Fringe benefits: 10 of the best shows to catch at this year’s Edinburgh festival

From ruminations on life, love and being Keir Starmer to dance-theatre unpacking toxic masculinity, here’s our pick of 2024’s ‘Burgh necessitiesEdinburgh fringe comics pitch their own Baby ReindeerRose Matafeo: On and On and On
When Rose Matafeo won…

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Please Right Back review – exquisitely crafted hybrid of animation and performance

Gulbenkian Arts Centre, CanterburyTheatre company 1927 pull off a high-wire act of graphic novel visuals, song, dance, comedy and psychedelic make-believe in this madcap odysseyThis “twisted little story” could be fiction or not, we are told at the sta…

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Please Right Back review – exquisitely crafted hybrid of animation and performance

Gulbenkian Arts Centre, CanterburyTheatre company 1927 pull off a high-wire act of graphic novel visuals, song, dance, comedy and psychedelic make-believe in this madcap odysseyThis “twisted little story” could be fiction or not, we are told at the sta…

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‘It was the first time I wasn’t obsessed with food’: comedians mine Ozempic trend for laughs at Edinburgh Fringe

Female comics will confront body dysmorphia by turning the mirror on themselves and then back on societySolo performers on Edinburgh’s fringe are jointly confronting one of the most personally undermining ailments – body dysmorphia. Next weekend a rang…

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Edinburgh festival 2024: six of the funniest comedians at the fringe

Looking for rising stars this summer? Try gossipy standup, an end-of-the-pier homage and a ‘gay witch sex cult’Frankie Monroe, the impish proprietor of a working men’s club who has made a Faustian pact to keep his establishment open, is bound to be a b…

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Must the show go on? Theatre’s plucky motto may be out of step with our times | Arifa Akbar

Stage performances have been disrupted this summer by last-minute delays, cancellations and postponements. Is it just a run of bad luck – or a cultural shift?One theatre audience, already seated, is told that the play has been called off because of a t…

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From OnlyFans to medical trials – the extreme measures artists take to fund Edinburgh festival shows

Crowdfunding and finding patrons are among less painful options as cost of performing at the fringe soarsIn the run-up to the Edinburgh festival fringe last year, comedian John Tothill was having “horrific hallucinations of being pulled into hell by th…

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Daniel Kitson detests audience participation but still manipulates us like marionettes | Brian Logan

The comedian’s show Collaborator involves 160 audience members getting speaking parts – and Kitson has anticipated every possible question, anxiety or misstepWhat happens when an audience participation-phobe makes a show all about audience participatio…

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Daniel Kitson detests audience participation but still manipulates us like marionettes | Brian Logan

The comedian’s show Collaborator involves 160 audience members getting speaking parts – and Kitson has anticipated every possible question, anxiety or misstepWhat happens when an audience participation-phobe makes a show all about audience participatio…

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La Vie Secrète des Vieux review – older people reveal the full glory of their sex lives

Chartreuse de Villeneuve, AvignonThere is gallows humour and unzipped ribaldry as a mischievous group share stories that are joyful, tender and sometimes eye-wateringWarning! The people in this show are likely to die at any moment, we are told. Don’t b…

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