Archive for 2024
Conspiracy
★★★★★ Bureaucratic nightmare
Conspiracy, a co-production between Edinburgh-based grassroots companies Strawmoddie and RFT, is a chilling and almost obscenely mundane account of the Wannsee Conference, held in a Berlin suburb in January 1942.
Why do we lie?
★★★★☆ Fun
Why Do We Lie? by the Napier University Drama Society at Greenside’s Riddles Court uses a series of short comedy skits to explore the reasons and circumstances around why humans lie.
At Home With Will Shakespeare
★★★★★ Sans nothing
It’s a popular image of Shakespeare: the great Bard, bent over his desk, quill flying over parchment as he composes some of the greatest drama ever put on the stage. But in At Home With Will Shakespeare, Pip Utton’s Shakespeare does not write freely…
Pippin
★★★★☆ Fulfilling
Edinburgh University Footlights’ Pippin, at Paradise in Augustines for the Fringe’s final week, has an infectious enthusiasm and energy that are impossible to resist.
The Fifth Step (EIF)
★★★☆☆ Diffuse
The National Theatre of Scotland’s The Fifth Step at the Lyceum as part of the International Festival is a keenly observed and notably well acted piece that nevertheless lacks sustained impact.
The Kelpie, the Loch and the Water of Life
★★★☆☆ Radio fun
Arkle’s The Kelpie, the Loch and the Water of Life is an ideal mid-afternoon diversion for the last week of the Fringe.
In the Round
★★★★☆ Enthralling
In the Round by Yucca Dance at Greenside on George Street for the last week of the Fringe is a captivating exploration of the circles and cycles that shape our lives.
Trial by Jury
★★★★☆ Spritely
Cat-Like Tread presents a spritely rendition of Gilbert & Sullivan’s one-act comic opera, Trial by Jury that entirely fulfils its brief: light, fun, and more than a little ridiculous.
Panto Macbeth
★★★★★ Perfectly absurd
It’s panto. It’s Macbeth. It’s Panto Macbeth. What more do you want? The Mermaids Performing Arts Fund of St. Andrews University hurl a fifty-minute pantomime version of Shakespeare’s tragedy of Macbeth onto the Fringe stage, like a vulgar No-Fear Shakespeare crossed with traditional panto bits.
Amy’s View
★★★☆☆ Slow-moving
The Makars’ production of Amy’s View, at the Royal Scots Club for the Fringe’s last week, is well staged and acted but never really ignites.
