Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Beats, rhymes and Bannockburn? The creators of Wallace explain why they used hip-hop to tell the story of Scotland’s national hero
If you were to come up with a list of the Scottish playwr…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:06PMMonday, August 25, 2025
Gilded Balloon Patter House, EdinburghThe onstage ranting of a comedian is interrupted by impassioned accounts of violence against women in Sadie Pearson’s drama
Full Frontal Theatre is a …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:02AMSaturday, August 23, 2025
Pleasance Courtyard, EdinburghAnnie Lareau lost 35 of her fellow students on the downed Pan Am flight, but her focus on the personal in this three-hander leaves a gaping hole
At the start of…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:24AMFriday, August 22, 2025
Royal Lyceum, EdinburghFaustus is not damned alone in a parable about western hubris leading to war, colonialism and environmental exploitation
As told by Goethe and Marlowe, the story of Fa…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:24AMMonday, August 18, 2025
Zoo Playground, EdinburghBelgian actors Verona Verbakel and Anemone Valcke share anecdotes about their industry in a knotty show about ambition and failure
When we arrive, the screen behind …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:18PMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghEmily Woof draws a connection between the female adulation around the Fab Four and radical artist Valerie Solanas’s 1968 shooting of Andy Warhol
A revolver is…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:03PMSummerhall, EdinburghHannah Maxwell’s delightfully meta hour, namechecking Richard Gadd and Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s breakthroughs, is a blueprint for three potential shows – with the au…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:03AMSaturday, August 16, 2025
Gilded Balloon, EdinburghIndra Wilson’s imaginative monologue is a touching exploration of grief and hope through space travel
If you ever need an extended metaphor, just ask Indra Wilson.…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:24AMFriday, August 15, 2025
Banshee Labyrinth, EdinburghTheodora van der Beek’s inventive and quirky show about a slimy bloke targets the male gaze
The clue is in the fingers. Rubbery, bulbous things, they look as if…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:32PMSummerhall, EdinburghTrumpeter Jay Phelps plays a devotee of Benjamin Akintuyosi’s Miles Davis in this reverential tribute
Celebrity biographical dramas are ten a penny but it takes audaci…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:06PMGilded Balloon, EdinburghAn authoritarian patrols the auditorium barking contradictory commands at a wannabe star in Blind Faith’s uncomfortable show
The male gaze is often talked of as a …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:48AMLove is in the air on the fringe as romantic partners put their private lives in the spotlight through daft sketches, acrobatics, folk songs – and a real wedding
Some people blow their wed…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:42AMZoo Southside, EdinburghEverything depends on the audience, so no performance is ever the same in a celebration of shared experience that’s perfect for the fringe
Fringe favourite Ontroere…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:32AMZoo Southside, EdinburghSophie Anna Veelenturf takes a nuanced personal look at how apps can prevent us falling for those whose politics we deplore
If the Guardian’s Dining Across the Div…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:32AMThursday, August 14, 2025
Underbelly Cowgate, EdinburghThis mix of acrobatics, feverish monologues, high-altitude accidents and apocalyptic physical comedy doesn’t need to have a rationale – does it?
It is probab…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:18PMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghThe cast are formidable in this defiant if sometimes clunky show about the ups and downs of running a community treasure
This story of a pirate radio station is…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:18PMSummerhall, EdinburghA woman pieces together her memories of a family tragedy in Ellie Keel’s atmospheric two-hander set on Skye
It starts with a shriek. A deliberate false alarm, this set…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:18AMWednesday, August 13, 2025
Underbelly, Cowgate, Edinburgh The performers of Emergency Chorus play comic scenes, do a long syncopated dance and throw shapes in an odd two-hander
Clara Potter-Sweet and Ben Kulvichit giv…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:18PMPleasance Dome, EdinburghHeadlines punctuate Henry Naylor’s play about the newspaper’s campaign against Elton John and the multiple lawsuits launched by the singer
Henry Naylor started o…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:42AMTraverse, EdinburghAfreena Islam-Wright invites the audience into her life by interspersing her version of The Chase with tales from her British-Bangladeshi upbringing
There is no shortage o…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:06AMTuesday, August 12, 2025
Summerhall, EdinburghRuxandra Cantir’s cast of gherkins, onions and carrots is conceptually funny but lacks bite
We can agree that a cabaret involving pickled vegetables is conceptually fu…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:48PMMonday, August 11, 2025
The Georgian House, EdinburghDrawing on private letters and contemporary criticism, Cora Bissett’s imaginative production offers a rounded picture of a complicated man with a colourful lov…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:06PMPleasance at EICC, EdinburghVisual artist Ornagh conjures a psychedelic, mixed-reality vision preoccupied with identity, sexuality and body image
What happens when theatre meets film? It is …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 06:12AMPleasance Courtyard, EdinburghVictoria Melody’s passion for other people’s passions is in full bloom in a show that finds delight and inspiration in English civil war reenactments
Victor…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:48AMSunday, August 10, 2025
Queen’s Hall, EdinburghAn exquisite mix of song, poetry and spoken word, Karine Polwart’s show about the Royal Botanic Garden’s iconic palm tree stands tall
If you thought there could …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:32AMSaturday, August 9, 2025
Summerhall, EdinburghThomas jumps adeptly from terrorist to drug lord in writer Ed Edwards’s gripping and subtle one-man show
There is an alarming sense of cogs being wound in this prison …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:06PMA lively, wriggly tube creature, mesmerising birds for babies and a joyful take on Joyce’s Ulysses will delight young audiences at this year’s festival
Assembly Rooms, 10.10am, until 24 …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:32AMTraverse, EdinburghSibling envy, a stumbling acting career and addiction are covered in an indistinctive show by the sister of Carl
There are many urgent topics demanding our attention on th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 03:03AMScottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh Alan Bissett embodies both the expansive Big Yin and the detached author of Lanark in a thoughtful, entertaining search for their conn…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:54AMFriday, August 8, 2025
Traverse, EdinburghIn Dan Colley’s evocative play, a retired actor with dementia loops through scenes from the classic tragedy
A play remains a classic for as long as it continues to yield…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 05:18PMSummerhall, EdinburghIn a poetic performance, former teenage grunge obsessive Emma Frankland takes heart from a fantasy about the Nirvana musician
There is a fashionable theory among pop rev…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:12AM 
