EdFringe 2024: Amateur theatre

Edinburgh-made theatre from amateur companies at #EdFringe 2024

Edinburgh’s amateur companies were at the first ever Fringe and they are still here, with an intriguing and hugely ambitious programme of theatre that spans the genres.

One particular joy of this year’s programme of amateur theatre, often based in lesser-used halls and venues, is that it can take its time, and present works of a length which visiting companies might fight shy.

Alan Ireby and Bobby Bulloch in ELT’s 2023 production of Wallace, which the company is reviving for this year’s Fringe. Pic: Edinburgh Little Theatre.

The Makars have David Hare’s 1979 play Amy’s View which is, as they say, “a full evening’s entertainment” at the Royal Scots Club. Edinburgh Theatre Arts have the Scottish premiere of Christopher Durang’s Tony Award-winning 2013 comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, of which Durang said “it’s not based on Chekhov, nor a parody of Chekhov. I just took Chekhov characters and themes and put them in a blender.”

Then there are those most Necessary Cats, who return with a double bill of a Shakespeare and a Shakespeare-adjacent play. After last year’s brilliant pairing of Hamlet with Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, they have Macbeth followed by David Greig’s sequel, Dunsinane, running in Weeks One and Two. Which is the kind of pairing only an amateur company could ever consider staging – outside the EIF – in today’s financial climate for the arts.

Arkle Theatre Company, who have been a real stalwart company of fringes in recent years, return to the Royal Scots Club with a third production added to their usual double bill for what they say will be their penultimate season. Laura Eason’s adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days and Paula Vogel’s 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winning How I Learned to Drive are playing back-to-back in Week Two, with The Kelpie, the Loch and the Water of Life in Week Three.

surefire hit

The company which was there right at the beginning, Edinburgh People’s Theatre, mark their 81st fringe by reviving Alan Cochrane’s surefire hit Ne’er the Twain, which EPT premiered in 1971. They are at Mayfield Salisbury Church for Weeks One and Two.

Leitheatre are marking their 40th year at what is now called St Serf’s Church Centre, with their production of Richard Harris’s 1984 comedy, Stepping Out, also for Weeks One and Two. The original production opened at the West End in 1984 at the Duke of York’s Theatre where it ran for nearly three years.

EGTG, or the Grads as they were known for many years, have grown accustomed to staging particularly interesting plays. This year’s duo of Fringe offerings in Week One at the Royal Scots Club marries Hilary Spiers’ new script, A Singular Deception, with Joe Orton’s The Ruffian on the Stair.

184 shows Made in Edinburgh at #EdFringe this year

Overall, there are 184 shows Made in Edinburgh at #EdFringe this year. In order to make things clearer, we have divided the listing up into seven parts. On this page you can find an alphabetical listing of all the theatre by Edinburgh’s amateur companies.

Here are the links to the other six listings pages:

Theatre by Edinburgh’s Grassroots companies.
Theatre by Edinburgh’s Youth and Student companies.
Theatre by Edinburgh’s Professional & Funded companies.
Theatre for children and young people.
Edinburgh-made Musical Theatre & Opera.
Edinburgh-made Music, Cabaret & Dance.

We are also proud to work with EPAD to produce and publish their annual listing of shows “created, performed or produced by Edinburgh’s theatre professionals” which is  here.

Amateur Theatre Listings

Amy’s View
The Edinburgh Makars
The Royal Scots Club (Venue 241)
19 – 24 Aug: 19:30 (2 hrs 30 mins)
Æ Review: ★★★☆☆ Slow-moving
Esme Allen (played by Judi Dench in the 1979 production) is a well known British actress struggling to adapt in a changing theatrical world. A visit from her young daughter, Amy, with a new boyfriend sets in motion a series of events which only find their shape sixteen years later. Amy’s View is a play about the long-term struggle between a strong mother and her loving daughter, and their relationship with the men in their lives. It mixes love, death and the theatre in a way which is both heady and original. A full evening’s entertainment. Further details.

Around the World in 80 Days
Arkle Theatre Company
The Royal Scots Club (Venue 241)
12 – 17 Aug: 18:15 (1 hr 30 mins)
Æ Review: ★★★☆☆ Enjoyable
This classic Victorian adventure sees the fabulously wealthy Phileas Fogg come across a cascade of eccentric characters and exotic places, all because of a wager. Can he make it, or will he lose everything? Further details.

Casual Encounters
NoLogoProductions
Hill Street Theatre (Venue 41)
19 – 25 Aug: 15:30 (50 mins)
Æ Review:  ★★★☆☆ Dark sex comedy
A black comedy about wife swapping and other inappropriate behaviour. James and Jennifer Rogers have been seeing a marriage guidance counsellor. When she tells them they should try something new, James decides this can only mean one thing – wife swapping. Further details.

Dunsinane
Necessary Cat Limited
Hill Street Theatre (Venue 41)
2 – 15 Aug: 20:05 (2 hrs 45 mins)
Æ Review: ★★★★☆ Bloody
David Greig’s 2010 sequel to Macbeth. The tyrant is dead. Siward and the English army arrive to install the rightful king in Dunsinane and bring peace to Scotland. But Scotland is more complex than anticipated, and it’s so cold. Seduced by Macbeth’s powerful widow, Siward’s attempts to restore order and his vision of sense and justice to a war-ravaged land prove futile; he finds himself increasingly isolated in this contradictory country. Will the grieving ever be finished? Further details.

How I Learned to Drive
Arkle Theatre Company
The Royal Scots Club (Venue 241)
12 – 17 Aug: 20:30 (1 hr 30 mins)
Æ Review: ★★★★☆ Difficult
Surprising, funny and deeply moving, a young woman comes of age and learns to drive in 1960s America. An inspiring story of survival. A modern classic and winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize. Further details.

