Wednesday, August 29, 2012
UnderbellyFans of the groundbreaking 1994 hit musical Rent, a show that reflected on the devastating effect of Aids in the New York artistic community, speaking directly to a generation…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:18AMSummerhallWhich of us can put hand on heart and say: "I have never neglected a friend?" Who hasn't had reason to regret a failure to visit or a phone call that has gone unmade? The unna…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:13AMMonday, August 27, 2012
UnderbellyFifteen-year-old Sparky (Brian Vernal) is the despair of his teachers. He won't sit still and listen. They tell him he won't get any qualifications. "Do you think it's going to mak…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:00PMPleasanceJoel Horwood's latest play is a little heartbreaker, a two-hander about place, identity, betrayal and unreciprocated love. Produced by Eastern Angles, the touring company that has d…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:00PMDavid Hasselhoff lost his kilt, Arthur's Seat glowed, and there was a steamy Miss Julie. Brian Logan and Lyn Gardner pick their Edinburgh festival highlightsWhat was different about the Edin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:32PMFriday, August 24, 2012
SummerhallSometimes it's not what you say but how you say it that matters. In politics, as in theatre, delivery can be all. Not for nothing did Margaret Thatcher have training to lower her v…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:30AMAs the fringe heads into its final weekend, how many of this year's shows will become lodged in the memory? Plus, this week's hot tips for what to see across the UKThanks for the memoriesIt'…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:05AMThursday, August 23, 2012
It's time to take a stand against standing ovations, and Amnesty announces the winners of its freedom of expression fringe awardAn Amnesty on the fringeThere are plenty who dismiss the fring…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:05PMRoyal LyceumThe stage is bare but for a piano and piles of dusty manuscripts. The manuscripts seem to be there to remind us that what we are watching is a narrative poem – published by Sha…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:25AMWednesday, August 22, 2012
Assembly George SquareThere's more than a touch of Waiting for Godot about Zakes Mda's South African-set comedy about two black women – one a prostitute fallen on hard times, the other a d…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PMEdinburgh seems to be overtaken by solitary confinement, and why the festival can be like childbirthTalking to yourselfWhat is "new writing? It's a question being debated by literary associa…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:26PMPleasance CourtyardThere's been much talk that this is a festival dominated by the concerns of the young, but this year's fringe has also shone a spotlight on people nearing their final days…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:48AMTuesday, August 21, 2012
C NovaWhere have all the angry young men and women gone? You'd be hard-pressed to find them in Edinburgh, where people seem to be either busy writing rom-coms or retreating into Edwardian fa…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:30PMNudity that isn't a gimmick; ageing audiences; plus, stocking up on all the goodies the fringe has to offerNaked truths on the fringeOver the years in Edinburgh I've been to shows at which I…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:35AMThe HubThere is a moment towards the end of this double-bill of plays by the Chilean playwright and director Guillermo Calderón when a table begins to shake. A scale model of the notorious …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:22AMMonday, August 20, 2012
Music is making a comeback in stage productions – but the one-person literary show usually fails to exciteMusic to my earsAnyone who has seen the verbatim-interview-based London Road at th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:11PMTraverse"It's all been done before, but not by me," said one of the girls at the end of Once and for All … , Ontroerend Goed's arresting show about teenage life, which made a splash on the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:30AMSunday, August 19, 2012
King'sWomen dressed as horses stamp the ground; a chef selects a baby from a pile of infants, pulls out its innards and tosses them on the barbecue; a painted prostitute staggers tipsily hom…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:58AMFriday, August 17, 2012
C NovaThis week a Norwegian government commission into the killings of 77 people by Anders Breivik on the island of Utøya concluded that, with better communication and organisation, they co…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:08AMWhat to see in Edinburgh and beyond, using Twitter properly – and can you believe anything you're told in the theatre?Of tickets and tweetsTwitter has been a game-changer in Edinburgh – …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:57AMThursday, August 16, 2012
Mike Daisey's controversial monologue about Apple turning a blind eye to the exploitation of Chinese workers, and late-night theatreTelling the truthMost plays are fictions, acts of the imag…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:16AMWednesday, August 15, 2012
Lowland Hall, EdinburghIn Caryl Churchill's 1999 double bill, Blue Heart, language is disrupted and destroyed so that meaning becomes tangled and communication impossible. Every word is trea…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:59PMTraverseSome plays go together like fish and chips; other pairings are less obvious, but the effect is explosive. Neither is quite the case with this intelligent, finely written and acted bu…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:12AMThe joys of curating your own festival, in search of human rights in Edinburgh – and have the Olympics really had an effect on the fringe?Fringe amnestySome years the festival throws up d…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:58AMTuesday, August 14, 2012
Assembly George Square, EdinburghThey say you can't make an omelette without cracking eggs but if anyone could it would be this quartet of performers who test the very limits of the human bo…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:03PMPuppetry gets a boost, a Macbeth beneath the seagulls and art on the menu at the Hunt and Darton cafeNo strings attachedOne of the things I love about the fringe is the fact that audiences a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:35AMTraverseFind a winning formula and repeat it is the mantra of many successful businesses, but giving the audience more of what they want can be a trap for any artist. So this year Daniel Kit…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:49AMMonday, August 13, 2012
Short shows that make a big impact, disabled artists on the fringe – plus come and say hello at the book festivalShorter, but not always sweetWhen I first started coming to Edinburgh in th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:59AMKing's TheatreFive men, naked but for shorts and bowler hats, are wheelchair-bound like the inmates of a hospital or sanatorium. They wheel themselves around in circles, at first in silence …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:52AMSunday, August 12, 2012
Lowland Hall"Captain Banquo and I are in the helicopter … Scotland 52 has landed." This contemporary version of Macbeth, set during a Middle East conflict, gets the 2012 Edinburgh internat…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:10AMFriday, August 10, 2012
Arthur's Seat"A good walk spoiled," was how Mark Twain once described the game of golf. The phrase comes to mind in this mix of art and sport created by NVA on the steep mountain above Edinb…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:27PM 
