Summerhall Archives - Page 3 of 7

15Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Anthem For Dissatisfaction – Summerhall

A loud, brash, and unapologetically political coming-of-age tale set to a killer soundtrack of working-class anthems, Oasis, Reverend and the Makers, the Manics, Springsteen. Anthem for Dissatisfaction bursts with energy and heart, but in Summerhall’s small Red Lecture Theatre it sometimes plays like it’s still aiming too big. Big performances, big music, big feelings, and just a bit too much of all three. It starts strong, with Jamie talking about his big sister, Sarah, his “own personal NME”, and their shared love of music and the first record they owned from 2008: The State of Things by Reverend and the Makers. From there, we’re into austerity Britain (and Northern Ireland), and a 12-year-old’s question: “What the hell are we spending our money on?” When there’s no lavish lifesty...

14Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Wild Thing! – Summerhall

A riotous eco-comedy that shape-shifts into a moving requiem for our planet’s vanishing creatures. Wild Thing! - Laugh Now, Cry Later! Summerhall’s TechCube 0 is already a bit of a womb for oddball creativity, and Wild Thing!, the latest creation from Tom Bailey’s Mechanimal, is like an ecological fever dream with a sense of humour. It’s part comedy, part requiem, and part, “what on earth did I just witness?”, in the best possible way. We enter the performance space together, the audience in single-file, like a school trip with no teacher. Bailey is already mid-flow, becoming a carousel of creatures, some endangered, some right on the edge of existence, some that sound like they’ve escaped from a Monty Python sketch. “Cheerful Pheasant,” “Fearful Owl,” “Polymorphic Rubber Frog...

Darkfield Radio: Visitors – Summerhall, Old Lab

12Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Darkfield Radio: Visitors – Summerhall, Old Lab

Darkfield has a well-earned reputation for bending the mind through total sensory control, and Visitors is no exception. Presented in complete darkness with only a pair of high-quality binaural headphones as your lifeline to the outside world, it’s a strikingly intimate encounter. The sound design is astonishing, voices slip behind you, whisper in your ear, or circle the space with uncanny precision. Every creak of a chair or shuffle of a foot lands with hyper real clarity, making you question what’s in your head and what’s in the room. The premise requires two people and sees your +1 sit opposite you as Jean and Alex, two characters clearly existing somewhere in the afterlife, make their presence known. There’s a gentle eeriness to it, an unsettling suggestion of being used as a ve...

9Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Ceremony – Summerhall

I’m not sure what’s more remarkable - the fact that The Ceremony ends with thirty-odd people making chicken noises at full volume in the Summerhall courtyard, or the fact that this is the second show I’d seen tonight to feature a chicken. I’ve been reviewing theatre for many years, and I don’t think I’ve ever typed the word “chicken” before. Tonight, it comes up twice. Make of that what you will.It starts innocently enough. I arrived early, take my seat in the front row, notepad at the ready. Unfortunately, the front row plus notepad is like wearing a neon sign reading “critic” - and Ben Volchok, our master of ceremonies, clocks me straight away with a knowing wink and a smile. The premise of the show is disarmingly simple: the audience and the performer create a ritual together. That’s it...

8Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Philosophy of the World – Summerhall

Every now and then at the Edinburgh Fringe, a show comes along that seems to fracture theatrical logic entirely—while still leaving you entirely gripped. Philosophy of the World, devised by the experimental collective In Bed With My Brother, is one of the most original, unsettling, and oddly moving performances I’ve seen in years. It may well go on to become a cult classic. The show is inspired by The Shaggs, a 1960s rock band made up of three sisters from New Hampshire, whose father was convinced they were destined for greatness. That father, Austin Wiggin Jr., pulled them out of school, forced them to practise endlessly, and produced their only album—widely derided at the time, but now held up as an artefact of outsider art. Philosophy of the World takes this story and explodes it...

8Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Paldem – Summerhall

Written and created by BAFTA winner, David Jonsson, Paldem is a daring and provocative Fringe debut that boldly ventures into the world of amateur pornography, digital fame, and performative intimacy. Premiering at Summerhall, the play unfolds as an “anti‑romantic comedy” exploring themes of race, desire, artistic ego, and online commodification.The story centres on Kevin (Michael Workeye) and Megan (Tash Cowley), former lovers, who reconnect one night and end up having sex. What neither expects is that they’ve accidentally recorded the whole thing. But when they watch the footage back, they’re surprised: it’s hot, they look great, and the dynamic works. From there, an idea is born. In today’s society—where everything is monetisable and nothing is too intimate for content—they realise they...

8Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Shitbag – Summerhall

There’s something fitting – perhaps even poetic – about staging a show called Shitbag in the Anatomy Theatre at Summerhall. Once a site of anatomical demonstration, now turned intimate performance space, it adds a certain weight to what is already a deeply bodily piece of theatre. The semi-circular layout draws the audience into close communion with the performer, reinforcing the sense that what we’re witnessing isn’t performance so much as confession. Hayley Edwards, an engaging and fearless Antipodean performer, commands the space well. She navigates the tricky terrain of living with Crohn’s Disease – not with self-pity, but with humour, insight, and an unflinching willingness to discuss things most people would euphemise or avoid entirely. Her rapport with the audience is imme...

8Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Troubled – Summerhall

Troubled unfolds in the Anatomy Lecture Theatre, a space that retains its old-world charm with curved tiers and a sense of stillness that feels well-suited to intimate solo work. The architecture holds the performer in an elegant kind of embrace, lending a solemn dignity to a story that’s both fragile and fragmented. Suzy Crothers brings us into the inner world of Alice – a woman navigating a complex relationship with her past, her mental health, and the ghosts of Belfast’s troubles, whilst seeking love in the debris. What elevates the piece is Crothers’ vocal dexterity. She moves fluidly between characters, especially the internal voices of Big Red and Little Red - echoes of Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams - whose interventions veer from humorous to unsettling. Various other demons voi...

8Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Painkillers – Summerhall

Mamoru Iriguchi has long been a curious fixture of the Edinburgh Fringe — a darling of those who admire eccentricity for its own sake. Their latest work, PAINKILLERS, billed as a playfully profound meditation on identity, gender, and perception, might well leave audiences wondering whether they've missed something — or if indeed, there's anything to miss at all.Clad in a thick, full-body knitted woman’s suit — presumably both metaphor and misdirection — Iriguchi emerges as Anastasia, a magician’s assistant who might also be Mari, or Alessandro, or Mamoru, or all of them at once. These blurred lines between character and creator are supposedly the crux of the piece, but in practice, they feel like a muddle rather than a mirror.Despite flashes of visual interest and the occasional flicker of...

8Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Baby In The Mirror – Summerhall

Baby in the Mirror is one of those rare Fringe shows that lands with total emotional clarity. Presented by the new company Second Adolescence, from Stella Marie Sophie (also acting the part of Lena) and Sammy J Glover (writer/director), this is a visceral, intelligent, and deeply personal piece of theatre that explores queer parenthood, gender, sexuality, and the complexity of forming a family outside the traditional mould.Set in an intimate black-box space at Summerhall, the production follows three characters—Lena, Joey, and Ollie—each caught in the messy, beautiful and often contradictory realities of trying to build a life and family together. It opens amid a mess of boxes, Len and Jo have moved in together, their identities carefully packaged and labelled like the boxes that surround ...