showdown – theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall

The Great Shakespeare Showdown is a brisk, crowd-pleasing slice of Fringe theatre that knows exactly what it is: a daft, affectionate celebration of Shakespeare, showmanship and frontier bravado. Set in Leadville, Colorado, in 1882, Dennis Elkins’ comedy imagines a town so besotted with the Bard that its silver miners can quote him as readily as they can swing a pickaxe. It is a wonderfully odd premise, and the production leans into that oddness with infectious confidence. The show’s central contest pits English thespian Sir Charles GoodKnight (Dan Morrison) against American stage star Harriet Twelvetrees (Kate Poling) in a verbal shoot-out of quotations, insults and theatrical one-upmanship. Around them, Billy (Mel Schaffer) acts as master of ceremonies, inviting the audience to cheer,...

21Aug

By Ella BeckleyNo Comments

Scotland

Dust – Pleasance Courtyard

Dust travels through time and space, waltzing, dodging and diving through the life of a working-class man. It is the energetic, nostalgic retelling of life that many wish they could’ve had from their own grandparents. Bunker one at Pleasance Courtyard, a cavernous stage set only with a wooden trunk, a walking stick and a miner’s helmet set atop. Seats littered with flyers describing Dust as ‘A true story of northern grit, humour, heart & soul!’, covered in appraisals and five-star ratings. Once the house lights dim and actor Craig...

21Aug

By Ella BeckleyNo Comments

Scotland

Trainspotting Live – Pleasance @ EICC

Trainspotting Live has a reputation to behold, with nine years of sell-out Fringe runs and Irvine Welsh himself saying it’s ‘better than either the book or film’. The show is deserving of every star it has ever received and more. The atmosphere at the EICC is buzzing with expectations, stewards replace tickets with glow sticks and usher audience members towards a darkened space with heavy dance music and flashing lights. From the moment the cast welcome their audience onto their raving set, Trainspotting Live draws you in like a moth to a flame, only to set you ablaze and turn it all to ash. The cast bring their world alive, pulling the audience into every moment of joy, love, loss and fear. It all begins with contagiously high energy, the characters are literally...

A Pebble In The Road – Pleasance Courtyard

21Aug

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

Scotland

A Pebble In The Road – Pleasance Courtyard

It was an absolute delight to spend an hour and ten minutes in the company of Ingeborga Dapkunaite, to hear her story of three generations of women, and their experiences living in Lithuania. This is storytelling in its purest form, one person on a stage with no props other than a chair, and with Dapkunaite wearing plain black clothes so that nothing will distract us from the tale of these incredible women. The play moves between locations but is predominately set in the family’s home in Lithuania. We join them on Christmas eve, Dapkunaite shows us the layout of the downstairs of the house, and we learn that they will dine on twelve different dishes with the family sitting around a table with a white tablecloth. Like every family, they have their own traditions at ...

21Aug

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

Scotland

Drone – Pleasance Courtyard

I have taken time to mull over this show before writing my thoughts. I call it a show and not a play, because it is multi-faceted and it has been very cleverly devised. For the most part I applaud its uniqueness, it challenges convention. But I will discuss what I perceive as a basic need in theatre – storytelling, and did this play get the balance right between being inventive, and telling its story? I had done a little research before heading into the theatre, so I felt reasonably confident in understanding the premise of the show. The organisers very wisely gave out a handout as we walked in, which set out the back story, and the basics of the scenes. For those who had not done some research before going in, this would have helped to ease their mind ...

The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much – Pleasance Courtyard

21Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much – Pleasance Courtyard

Voloz Collective have two propositions at this year's Fringe and having already seen their newer REDACTED: The Cover-Up of a Cover-Up of a Cover-Up, I found myself watching The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much rather unusually, seeing the company's evolution backwards. Set in 1963, it follows Roger Clement, played by Paul Lofferon, a French advertising executive in New York who’s meticulously ordered existence is disrupted when being late for work saves him from an explosion. What follows is an increasingly improbable international chase, delivered through Voloz's trademark combination of physical theatre, object work, comedy and live music. Lofferon is joined by Voloz co-artistic directors Olivia Zerphy, Emily Wheatman and Sam Rayner, all four having trained at L'...

Edinburgh Days – Auditorium at St Bride’s Community Centre

21Aug

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

Scotland

Edinburgh Days – Auditorium at St Bride’s Community Centre

Set in the early 1800’s, Edinburgh Days is the story of life in Edinburgh during Britain’s war with France, and focuses on life around the docks of Leith, and the shores of Portobello. Written by composer Brian Spence, he teamed up with Bob Tomson as a creative director, whom he has worked with previously, and Caroline Inglis (Director) who has worked on Edinburgh Days in a previous iteration and directed this version of the show. The beginning of the show sets the scene at the White Hart Inn, where MacGregor (Laurence Aitkin) admits that he has lusted after Jean (Jaydean Cramb), his friend Robbie’s (Michael MacDuff) partner for a long time, but she has always rejected him and stayed true to Robbie, and their son Davie (Elodie Enoch-Thorburn [young Davie], Noah Young [older Davie]...

21Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Tell Me – Summerhall Dissection Room

The Dissection Room at Summerhall is a fascinating space, double height and voluminous, and Tell Me certainly knows how to celebrate that verticality. At its centre stands a giant open metal cube. Inside that sits another, and another, a Russian doll of skeletal geometry which performers Sadiq Ali, Phoebe Knight and Jonah Russell climb through, hang from, rotate and send tumbling across its different surfaces. There is something of the rolling of dice about it too. During the AIDS crisis, whether you received that positive diagnosis could seem like the biggest roll of the dice imaginable. Tell Me moves between that crisis and our contemporary understanding of HIV. The dramaturgy is often beautifully handled. Radio announcements report the emergence of this frigh...