Reviews & features: Edinburgh Festivals

Waiting for Orestes: Electra

Visually and aurally striking adaptation of Euripides’ Electra from Tadashi Suzuki

Five men, stripped to the waist and sitting in wheelchairs, circle the stage. Moving as one, they appear like a cross between an Ancient Greek chorus and the pitiful co-dependents of a Samuel Beckett play. For the first 18 minutes of the play, they say…

Tiddler and Other Terrific Tales

Julia Donaldson over-kill

Scamp Theatre’s 2011 adaptation of Stick Man was a skilful blend of lively storytelling, great songs and playful actors. They did Julia Donaldson proud. So it comes as something of a disappointment to see what they’ve done with Tiddler. As you would…

Panga

Well-acted comedy lacking in subtlety and originality

Lucy’s life is in a rut: she drinks too much, her flat is a state and her dull, grey-suited boyfriend Gordon no longer shares her fun-loving, hedonistic attitude. The strain on their relationship intensifies with the arrival of Panga – a drinking…

The Boom Jennies: Mischief

Great chemistry hampered by a poor script

The Boom Jennies are three accomplished performers with great chemistry and good timing. What lets them down here are a poor script and weak punchlines. Each sketch features three middle class women blustering around and politely remonstrating with…

Pete Johansson

Bear necessities from crack Canadian

It seems that in Pete Johansson’s Utopian Crack Pipe, there’s less of the crack and more of the bear. The plaudits that have adorned the Canadian since his debut Fringe show was nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Newcomer Award in 2009 have once again…

Children's theatre at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe for a fiver

2012 Edinburgh Festival offers a host of great-value kids show previews

Various venues, Edinburgh, 1–3 Aug Each year, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe has more and more shows to tempt families. From theatre pieces to circus shows, you could easily spend three weeks (and a month’s salary) straddling the good-taste line…

Interview: Alan Davies brings Life Is Pain to 2012 Edinburgh Fringe

Jonathan Creek star on stand-up, therapy and Hillsborough

Prior to recording, QI’s elves flash interesting facts up on monitors for the audience. What they don’t reveal, as Alan Davies is explaining to me at a café in Highbury Corner, is that budget cuts have meant they’re now shooting two shows a day: ‘a hell…

Edinburgh Festival of Politics event charts history of political satire

Talk with Martin Rowson, Tom Shields and Tommy Sheppard

There was a moment during an especially bitchy session of Prime Minister’s Questions in April that said much about how satire can influence the centre of British political debate. With David Cameron reeling during an angry exchange on the Budget, Ed…

Théâtre du Soleil's epic Jules Verne-inspired 2012 Edinburgh Festival show

Serge Nicolaï on Les Naufragés du Fol Espoir (Aurores)

Multi-talented actor Serge Nicolaï tells Mark Fisher why four hours is positively speedy in the egalitarian and epic world of Ariane Mnouchkine and Théâtre du Soleil

Twenty top shows at the 2012 Edinburgh Festivals

Highlights from the Fringe, Book and International Festivals

Having scanned the 23.6m shows, exhibitions and events across the festival in late July, August and early September, we pluck out the ones that simply cannot be missed

Stephen Kelman set for Edinburgh Book Festival appearance

Author of Booker longlisted Pigeon English

Probably most humdrum offices in Britain hide an aspiring creative type who dreams of ditching the day job and succeeding at what they love. For Stephen Kelman, the dream came dramatically true. Penned while he worked as a council administrator, his…

Lineage: Michael Craig-Martin, Ian Davenport and Julian Opie

Edinburgh Art Festival 2010 - Printmaking, but not as we know it

Drip, drip, drip go the variations on a theme that form the quartet of works culled from Ian Davenport’s ‘Etched Puddle’ series, in which assorted rainbow-arrayed, candy-striped, multi-coloured streams trickle down into a similarly hued liquid carpet at…

