The festival is over for another year but plenty of its theatre, comedy and dance hits have announced dates around the UKCollapsibleBreffni Holahan gives a searing performance as Essie in Margaret Perry’s corrosive play about a woman’s disintegration. …
Continue ReadingCaught between self-love and neurosis, Cohen has taken Edinburgh by storm with a musical show that plays up to her generation’s stereotypes. She’s even got a song called Look At Me … ‘The other day I woke up, I was like, ‘This is the most magical pla…
Continue ReadingPlan your schedule with our roundup of top shows, ordered by start time. This page will be updated daily throughout the festivalBoutSummerhall, 10.20am, until 25 AugustAn exploration of brotherhood through the motif of boxing, Chang Dance Theatre’s sho…
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghCohen crackles with attitude as she serves up an alarming but entertaining song-and-chat about sex, love and self-imageOne of the most eye-catching newcomers at last year’s fringe was the American comic Kate Berlant, brill…
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghCohen crackles with attitude as she serves up an alarming but entertaining song-and-chat about sex, love and self-imageOne of the most eye-catching newcomers at last year’s fringe was the American comic Kate Berlant, brill…
Continue ReadingWith degrees in English and Theater, Catherine Cohen not only graduated from Princeton University but also delivered a humorous speech at her own graduation. Five years later, Cohen became one of New York City’s newest It Girls, bringing the cabaret co…
Continue ReadingThere’s a Belle and Sebastian play, a show in a hair salon, Frances Barber performing Pet Shop Boys songs and top comics including Josie Long and Stephen Fry. Here’s our guide to the world’s biggest arts festivalCrocodile Fever Traverse Playwright Megh…
Continue ReadingHard Brexit innuendos, frolics in fields of wheat, that strong and stable obsession … four drag queens reveal why the prime minister is camp gold
Continue ReadingThe original jukebox musical, a survey of the world’s ills, and defying the Russian authorities to appear at Edinburgh. All photography by Murdo MacLeod
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
The standup’s compelling personality and powerful voice add up to emphatic entertainment in this musical show
The audience are on their feet by the end of The Divine Ms Jayde, which feels less like spontaneous reaction than part of the show’s choreography. That’s not to detract from the potency of Jayde Adams’ third fringe outing, a musical comedy created and performed with the Jerry Springer: The Opera maestro Richard Thomas. But it’s also one of those shows – and Adams has one of those personae – designed with bums-from-seats vertical takeoff in mind. In comedic terms, it’s so-so. But Thomas’s music, Adams’ powerful voice and her spotlight-compelling personality still add up to emphatic entertainment.
You could see it coming after 2017’s Jayded, which laid the ghosts of her low self-esteem to rest, but this year Adams goes full diva. She is wheeled on stage under a flowery bower. She splays herself louchely across a grand piano. She emotes like a trouper – albeit for laughs – in a number demonstrating how to tearjerk on stage. (It’s all in the wrists, surprisingly.) Elsewhere, several songs (Whatever Happened to Baby Jayde?; Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was Younger) send up musical-theatre soul-searching without discarding sentimentality.
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