James McNicholas is used to performing comedy sketches. Now he’s letting his guard down for the story of middleweight champ turned movie star Terry DownesThey called him the Paddington Express. Terry Downes was a ferociously charismatic British boxer w…
Continue ReadingPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghKatie Arnstein uses Dorothy’s yellow-brick road to map her own struggles and issue a raw reminder of the urgency of #MeToo‘We saw your boobs! We saw your boobs!” The words from Seth MacFarlane’s opening number at the 2013 …
Continue ReadingPersonal stories – of exile, homelessness, illness and existential terror – jostle for hearts and minds with farts and live bread-bakingIt will come as no great shock that much of the Edinburgh fringe is taken up with people talking about themselves, w…
Continue ReadingIt used to be that just wearing a dress and lip-syncing was enough. But now drag is mainstream, the bar for this most creative and transgressive art form has been raisedIt’s Friday night at the Edinburgh fringe. Artists are running all over town, weavi…
Continue ReadingA trio of performances – Daniel Bellus in Beat, Alexander Fox in Snare and Mick Berry’s Keith Moon: The Real Me – put drums centre stage It must be something to do with being at the back all the time, but give a drummer their moment in the spotlight an…
Continue ReadingOnce based in a rundown boozer, DryWrite nights encouraged risk and giddy game-playing – their spirit is felt in Killing Eve and across British theatre todayWhen Phoebe Waller-Bridge performed her script Fleabag at the Edinburgh fringe in 2013, it land…
Continue ReadingPerforming at the fringe can cost a fortune – little wonder so many comics bunk in together. We drop in on Jon Richardson, Rose Matafeo and Josie Long, among others, to see how they liveIt is the world’s biggest comedy festival, with jokes cracked all …
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 ReadingFrom comedy about carveries to clean-eating rants, food is a huge theme at this year’s festival fringe. The Guardian’s restaurant critic gets stuck inAt Valvona & Crolla, a venerable Edinburgh deli dating from 1934, I am eating arancini for breakfa…
Continue ReadingOur photographer Murdo Macleod has been seeking out the wildest, weirdest and best shows during the second week of the Edinburgh fringe festival Continue reading…
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