Reviews & features: Edinburgh Festivals

Interview: Archie Shepp - Edinburgh date for avant-garde firebrand

The legendary sax-man talks bagpipes, gospel and reggae before his Summerhall show

Archie Shepp came to prominence in the mid-1960s as a leading light of the black avant-garde, playing with Cecil Taylor, Bill Dixon and Don Cherry, among others. John Coltrane sponsored Shepp's contract with Impulse! records and invited him to play on…

Top 5 music shows for kids at Fringe 2012

Featuring The BIG Sing-a-long, Flamenco for Kids, Sesame Street and Music Bugs

The BIG Sing-a-long! Back for their third Fringe running, the BIG Project’s Children’s Choir invite you to join in with chart hits and musical mash-ups. St Mark’s artSpace, 228 1155, 4 Aug, 2pm, £6 (£4–£5). Flamenco for Kids Warm up your hands…

Neil Davy of Lite Fantastic dicusses Prodigy-themed dance show Prodigious

Neil Davy is a barrister following his passion for dance. His new company, Lite Fantastic, was set up to make dance more accessible to new audiences. It makes its Fringe debut this year with two shows: Collision, a feel-good music and dance mash-up, and…

Comedians Mark Thomas and Ross Sutherland debuting theatre shows at Fringe 2012

Mark Thomas' Edinburgh show based on his father's degenerative illness

We know Mark Thomas. The radical, left-wing comedian and activist famously drove a tank disguised as an ice cream van up Whitehall in a televised attempt to have it exported to Iraq. More recently, he has been doing stage shows recounting his…

Tall Stories to perform Julia Donaldson's The Snail and the Whale at Fringe 2012

Stage version of hugely successful children's book

Julia Donaldson’s picture books take pride of place on bedroom shelves around the world. But it’s not until somebody picks them up and reads them, that those clever rhymes come alive. Published in 2004, The Snail and the Whale has been one of…

Anton Adasinsky discusses Faust adaptation Mephisto Waltz, playing at Fringe 2012

Blend of physical storytelling and clowning set to music by Liszt

If you’ve ever seen a performance by Anton Adasinsky you’ll know that Mephistopheles, the seductive demon from the Faust legend, is the role he was born to play. ‘Very often theatre critics were mentioning devilry, the infernal, even Satanism in…

Edinburgh Fringe comedy podcasts 2012

Enjoy shows by Shaun Keaveny, Greg Proops and Richard Herring without the need to visit Edinburgh

There are so many Fringe shows on in August every year it is impossible to see them all. The good news is more and more shows are being recorded live and put on the internet for you to download and listen to at your leisure.

Edinburgh Fringe Theatre 2012 for a fiver

Shows offering discounted previews at 2012 Edinburgh Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Desperate for a big dose of culture but short of the necessary funds? Kelly Apter, James Corlett and Suzanne Neilson pick a selection of Fringe theatre and dance previews, all showing at a venue near you at a price that’s nice.

My comedy hero: Jamie Dalgleish on Frank Skinner

Dalgleish speaks of comedy inspiration before 2012 Edinburgh Festival show

As someone who was put forward by his girlfriend for his first gig and therefore not influenced to do it by any ‘heroes’, I had never really thought about this before. However, there really only has to be one choice: Frank Skinner. My first memory of…

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…

2012 Edinburgh Festival of Politics highlights

Talks on George Wyllie, the music industry, Canongate and Scotland's wood cabins

Singin’ I’m No a Billy, He’s a Tim. The difficulties of overcoming ignorance associated with the issue of sectarianism in Scotland were perfectly highlighted last season when one football radio pundit accused Des Dillon’s play of actually promoting…

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

Funny girls Ford & Akram Bamp up the action at this year's Edinburgh Fringe

From Humdinger to Bamp: Louise and Yasmine show their Boosh side

Anyone appearing at the Fringe for the first time, be that as audience member or stage act, might be shocked to discover some of the claustrophobic, sweaty hellholes that we like to call performance spaces during August. One of last year’s comedy double…

First raft of shows from 2012 Edinburgh Fringe programme

Stewart Lee, Jimmy Carr, Rhod Gilbert and more to appear at Fringe 2012

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has revealed around 60 shows to take place at this year's event in August. The announcement comes weeks before the full line-up announcement on Thu 31 May. Comedy shows form the bulk of the latest show announcements…

Scottish Ballet

An evening of contemporary classics

For a programme dominated by music from the great canon of composers, the opening to Finnish choreographer Jorma Elo’s Kings 2 Ends, a silent dynamic solo, comes as a surprise. But it’s curiously pleasing. It lets the clean stretched lines of the dance…

Fringe 2011 awards roundup

Multi-award winners include Mission Drift, Leo, Simon Callow and Silent

As the dust settles from this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, we see which figures are poised to stand tall on the cultural landscape with a clutch of awards under their belts The Scotsman Fringe First Awards One for productions appearing at the…

BUG Hosted by Adam Buxton

Entertaining but unchallenging music video presentation

The usually BFI-based BUG organisation’s remit is to celebrate ‘global creativity in music video’, and in that respect, this show succeeds admirably. Videos from acts as diverse as US indie-rockers Manchester Orchestra, electro artists The Chase and…

Amanda Palmer, Kurt Braunohler and Kristen Schaal and Mark Chavez

The Americans visiting the Fringe share their reflections on Edinburgh

The Yanks are here, and they’re ready to paint the town red, white and blue. Amanda ‘Fucking’ Palmer of the Dresden Dolls, Kurt Braunohler and Kristen Schaal of variety show Hot Tub, and Mark Chavez of physical comedy duo The Pajama Men take a long look…

Revolting Rhymes

Lively rendition of Roald Dahl tales

The two performers at the helm of this manic hour may be young (one of them had just received their A Level results the day I saw them) but already they’ve honed considerable performance skills. Not only that, they’ve also amassed a considerable…

Josie Long: The Future Is Another Place

Stand up for the left

Josie Long is ready to rubbish a stock right-wing idea when a heckler interrupts. ‘Hear hear!’ the grumbler shouts back at the suggestion that a cleaner shouldn’t have to pay tax towards funding liberal arts degrees. Long looks shocked, uttering…

Reservoir Dogs

Unimaginative adaptation of Tarantino’s heist movie

Quentin Tarantino has his fair share of detractors – those who claim his films make up for their lack of originality with profanity and violence. These people should swipe an extra star or two from this review, since Tarantino’s plot and dialogue are…

Und

Tough play with the meaning stressed out

Howard Barker is a playwright loved by academics for the challenges thrown down by his knotty ‘theatre of catastrophe’ and by actors for the chance to get their tongues round his muscular language. His writing is tough, poetic and…

Music Box

Mash-up improv troupe never hit a true stride

Maybe it was a lack of imagination on the audience’s part (a musical called Fish set in a chip shop doesn’t seem to be in keeping with the mash-up improv spirit), but this troupe never hit a true stride, going round in circles when they chance upon a…

John Lynn

Affable comic story-telling with a neat turn of phrase

No matter his subject material, which ranges in profundity from colonoscopies to making the perfect tomato and cheese sandwich, the roguish Lynn is able to mould it into a melodious, charming yarn. An affable, natural performer, he’ll send you away with…

Frimston and Rowett

A collection of decent comic coceits that overstay their welcome

Almost every sketch this duo bring out has a great play on words or a pleasingly silly concept at its heart, but far too often they pass the point where the sketch should naturally end. Trying to make quantity do the work of quality where their beloved…