Reviews & features: Edinburgh Festivals

Golden years - Tracey Emin

Edinburgh International Art Festival

As the leading female light of Britart, Tracey Emin has been revered and rejected in equal measure. Writer and broadcaster Bidisha has a few words of scorn for the detractors and reflects on the already profound legacy she will leave behind It’s been…

Hard times - Gladder to be Gay?

Festival of Politics

Simon Callow is heading our way with both Stonewall and Dickens on his mind. Anna Millar chats to one of theatre’s hardest working men about his love of acting and support for gay rights Mere minutes out of London rehearsals for The Magic Flute and…

Programme for the Edinburgh International Festival 2013 puts artists and technology centre-stage

Tod Machover, the Wooster Group and Oper Frankfurt among the EIF programme highlights

A crowd sourced orchestral work by boundary breaker Tod Machover is just one of the many highlights of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival programme. Set over three weeks this August, the EIF’s line-up includes an homage to Allen Ginsberg with…

Matthew Crosby

Slightly stilted affair from an otherwise very funny man

Given the majesty of this year’s main Pappy’s show, we can surely forgive Matthew Crosby (the small, bespectacled, beardy one of the trio) if he’s not firing on the same number of cylinders that powered his 2011 solo debut. Even so, he is able to…

Reginald D Hunter - Tall tales

Reginald D Hunter is a giant of UK stand-up. But, as he tells Jay Richardson, he’s still trying to escape the sins of his father ‘I have always found Edinburgh intense, in my soul and in my belly. You can’t say there ain’t tension in my shows. It’s…

Knocked Up

Writer, director and producer Judd Apatow honed his skills on The Larry Sanders Show, winning a couple of Emmys for his writing. What he took from the experience was that the best comedies are not made up of jokes, but of observations on the ways people…

Hey, Piano Bar Lady!

Musical comedy taking it back to 80s New York via New Zealand

New Zealand singer Linn Lorkin is perched at her keyboard, tousled red hair, whimsical expression and billowing patchwork dress suggesting she’s quite the eccentric dame. Now in its second year at the Fringe, her one-woman biographical show is a…

Russell Kane

Caustic and hilarious self-flagellation

It’s hard to judge Russell Kane’s show because he’s already done it. For the ‘difficult’ follow-up to his Edinburgh Comedy Award-winning 2010 show Kane performs Manscaping as himself, offers up heckles, anticipates critic and audience responses and even…

Joe Fairbrother: Characters

Gentle audience-teasing character comedy

Whoever was doing the flyering for this show should be awarded some kind of Edinburgh Flyering Award. They absolutely nailed the target audience for the opening salvo of Joe Fairbrother’s fiendishly subtle character show. Welcomed in by a posh…

Kafka and Son

Goodies and Daddies

The fascination of the reading public with the inner psyche of Franz Kafka shows no sign of abating, perhaps because the neurosis he showed reflects many of our own quiet obsessions writ large.

Take 5: Fabulous festival nudes

New Electric Ballroom - Ladies, have we not all dreamed of having our very own fishmonger stripped bare, hosed down and scrubbed by our older sisters before he is presented to us in a glittery blue suit? And there's even a post-nude song to commemorate…

Cinderella

Cartoonish vibes in choreographer Alexei Ratmansky's ultimately glorious Perrault adaptation

As with contemporary productions of Shakespeare, the measure of a fairytale ballet isn't so much the story but what you do with it. Here choreographer Alexei Ratmansky, who created the piece for the Mariinksy in 2002, has chosen to bring a cartoonish…

Asher Treleaven: Troubadour

The Aussie comedian amiably breaks his life down into six parts

It’s a question you wish more stand ups would ask before embarking on a 30 date Festival run: ‘is my life actually interesting enough to talk about for a whole hour?’. Of course by posing this query at the start of his show Asher Treleaven sets himself…

Blink

Web romance drama tingles magnificently before swerving into cliché

For 40 minutes, Blink tingles. Jonah and Sophie’s peculiar relationship tickles like a feather on a foot or champagne bubbles at the back of your throat. Jonah likes to watch. Sophie needs to be seen. They fall in love from afar, conducting their…

Madness frontman Suggs tells life story at 2012 Edinburgh Fringe

20 fascinating facts about the 80s superstar

1 His real name is Graham McPherson. 2 He was born on 13 January 1961 in Hastings (‘on a stormy night’, according to the man himself), the only child of William Rutherford McPherson, who left home shortly after his son was born and was never heard…

Edinburgh's Beltane Fire Festival marks 25th anniversary

Carnival of fire and light with roots in mythology

2012 marks the 25th anniversary of Edinburgh’s Beltane festival. Over 12,000 revellers are expected to attend the event on Calton Hill as the Beltane Fire Society marks the passage from Spring into Summer. This Carnival of Fire and Light takes place on…

Best Edinburgh Festival street food

The ten best pop-up food stalls to be found at 2011 Edinburgh Festival

Mussel Men Seafood George Square walkway (east side), 11am–1am The guys in the stripey Breton shirts are actually London-based Scots, serving up fresh mussels and oysters from the west coast near Oban. Steaming hot moules come in a wee box sturdy…

Soy de Cuba

Song and dance spectacular a real feel-good Fringe show

This is not so much a feel-good Fringe show as a feel-sizzling-hot-and-leave-dripping-with-sweat show. Song and dance spectacular Soy de Cuba is so full of perma-grins, saucy winks and jazzily acrobatic moves it could be a cruise ship act. But, minutes…

Silent

Witty and moving portrayal of life on the streets

Shuffling across the stage under a blanket, Pat Kinevane slowly makes his way towards the audience. Peering out from underneath the dirty and torn material, glittery eye shadow adorning each lid, he starts to speak. What are we expecting him to say? A…

Now is the Winter

Confusion abounds

Unless you’re seriously intimate with Shakespeare’s original give this a miss. This one-woman reinterpretation of Richard III retells the story from his ascendancy to the battle of Bosworth through the eyes of a faithful servant. A challenging notion…

David Mitchell

Dreaming up the non-existent

David Mitchell isn’t known for his simple approach to storytelling. His most recognisable work, the Booker-shortlisted Cloud Atlas, was described as having a ‘Rubik’s cube structure’. Ambitious and unconventional, it melted genres of airport…

Christos Tsiolkas' The Slap touched a few raw nerves

He tells us how he tackled this multi-story tale.

Judge me once you’ve walked a mile in my shoes, the old saying goes. Well in his latest book, The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas hands us the literary equivalent of eight pairs of walking boots. Set in suburban Melbourne, the novel opens with a chapter devoted…

Magician Paul Nathan on the magic of sharing laughter with your children

Man behind The I Hate Children Children’s Show

5 reasons people should come and see your show. The show is hilarious for kids and adults; everyone learns how to do a trick and there are tricks and videos available after the show; we have an arrangement with Dr Ana Aguirregabiria, one of…

An overview of the 2010 Edinburgh Festivals and their directors

What to expect from Edinburgh in August

Nowhere does a festival quite like Edinburgh, and even with the film folk having long moved out of August, there is more than plenty going on for lovers of art, literature, comedy, theatre, kids entertainment, music, dance and military displays. The…

Wonderland

Vanishing Point investigation into dark erotic fantasies and internet porn is a huge disappointment

Vanishing Point's latest production finds the Glasgow-based theatre company in combative form, delving into internet pornography's seedy demi-monde and confronting audiences with their own desire for erotic titillation. Despite some stylish moments…