Pleasance Courtyard
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…
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.
Chatterbox
★★★★☆ Gentle humour
Lubna Kerr’s Chatterbox, at the Pleasance Courtyard all Fringe, builds on her difficult experiences of growing up as a child of Muslim heritage in 1970s Scotland.
Tit Swingers
★★★★★ Omg they were crewmates
From the team behind Julie: the Musical comes Tit Swingers, a Punk Gig Musical – with added Pirates. To the wild riffing of electric guitar, bass, and drums, Le Gasp! Productions tells the unapologetically queer story of Anne Bonny and Mary Read: pirate queens, hellcats, tit swingers. Oh, and Calico Jack— he’s there too.
EdFringe lockdown memories: Day Four
The #NothingToReviewHere and #SomethingToReview projects
In the eerily fallow Fringe of 2020 and weirdly hybrid event of the following year, The Dibdin Brothers, Thom & Peter, published a daily image from around Edinburgh. Day Four: The Pleasance.
Revelations of Rab McVie
★★★★★ Stunning
Revelations of Rab McVie is a stunning piece of multimedia theatre, combining live music, live painting and raw performance, to create a truly remarkable production, at the Pleasance for two performances only.
Tickbox 2
★★★☆☆ Quietly assertive
Lubna Kerr’s Tickbox 2 at the Pleasance Courtyard may not be an entirely new play, but still has a great deal to say to everyone.
Magic Gareth: Level Up!
★★★☆☆ Goofy
Magic Gareth – Level Up!, the family show at the Pleasance from Edinburgh-based Magic Gareth, is a fun and accessible collection of tricks and humour.
Break Up With Your Boyfriend
★★★☆☆ Enjoyable and informative
There’s a lot to enjoy in Break Up With Your Boyfriend by Edinburgh company, Scylla’s Bite, a tale of two young women with boyfriend trouble and therapy overload at the Pleasance Courtyard for the whole Fringe.
Svengali
★★★★☆ Full of aces
Chloe-Ann Tylor is utterly captivating in her performance of Svengali, a gripping new monologue written and directed by Eve Nicol, produced in association with Pitlochry Festival Theatre and Pleasance Theatre.
