Mark Fisher

One Thousand and One Nights

Flagship EIF production feels like a rediscovery of a lost classic

22 Aug 2011

There’s a tremendous life force pulsating through director Tim Supple’s reclamation of these ancient folk tales. It’s a life force that exists, most palpably, for Houda Echouafni’s Shahrazad, whose survival depends on her ability to spin a yarn and…

(g)Host City

Edinburgh audio tours from spoken word performers

18 Aug 2011

First thing in the morning, I’m standing on top of Calton Hill looking out to Arthur’s Seat, Princes Street and the Pentlands. It’s a view I never tire of, but on my headphones Jenny Lindsay is giving a different message. ‘Edinburgh, you old tart,…

Und

Tough play with the meaning stressed out

17 Aug 2011

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…

Emergence

Death becomes the Pachamamas

17 Aug 2011

It’s always tricky to deal with grief on stage. By its nature, it is an emotion that comes after the fact, making an audience feel it has missed out on the main event. It cannot be resolved in the way any other dramatic conflict is resolved. This…

The Golden Dragon

Global stories to take away

12 Aug 2011

Roland Schimmelpfennig’s 2009 play, a bit hit in Germany, is a gift for a director. His characters are blank canvases with names such as ‘The Young Woman’ and ‘The Man Over 60’. Much of their dialogue is written in the third person, stage directions…

Allotment

Sweetly observed play taking place on a real allotment with free cup of tea

11 Aug 2011

Whatever happens to Dora and Maddy, the chalk-and-chips sisters at the heart of Jules Horne’s sweetly observed play, you know they will be outlived by their surroundings. The soil beneath their feet, the weeds that have persisted for millions of years…

Man of Valour

Mime and punishment

8 Aug 2011

Haven’t we been through this before? Wasn’t it some time in the 1970s we stopped being dazzled by mime artists? Didn’t we pretty quickly realise the means of telling a story are never as interesting as the story itself? It seems not in the case of…

101

Group hugs, cult chants and it’s all your fault

8 Aug 2011

Back with three new immersive scenarios after causing a stir last year, the 101 team show just how compelling theatre can be with the most elementary of resources. No special effects, no set, scarcely anything you’d call a costume and yet the young…

Elegy

Moving story of a flight from persecution

8 Aug 2011

The last time Douglas Rintoul was in Scotland was to direct a revival of David Greig’s Europe at Dundee Rep. There’s something of the flavour of that migratory play in this powerful production for the internationally minded Transport company, as actor…

The One Man Show

Late-night high-tech deconstruction with Jaffa Cakes

5 Aug 2011

So post-modern it hurts, The One Man Show is a piece of theatre about watching a piece of theatre. It has a mysterious start, a set of emotional states, a philosophical moment where we cough and eat sweets, a cheesy musical interlude and a point when we…

Uncompromising take on One Thousand and One Nights at 2011 EIF

Centrepiece theatre production of Edinburgh International Festival 2011

7 Jul 2011

It begins in classic once-upon-a-time style. 'A long, long time ago lived two kings who were brothers,' goes the opening line of One Thousand and One Nights. 'The elder, King Shahrayar, ruled India and Indochina. The younger, Shahzaman, ruled…

Theatre, music and dance highlights from the 2011 Edinburgh International Festival

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Semiramide and King Lear among picks

7 Jul 2011

The Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) has been a benchmark for quality and innovation in the performing arts since its inauguration nearly 65 years ago. This year artistic director Jonathan Mills builds his programme around the multi-faceted…

Porgy and Bess

French company take Porgy and Bess to the Deep South

22 Aug 2010

When Opera de Lyon’s Porgy and Bess is remembered, it will be for the extraordinary multimedia staging by the directorial double-act of Jose Montalvo and Dominique Hervieu. It isn’t only that we get 50-odd performers on stage - the dancers giving it…

The avant garde planet of Boguslaw Schaeffer

An 80-year-old Polish polymath is set to be the discovery of the Fringe, says Mark Fisher

