Writer: Nicole Gulasekharam Director: Fiona Harris The world of an Australian commercial gym reception area is conjured brilliantly by Nicole Gulasekharam in her Edinburgh Fringe debut. She interacts with a steady stream of imaginary customers, charming them, solving their problems with little back-up and being a receptacle for their rage. As the solo show progresses we discover what can happen when a demanding and unrewarding day-job lasts too long. Nicole is a classical musician but needs her meagre earnings from the gym to stay afloat financially. She’s a people pleaser who isn’t given time or space to take care of…
Author: The Reviews Hub - Scotland
The Reviews Hub - Scotland
The Scotland team is under the editorship of Lauren Humphreys. The Reviews Hub was set up in 2007. We aim to review all professional types of theatre, whether that be Commercial, Repertory or Fringe as well as Comedy, Music, Gigs etc.
Writer: William Shakespeare Adaptor/Writer: Rachel Waterhouse Director: Justin Stathers There’s a ghost on the battlements at Elsinore…who you gonna call? Prince Hamlet! Shakespeare’s tragedy has been ‘mashed up and pulped through a variety of pop songs’ (as the programme notes put it), and the result is an hour of enjoyable silliness from Dancing Salmon Productions. Having seen their previous mash-ups of Macbeth and Julius Caesar, I knew roughly what to expect, and I got the impression that there were a number of returning fans in the audience. Those unfamiliar with the plot are given helpful background notes, with spoiler alerts,…
Writer: Denise Deegan Daisy Meredith, bright but impoverished, has won a scholarship to move from her Elementary School (shudder) to the exclusive but cash-strapped Grangewood School for Girls. But how will she fare amongst the snobbery and elitism of the girls who think that she’s lowering the tone? As nasty Sybil remarks of families such as Daisy’s: ‘They’re poor – maybe not intellectually but certainly morally’. From the start, it seems like there are girls determined to get Daisy into hot water. Luckily, our plucky heroine finds a kindred spirit in Trixie Martin, the excitable prankster of the Upper 4th,…
Writer: Mai Stacey Director: Mai Stacey Sasha and her friends accept a free holiday at her uncle’s country house in the summer of 1998, a time when it seemed that things could only get better. Only they don’t. Once Sasha’s uncle (Joe McCloskey) is established as a misogynist and sexual predator things go rapidly downhill. We’re straight into big old creepy house tropes as Sasha (Abbie Want), Henry (Finn Kennedy Macmillan), Cedric (Jamie Radcliffe) and Rose (Jessica Knight) try to figure out whether to stay or go. We’re soon plunged into a messed-up murder mystery when Uncle Ernest’s body is…
This is the first time I’ve caught the long-running Austentatious, which has been a popular fixture at the Edinburgh Fringe since 2012, when it began in a free venue above a pub. Nowadays it commands a rather grand venue, the McEwan Hall, although the ornate interior is largely hidden by black drapes and raked seating. A sell-out crowd obviously included some long-time fans, who had come prepared with suggestions of titles for the company to pick from. Today’s selection was ‘Heated Gentry’, and with no apparent preparation, collaboration or panic among the cast, off we went. Not only are the…
Writer: D H Lawrence Adaptor: Ben Mills-Wood Director: Simon Ravenhill It was a relief to get out into daylight and fresh air at the end of 45 minutes in the company of The Prussian Officer, but that is a compliment to the dark and claustrophobic world created by this production by Blue Orange Arts. Lawrence’s short story, written in 1914, examines the relationship between a young orderly and his captain. Thrown together in the pressure cooker of military preparations, initial wariness turns into a dangerous obsession on the part of the officer. The younger man has a life outside, and…
Writer: Conor Kelly O’Brien Director: Conor Kelly O’Brien A drama company’s attempts to bring Ulysses, James Joyce’s impossible to adapt and equally impossible to read novel, to the stage is the premise of this show from Scranton Fringe Festival and The New Vintage Ensemble. Opening as the company try and perform a scene that no-one other than the director understands, it quickly shifts to a debate about the merits of the novel and then to an honest and humorous pastiche of every drama company that has ever had massive ambitions for a Fringe show that may be out of kilter…
The Traveling Wilburys were a “supergroup” made up of five music legends: Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and George Harrison. This tribute experience of their music is led by Paul Hopkins and has been touring for eleven years. He himself is now older than the Big O, who he plays, was when he passed away as are many of the musicians and indeed the audience. However the songs they play are classics that should live on forever. This is a very well put together production with some wonderful songs from through the years, not just the albums…