3,490 stories from The Arts Desk
War as entertainment, Die Hard as an epic poem, and a potted biography
Afghanistan Is Not Funny, Gilded Balloon ★★★★
Theatre about theatre? There's plenty of it about at the Fringe: here are two fine examples
Every Word was Once an Animal, Zoo Southside ★★★★
Francesca Martinez's debut play about disability politics entertains " and frustrates
Has the pandemic made us more angry? Although Francesca Martinez's debut play, which is at the National …
Three shows at the Traverse take in gritty realism and no-holds-barred farce
The Last Return, Traverse Theatre ★★★★★
A musical whodunnit and an ovine origin story
Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder!, Summerhall ★★★★★
Two shows at Summerhall explore issues of identity - though with contrasting outcomes
Boy, Summerhall ★★★★
Nature or nurture? It's the perennial question behind so m…
Strong constituent parts in Alan Cumming's Burns dance show - but do they add up?
In retrospect, all the clues were there. A star actor embarking on a new performance genre; a fresh reapprai…
'World king' as a young man; and a comedy legend
Les Dawson: Flying High, Assembly George Square ★★★
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Any opportunity to watch impressionist Jon Culshaw at work i…
If you think a fat man wearing yellow swimming trunks is funny, you're on the right island
Alexei Sayle, in his angry young man phase, once said that you can always tell when you're watching…
After a hard-hitting 'Oklahoma!', the latest Rodgers & Hammerstein revival stays on the sunnier side
How old is Emile de Becque? Perhaps because my first Emile was the 1958 film version'…
Long-aborning musical still has a leg or two further to go
There's further training, shall we say, still needed on 101 Dalmatians, the much-delayed show that marks the second consecutive mu…
Kate Fleetwood as Cruella de Vil in a show in need of further shaping
★ TASTING NOTES New musical set in a wine bar should have stayed in the cellarÂ
Not much goes right for a show whose characters are similarly ill-fated
LJ's dream has come tr…
Multi-talented musical cast delivers va-va voom in Sally Cookson's reimagined Narnia
This bold reimagining of Sally Cookson's innovative 2017 production of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardro…
★★★★ SISTER ACT THE MUSICAL Event theatre and a sensational lead performance make the trip worthwhile
Crowdpleasing musical retains its glitz and charm (and cheese…
New award-winning political play is warmly idealistic, if a bit too obvious
While Britain is experiencing a "summer of discontent", with inflation, strikes and other conflicts, it is odd th…
Last summer's hit Cole Porter revival is itself now revived, now with Kerry Ellis as Reno Sweeney, replacing Sutton Foster
★★★ THE DARKEST PART OF THE NIGHT, KILN Issues-led drama has its heart in the right place
The didactic vies with the dramatic in Zodwa Nyoni's incident-packed new play
Mu…
Simon Godwin delivers an unexpectedly conventional production, larky and fluffy
After gender-flipping the National's Malvolio, the director Simon Godwin might have been expected to be equall…
★★★★CLOSER, LYRIC HAMMERSMITH Still sordid and sexy 25 years on
Lovers come together, split apart and come together again
Drama is writing in thin air, its content i…
Caroline Quentin leads a sparkling cast in Richard Bean's latest comedy romp
Can a comedy have too many jokes? That may seem an odd question, but one that applies to this latest high-octane…
Completion of the city's big Dante project with 'Paradiso' is only one of three wonders
For once, a festival theme has meaning. "Tra la carne e il cielo", "Between flesh and heaven", is how …
Tom Hollander as powerbroker Boris Berezovsky switches between brazen charm and hubristic rage
To watch a Peter Morgan drama is to have a fly-on-the-wall's perspective of modern history. Ove…
An evocation of magic that falls short of enchantment
The Tempest, a rich and profound late work, is probably Shakespeare's most complex and layered play: the combination of power politics,…
Fine acting and bleak humour barely ameliorates a grim slog through a broken relationship
Rebecca Lenkiewicz's adaptation of August Strindberg's 1900 paean to the power of loathing over lovi…