12 Aug 2010

Boguslaw Schaeffer reckons he’s living in the year 2048. It’s as plausible a claim as anything else you could say about this extraordinary Polish octogenarian. His name might not be widely known, yet he has led a breathtakingly creative life. As a…

The Edinburgh Fringe shows taking human trafficking as a theme

Roadkill and Lost Boy amongst Fringe shows telling refugees' stories

29 Jul 2010

A celebrity endorsement works wonders for your box office and all power to Shatterbox for getting Emma Thompson to put her name to its production of Fair Trade. But that show is only the most high profile in an unprecedented wave of Fringe productions…

Little Black Bastard deals with horrific Australian childhood

Noel Tovey puts disturbing past of poverty and crime on stage

29 Jul 2010

It is the ultimate rags to riches story. Yet the tale Noel Tovey tells about himself is more distressing than any version of Cinderella. It is a narrative that shocked even his closest friends when he chose to tell it to the world in Little Black…

More Light Please delivers emotional take on economic migration

One-woman Fringe show drawn from experience of moving from Poland to Ireland

27 Jul 2010

Natalia Kostrzewa is sitting in the courtyard of Warsaw’s Teatr Praga, enjoying the early evening air. She’s just performed her one-woman show, More Light Please, drawn from her experiences of moving to Ireland, and is delighted to have delivered it in…

Freefall captures mood of bewilderment moments before death

Dublin theatre group's Fringe show captures mood of the times

27 Jul 2010

It would be misleading to say the latest play by Dublin’s Corn Exchange was about the credit crunch, the collapse of the Celtic Tiger and the scandals within the Catholic church, but those events were playing out when Freefall was created last year and…

Diciembre finds dark humour in Chile's Pinochet years

Teatro en el Blanco go back to basics with politically engaging EIF production

16 Jul 2010

The Pinochet years continue to leave a deep scar on the Chilean psyche. Playwright Guillermo Calderón tells Mark Fisher why Diciembre tackles some dark memories but still finds humour in his nation’s tortured past

Ontroerend Goed bring Teenage Riot to the Edinburgh Fringe

Renowned Belgian theatre group explores teenage angst

15 Jul 2010

Everyone who visits Alexander Devriendt in the rehearsal room says he must be crazy. He is 33 years old, yet he thrives on working with the most exuberant of teenagers. ‘It’s not about wanting to stay young, I don’t think about it,’ says the Belgian…

Five theatre shows from the continent at the Edinburgh Fringe

15 Jul 2010

More Light Please Polish actor Natalia Kostrzewa stars in her own one-woman play (co-written by Jerzy Lach) about economic migration. The production by Teatr Praga is in English and features music by the Tiger Lillies. New Town Theatre, George…

If That’s All There Is

Cynical piece of work

24 Aug 2009

Less a play than a series of sketches, this show created by Inspector Sands is about a couple of maladjusted professionals approaching their wedding day. Wittily staged, it has some good gags about the bureaucratic mindset, but it is ultimately a…

The Doubtful Guest

The Gorey details

20 Aug 2009

That Hoipolloi’s staging of the Edward Gorey fable is entertainingly done is without question. It is not only an adaptation of this story about a pointy-faced creature in white canvas shoes who takes residence in a grand country mansion, but also an…

East 10th Street: Self Portrait with Empty House

Three storeys of NYC stories

13 Aug 2009

Edgar Oliver will not be the only actor taking on the Everyman persona this August. Like innumerable stand-up comics and solo performers, he presents himself as the still centre of a chaotic world. By identifying with him, we can share his strange…

Funny

An inability to see the potential in a great idea

12 Aug 2009

There’s a great idea behind Tim Nunn’s new play for Glasgow’s Reeling & Writhing about the army’s use of humour to interrogate suspects. Instead of tackling the clash of comedy and combat head on, however, the playwright gets distracted by his…