Writer: Alfie Jones Director: Alice Harding This Blighted Star is a confident, self-assured fringe debut written and performed by Alfie Jones. The play explores the rise in surveillance cameras, obsession and conspiracy theories through the eyes of a CCTV operator whose former neighbour and school friend Ivan has gone missing. The unnamed operator is obsessed by the last piece of footage capturing his friend, their girlfriend and a car arriving on the scene at the end of the clip. As Ivan remains unfound, rumours and conspiracy theories grow, with each denial further fuelling the myths around what Ivan was doing…
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: Karis Kelly Director: Katie Posner When four generations of women from the same Irish family gather together in a play to celebrate the 90th birthday of the Great Grandmother of the youngest of the four, it’s always likely that things won’t go smoothly, but to say that things go slightly awry in Consumed would be a major understatement, and the play ends up in a very different place from where it begins. Before taking the first of two sharp turns that steer into almost pitch black territory, it’s a more straightforward generational comedy with great grandmother Eileen (Julia Dearden)…
Writer: Anna Skov Jensen Director: Johan Sarauw A 2023 Fringe First winner, The Insider’s return to Plesance Dome this year offers another chance to see a multi-layered show that rewards repeated viewing. Set within a Perspex box, the play draws on a mixture of pre-recorded voices, music, lighting and special effects as well as the acting talents of Christoffer Hvidberg Rønje, who delivers an intense physical performance as well as being the only person whose voice is heard live in the show. The subject matter is the still ongoing cum-ex tax scandal which was initially exposed in 2014. The scandal, involving…
Writer-directors: Harriet Pringle and Lizzie White Lined up outside the performance space, everyone thinks they’ve come to the wrong show, only to realise that it’s already started. In a neat trick, production staff Emma (Abbie Want) and Alex (Mukuka Jumah) welcome us to ‘Talk of the Night’, a live Saturday night TV chat show. Actually, this might have made a better title. On the couch are two populist campaigners and would-be politicians, Maud (Harriet Pringle) and Agnes (Lizzie White), who are suggesting ever more ludicrous policies to protect women from men. Their performance falling somewhere between clowning and satire, Maud…
Book: Leonora Brooks Music: Leonora Brooks Lyrics: Leonora Brooks Directors: Leonora Brooks and Edward Turner Authentic, funny, charming and deeply emotional – I’m Autistic: A New Musical is a triumph from start to finish. As an autistic reviewer and musical theatre fan, this is the kind of production I have dreamed of seeing onstage for years. This is a neurodivergent-led production – and it shows in the best way. Autistic writer Leonora Brooks delivers a powerful and realistic script alongside lyrics that convey experiences which all too often go unnoticed by allistic (non-autistic) people. Even better, many members of the…
Writer: Jo Kelen Director: Kate Brown Achilles, Death of the Gods is a spellbinding retelling of the myth of Achilles and Patroclus and their roles in the Trojan War. From the very first moments, Jo Kelen (she/they) captivates the audience with an incredible one-person performance. As the lights go down and she sets the scene, it really does feel as though the audience in this intimate venue is perching on logs around the campfire and listening to a tale from a master storyteller. With only minimal props and deftly timed lighting changes, the focus is entirely on Kelen’s performance. Her…
Director: Stef Aerts, Joé Agemans, Thomas Verstraeten & Marie Vinck (FC Bergman) Belgian theatre collective FC Bergman, known for 300 el x 50 el x 30 el, The Land of Nod and The Sheep Song, makes its Edinburgh International Festival debut with Works and Days (Werken en dagen), a work of striking visual ambition inspired by Hesiod’s 700 BC poem on agriculture and the rhythms of rural life. The performance opens with six dancers stepping onto the stage, carrying a giant wooden plough as if preparing for the year’s first work in the fields. Two musicians are already in place, their…
Writer: Andrea Cano Molina Director: Elsa Strachan This ambitious ensemble piece from Acting Coach Scotland is a good showcase for its six performers. A lot is crammed into the show’s fifty minutes. If anything the drama is a little over-condensed, with short scenes punctuated by even shorter transitions, as what look like Greek tea-chests are efficiently hauled about to provide the set. There’s plenty here for the alert viewer to engage with. Inspired by the mysterious disappearance in 1900 of the three keepers of the Flannan Isles lighthouse, the story is set in the early 1970s, opening with a stranger…