The best soup and sandwich places in Edinburgh

Where to find a quick, fresh and tasty lunch in the Scottish capital

Making the most of a small space, Appetite Direct is a deli kitchen serving soups and salads alongside their speciality range of hot takeaway dishes, including fish pie, Vietnamese flavoured mince with rice and home-made hamburgers. Broughton…

3Run bring free-running to 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe theatre

Parkour specialist Sam Parham's favourite moves

Sing it from the rooftops! Free-running has entered the theatre. Mark Fisher catches his breath as the athletes of 3Run blur past him. Plus, parkour specialist Sam Parham gives a masterclass in some of his favourite moves

Nakedness and nudity at the 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe

The Naked Busker and lap dancing photography exhibition among highlights

It may get the moral minority’s g-string in a twist, but nudity and Edinburgh go hand in hand. Here are some naked highlights. Pot of Dreams - Jannica Honey & Holly Davidson Photographic Exhibition. The multifaceted human aspects of Edinburgh’s lap…

Advertising, Mad Men and the future - John Hegarty interview

Advertising guru set for Edinburgh Book Festival 2011

"In the end, virtually everything I work on is, to a certain extent, irrelevant." After the best part of an hour's chat in which John Hegarty has pretty much sold me on the unparalleled joys and benefits of advertising, it's a refreshing shock to the…

Sara Pascoe

Disappointing debut from Freud-studying comic

Given that she’s performing her debut solo Fringe hour, the fact that Sara Pascoe is directing two other shows by more experienced comics might have gone a little to her head. Then again, this show is entitled Sara Pascoe vs Her Ego, and judging by the…

Paul Foot & Noel Fielding

The comedian answers questions asked by his director.

The List asked the surreal and brilliant Paul Foot to complete our First Word interview. Of course, he couldn’t do it normally, and invited Noel Fielding (who directed his Fringe show) to set the questions. Here are the mind-bending results How long…

Grupo Corpo - 'in Brazil dance is a way of living'

Grupo Corpo’s International Festival performance will showcase all of the dance company’s determined creative spirit, and touch on the beliefs and traditions of their native Brazil. Kelly Apter talks to choreographer, Rodrigo Pedernerias.

Gemma Goggin - Get Laid or Die Trying

Hilarious and graphic sex tales

Bridget Jones meets Victoria Coren in the formidably busty and bright-eyed form of Gemma Goggin, a woman in her 30th year seeking desperate and dubious routes to love.

'Pedantic overlord' Stephen Carlin draws out the details of his show

Board Meeting: Stephen Carlin

Stephen Carlin took 25 minutes to draw his whiteboard. It's not a criticism, but symptomatic of a show born from the brain of (and we're quoting) "a pedantic overlord" which has won him high favour on the comedy circuit with its invention and picked…

Profusion of painting at 2010 Edinburgh Art Festival

Richard Wright, Joan Mitchell and Julie Roberts head up painting programme

Painting has inspired some epic declarations over the years. In the 1960s Donald Judd declared the medium dead. In 2005 Young British Artist Damien Hirst advised people that they were more important than paintings. And this year, in light of the…

Gyles Brandreth - middle-aged, ex-MP, author, and Fringe show stalwart

British author-cum-broadcaster-cum-Fringe show stalwart Gyles Brandreth talks about the highs and lows of his festival fortunes. "Edinburgh is a parallel universe. We do things differently here. I was a middle-aged, ex-MP with a tragic comb-over and…

My Name is Margaret Morris

Forgotten hero dances back to life

You would think, having invented a new way of moving, married a famous artist and been the driving force behind Scottish dance for years, that people would remember you. Sadly, the name Margaret Morris is likely to prompt a ‘who?’ from most people these…

Jon Fratelli returns to his roots and lines up Edge Festival show

Former Fratelli's frontman is solo and ready for the next chapter

For many it came as a bolt from the blue when much-loved Glasgow trio The Fratellis announced in April that they were to split. It was a break ‘for now’, they claimed, but following their frontman’s ventures into markedly different territory with…