Reviews & features: Theatre

My Shrinking Life - Alison Peebles' MS-themed show

Alison Peebles' first MS theatre piece will feature dancers and is directed by Belgian Lies Pauwels

Scotland has the highest levels of multiple sclerosis in the world, and one of the country’s most high profile sufferers is lauded actress, writer and director Alison Peebles. Peebles, who’s won acclaim in the past for her portrayal of Lady Macbeth and…

Scotrail announce expanded Edinburgh Festival 2012 train timetable

Additional night services to Glasgow, Dundee, Perth and North Berwick

New late-night train services to and from Edinburgh will make it easier for those outside the city to visit the 2012 festival. In Glasgow, there will be a Fringe box office at Queen Street station from July 27. Tickets bought online in advance can be…

How to visit the Edinburgh Festival

A guide to getting the best from the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe

The phrase 'planned itinerary' might might be at odds with the spirit of chaos and wild abandon you associated with your visit to the Edinburgh Festival. The brutal truth is that shows do sell out, so book tickets to things you definitely want to see.

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…

As Ye Sow

Strong performances and mounting tension in well-conceived ghost story

Without the use of special effects horror can be quite tricky to bring to the stage with the result that ghost stories are usually the sub-genre of choice for the theatre. The audience can fill in the gaps that clever editing or CGI would usually…

How to find work at the Edinburgh Festival 2011

How to find a job at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2011

Thousands of people descend upon Edinburgh at this time of year for the start of festival season and now is the time to begin your search for a job within the buzzing excitement. In a study carried out last year it found that 71% of volunteers had an…

Les Naufragés du Fol Espoir (Aurores)

Théâtre du Soleil's debut production at the Edinburgh International Festival is a coup de théâtre

The first ever Edinburgh International Festival production by the great French company Théâtre du Soleil promised to be an unforgettable event. And so it proves. The brainchild of Théâtre du Soleil’s founder and director Ariane Mnouchkine, Les…

Oh, the Humanity and Other Good Intentions

Marvellous quintet of short plays with excellent performances

Marvellous quintet of short plays with excellent performances Isn’t self-consciousness a ball-ache? It ups the ante, rather, as if all eyes are on you and you’re barely making sense, let alone delivering the goods, and you still haven’t found what…

The Shit / La Merda

Howl of human emotion makes for unforgettable theatre

Raw, touching, intelligent and mesmerising, Cristian Ceresoli’s The Shit is an unforgettable piece of theatre that reveals our universal inner thoughts, fears, desires and memory with almost frightening accuracy. Comprised of a powerful and…

Thread

Poignant site-specific evocation of life and loss

After the success of last year’s Allotment, Nutshell Theatre returns with an immersive evocation of nostalgia, memory and love as the forces that bind us together in the second part of their thematic trilogy. The audience is invited to the Burntisland…

Poignant preview

A bold, imaginative retelling of three Argentinean tales

As if getting into bed in the dark with strangers wasn’t intriguing enough, Micaela Tettamanti’s 45-minute show Poignant features one of the smallest audiences on the Fringe (only four are admitted at any one time) and has no actors or stage to speak of.

Opening Night of the Living Dead

Zombies - not huge fans of amateur dramatics

Shakespeare and Romero form an unholy alliance in this horror/comedy that depicts a zombie attack on an am-dram production of Romeo and Juliet. Fun, but ultimately predictable, with often repetitive chase sequences, this piece goes for giggles instead…

Class Enemy

A different class

When Nigel Williams’ Class Enemy made its debut at London’s Royal Court in 1978, hip hop was still a phenomenon of the American underground. It would never have occurred to a director to incorporate it into this portrayal of a bunch of teenagers in a…

Stonewall

Doubtless huge progress has been made regarding gay rights in recent decades but there are still reports of gay people being persecuted across the world.

Unmythable

Infectiously energetic trio enthralls kids and adults alike in hour-long sprint through classical my

The action opens on the Argot where an overly zealous Jason, and his less competent shipmates, is on his way to fight the man-eating dragon that never sleeps and claim the golden fleece in order to prove himself to be a hero. Along the way, the…

Good Grief

Meandering musical hour of delightful schadenfreude

Gone Rogue’s likeable, funeral-set musical might start off in a subdued atmosphere of deep sorrow, but by the end of the show most of the mourners have ended up half naked, high on hash cookies or reeling from shocking family revelations. Using a family…

The List

Maureen Beattie delivers this bleakly poignant dramatic monologue from Stellar Quines

In 1916, American playwright Susan Glaspell wrote a one-act piece, Trifles, about two women using their intimate knowledge of the domestic sphere to hide clues right under the noses of a group of men investigating a murder. It may be nearly a century…

Bound

Anarchic trip to California derails early on

A young lad, his innocent girlfriend and estranged father are trapped inside a freight train. What was meant to be an anarchic trip to California has turned into an indefinite prison sentence. It sounds like the ideal ingredients for an intensely…

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…

The Boat Factory

Poignant, moving evocation of a lost way of life

If you don’t think a play about a shipyard sounds like your kind of thing, think again. This moving two-hander by Dan Gordon, performed by Belfast’s Happenstance theatre company, is a real gem, at once an evocation of the city’s Harland and Wolff boat…

Re-Animator at Edinburgh Fringe - "We’re throwing blood all over the audience!"

54 gallons of blood and gore in play based on cult 80s film

Stuart Gordon holds a grisly place in movie trivia. ‘It’s true, I had the all-time record for most amount of fake blood used in a film,’ the director confirms, referring to the 24 gallons of corn syrup-based thick red gunge poured into his cult 1985…

Dream Pill

Poignant insight into the unsettling reality of sex work in the UK

Produced by Clean Break and based on real experiences, this minimalist performance focuses on two young girls trafficked from Nigeria. The two actresses adopt child-like language and mannerisms to provide a poignant insight into the unsettling reality…

Foe play - Class Enemy

Edinburgh International Festival

In times of both war and peace, Haris Pasovic has created crucial theatre. Malcolm Jack speaks to him about taking a story set in 1970s Brixton and plunging it into contemporary Sarajevo.

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…