The Kelpie, the Loch and the Water of Life
Arkle Theatre Company
The Royal Scots Club (Venue 241)
20 – 24 Aug: 14:30 (1 hr)
Æ Review: ★★★☆☆ Radio fun
Join us for Arkle’s second Wester Ross radio play, combining mythical creatures, illicit whisky and the 19th century scientific survey of Scotland’s lochs, with gentle humour, home truths and tatties! Further details.

Macbeth
Necessary Cat Limited
Hill Street Theatre (Venue 41)
2 – 15 Aug: 18:00 (1 hr 30 mins)
Æ Review: ★★★☆☆ Speedy
The Thane of Glamis had a wife; their vaulting ambition o’erleaps itself and the Thane takes the throne through dastardly means. But blood will have blood, and the tyrant king must murder more to keep the throne. Deserted by his friends and allies, Macbeth finds himself increasingly weary and alone as he loses his grip on what’s real and what’s not, before finally facing his nemesis, as prophesied by the Weird Sisters. Shakespeare’s most famous supernatural story of witches, ghosts, hallucinations and murders most foul: the Scottish Play in all its gory glory. Further details.

Ne’er the Twain
Edinburgh People’s Theatre
Mayfield Salisbury Church (Venue 11)
2 – 17 Aug (not 4, 11): 14:30, 19:30 (2 hrs 30 mins)
Æ Review: ★★★★☆ Couthie comedy
What happens when you’re a Leither, or from Edinburgh and you’re told it’s the same thing! Join us, back in 1919, in a tenement on Leith Walk at the exact spot of the boundary of Edinburgh and Leith. In fact, most of the flat is in Leith, but the toilet is in Edinburgh. Meet the McIvor family and their swanky Edinburgh friends in this laugh-a-minute comedy, as they find out the two towns are to be joined. Big question is though, will the sun still shine on Leith if it’s part of Edinburgh? Further details.

No Place Called Home
ThirdCulture Productions
Greenside @ Riddles Court (Venue 16)
19 – 24 Aug: 20:55:00 (1 hr)
Æ Review: ★★★☆☆ Climate crisis drama
Privilege has long served as a protective veil from the realities of the climate crisis. What happens when that veil starts to fade? And how do we love in a world that is slipping away? When a young couple settling into their new home must offer refuge to a distant acquaintance, they begin to fear that their ambitions for life are increasingly unrealistic. Through questioning love, loss, and the growing complexity of defining a ‘home’, this play sounds the alarm through a simple and recognisable portrayal of just how vulnerable our lifestyles may be. Further details.

The Ruffian on the Stair
EGTG
The Royal Scots Club (Venue 241)
5 – 10 Aug: 21:00 (1 hr)
Æ Review: ★★☆☆☆ Falls short
Mike and his van work odd hours for irregular contracts; Joyce has given up her profession for a home. Enter Wilson, a cocky young man seeking help in exacting a violent and idiosyncratic revenge. Joe Orton was known for his scandalous black comedies and in this, one of his earliest plays, the themes of sex, violence and death are shown playing themselves out in the everyday lives of Mike and Joyce and in Wilson, whose love for and loss of the man he calls his brother provides the catalyst for the disruption that unfolds. Further details.

A Singular Deception
EGTG
The Royal Scots Club (Venue 241)
5 – 10 Aug: 19:00 (1 hr 15 mins)
Æ Review: ★★★☆☆ Medical mystery
The astonishing true story of Dr James Barry, a pioneering doctor for nearly 50 years who achieved the highest medical rank in the British Army. But what secret is the swashbuckling surgeon concealing? Edinburgh graduate, shocking flirt, skilled duellist and equestrian, social and medical reformer who transformed the treatment of sexual diseases, leprosy and mental illness, Barry was the first European to carry out a Caesarean where both mother and child survived. Barry and faithful manservant Black John bring this extraordinary tale to vivid life. Compelling new writing by Hilary Spiers about a shamefully forgotten nonpareil. Further details.

Stepping Out
Leitheatre
Inverleith St Serf’s Church Centre (Venue 83)
3 – 17 Aug (not 4, 11): 14:30, 19:30 (2 hrs 30 mins)
Æ Review: ★★★☆☆ Feel good
The play charts the lives of seven women and one man attempting to tap their troubles away at a weekly dancing class. Initially all thumbs and left feet, the group is just getting to grips with the basics when they are asked to take part in a charity gala. Over the course of several months we meet the group, and all of them have a story to tell. There’s perfectionist Vera, mouthy Maxine, uptight Andy, bubbly Sylvia, shy Dorothy, eager Lynne, cheerful Rose, and, of course, Geoffrey. At the piano is the dour Mrs Fraser. Further details.

Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
Edinburgh Theatre Arts
St Ninian’s Hall (Venue 230)
5 – 17 Aug (not 11): 13:00, 18:00, 19:30 (2 hrs 15 mins)
Æ Review: ★★★☆☆ Stately
Middle-aged siblings Vanya and Sonia live in the family home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. After spending their adulthood looking after their now-dead parents, neither has a job, and money is provided by their movie-star sister Masha, who owns the house and pays the bills. When Masha visits home with a new boy-toy Spike in tow, familiar Chekhov themes of lost opportunity, failed love affairs, sibling rivalry and fear of a changing future are thrown into the blender with 21st-century characters and high comedy to produce a uniquely hilarious play! Further details.

ENDS

Tags: #EdFringe, Amateurs, EdFringe 2024, Listings, Made In Edinburgh, Theatre