The festival’s musicals this year range from theatrical introspection to a rip-roaring improvisation inspired by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash hitThe world’s most popular musicals have often been on the least likely of themes. Who would have thought TS El…
Continue ReadingUnderbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows, EdinburghThe enthralling Canadian company offer up a fast-paced but often jarring show that treats Shakespeare like the Super BowlHere is a twist on Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene. Juliet stands on his shoulder…
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThe duo, doing separate shows for children and adults at the fringe, have hit on a winner – their daft pranks bring the young audience right inIt’s a thing, comedy for kids, but still a fairly marginal thing: it’s hard to …
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghVoloz Collective’s satirical thriller set during the subprime mortgage crisis is staged with style but has little emotional impactWho needs a load of props when you have a company this game? Within the first few minutes of…
Continue ReadingComing-out tales, ventriloquism, a musical set in a public loo and glamorous late-night cabaret are among the festival’s uplifting LGBTQ+ showsNo one ever pays attention when you’re handed a flyer at the fringe. It’s only when I take a proper look that…
Continue ReadingUnderbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh The real beasts – not the internet kind – have come to teach us their ways, learn human stuff and dish the dirt on billy goatsIt’s not easy being green. Just ask these two trolls, sporting hoodies, tights and trainers in v…
Continue ReadingUnderbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh The real beasts – not the internet kind – have come to teach us their ways, learn human stuff and dish the dirt on billy goatsIt’s not easy being green. Just ask these two trolls, sporting hoodies, tights and trainers in v…
Continue ReadingThe comic, who has survived cancer and once sleep-jumped through a closed hotel window, is bringing his Broadway smash about mortality to the UK. ‘I guarantee you’ll laugh,’ he saysFor someone whose affably rumpled appearance suggests Matt Damon waking…
Continue ReadingAssembly George Square, EdinburghThe Australian comedian makes it immediately clear you are in safe hands with a show of sketches and charactersIt’s a thrill when a comic you’re seeing for the first time steps onstage, and you know instantly you’re in …
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghSchoolteacher-by-day Tothill’s foppish persona is a delight and his thesis, that hedonism died with the Reformation, is convincingThere are newcomers on the fringe delivering comedy in hand-me-down voices – and then there’…
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