Rebecca Mahar
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.
Well Played
★★★★☆ Snappy
Well Played from Josie Rose Productions is the kind of work you hope to see at the Fringe: new writing performed to a high standard by up and coming artists; needs work, but is getting the opportunity to grind off its rough edges in front of an enthusiastic crowd.
Man of War: The Secret Life of Nadezhda Durova
★★★★☆ Powerful
With four actors sharing the title role, Man of War: The Secret Life of Nadezhda Durova from Acting Coach Scotland is a compelling, ensemble-driven telling of the life of a man, who was a woman; a person, who was a soldier; putting aside all personal comforts for their country’s good.
Sam Blythe: Method in my Madness
★★★☆☆ Unresolved
A disyllabic clown with a trunk of tricks puts on a red nose and transforms into Hamlet, Prince of Denmark— or perhaps he was Hamlet all along? Sam Blythe: Method in my Madness is an experimental one-man Hamlet that ultimately creates more questions than it answers.
Caged: The True Story of Isabella MacDuff
★★★★☆ Commanding
Confined behind bars before her audience, Isabella MacDuff takes to the stage to tell her own story in Caged, written and directed by Colette Swan for Pigeon Cote Productions.
Antonio’s Revenge
★★☆☆☆ Unfathomable
Antonio’s Revenge is a definite oddity, not made any less strange by its staging by Edinburgh/New Zealand company Half Trick Theatre at C alto on even dates of the Fringe only.
Hamstrung
★★★★☆ Method in’t
“A fellow of infinite jest,” is how Shakespeare introduced deceased court jester Yorick, but the Yorick of George Rennie’s Hamstrung is a being as existential as the appearance of his skull at a pivotal moment in Hamlet’s crisis deserves.
Divided
★★★★☆ Delicate
In Divided, Kate Macsween and Michael Reddington play the parents of recently transitioned Saul, in this (mostly) two-hander about family, gender, and the deeper commitments behind unconditional love.
TÁIN
★★★★☆ Otherworldly
Young Edinburgh Storytellers, Mark Borthwick and David Hughes, hold their audience rapt with TÁIN, a much-condensed adaptation of Ireland’s most famous epic tale.
