The expression 'Athens of the North', the title of the play in the present review, conjures up an Edinburgh in the Enlightenment period, a time when classical culture was much valued, 18th c…
'Dare to Discover' is the leitmotiv of the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe running from 1st to 25th August. In the introduction to 384-page programme, Tony Lankester, the recently appointed Chief Exec…
Playwright, actor, director and novelist Davide Enia had his first success as a theatrical storyteller in 2002 with his one person play, Italy Brazil 3 to 2, which he wrote, performed and di…
At Milan's Franco Parenti theatre, Shards of Chaotic Memory in Multicoloured Ink (Schegge di memoria disordinata a inchiostro policromo) runs from 20 March to 13 April. This new play by Gian…
In February I caught Antonio Syxty's staging of Romeo e Giulietta (Romeo and Juliet) at Milan's Leonardo Theatre in a production by Manifatture Teatrali Milanesi. Syxty's interpretatio…
Rarely have I spent such an intense ninety minutes watching a show, as I did the other evening at Milan's Franco Parenti theatre. From start to finish French dramatist Nicolas Bedos's Le voy…
In his short story, A Report to an Academy, written and published in 1917, Franz Kafka imagines that an ape, called Red Peter, who has turned human, addresses an academy of academics and …
Some of the outstanding works by British playwright Lucy Kirkwood are finally being staged in Italy, with productions of The Children and The Welkin currently showing in major theatres. The …
Director Romeo Castellucci is coming to the end of a four-year collaboration with Milan's Triennale Theatre. As well as producing a number of shows (see my review of his retelling of Racine'…
The city of Milan hosts two annual Fringe events, the first in June, and the second, in late September and early October. I caught the latter, Fringe Milanooff, situated in forty different v…
Every year at the Edinburgh Fringe, Paines Plough, a UK touring company specialised in commissioning and developing new writing, brings a cluster of contemporary plays to the Roundabout, loc…
New plays can derive from many sources: a vivid imagination, novels, diaries, real-life episodes, autobiography, biography and history. Elena Mazzon's The Popess, drawing on the real-life fi…
A cast of young actors from diverse parts of the globe brought Malvolio's Fantasy to the Space venue at this year's Edinburgh Fringe. The group, members of Edinburgh University's Shakespeare…
As part of Here and Now, a new Arts Council England showcase, Tim Etchells, artistic director of the celebrated company, Forced Entertainment, has penned L'Addition (The Bill), teaming up wi…
The title of the play, The Amazing Doctor She Medicine Show, leaves one wondering who on earth was the amazing Doctor She. All is unveiled in this fifty-minute lecture-cum-interactive perfor…
On this year's Edinburgh Fringe a raft of reimaginings of Shakespeare's plays, by emerging and established companies jostle for punters' attention. Hamstrung, Migrant Shakespeare, A Method i…
The five-hundred-year history of Italy's Commedia dell'Arte is neatly packed into Masquerade, a truly entertaining show, which offers a taste of Italy, past and present. The three strong cas…
A unique feature of Edinburgh's Fringe festival is its inclusive nature. Professional and non-professional companies from Scotland and around the world can take part and jostle for the atten…
Spoken word poetry has a huge following in the UK, and Luke Wright is one of the most talented exponents, breaking new ground with his audacious work. Wright took his first steps as one of t…
On the Edinburgh Fringe the number of plays investigating climate change is growing each year, and in the 2024 programme, there's a Climate and Sustainability section. At the Pleasance Dome …
In Two Minds, produced by Dublin's celebrated multi-award winning Fishamble, is playing at Traverse Theatre, Scotland's home for new writing. Dramatist and performer Joanne Ryan has created …
Director of the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), Nicola Benedetti, chose 'Rituals that unite us" as the theme for this year's festival, which got off to a stunning start in the shape …
Hamlet, along with A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest and Macbeth, are probably the Shakespeare plays that are most often revisited today by writers, with very different intentions and s…
This year's Theatre Biennale (15 to 30 June), entitled, Niger and Albus (Black and White), sees directors Gianni Forte and Stefano Ricci keen " as they note in their introduction " to "open …
After Brexit, UK productions very rarely play in Italy, but Biennale theatre directors Gianni Forte and Stefano Ricci have made an exception. The final days of the Festival put center stage …