Written by Alfie Jones Directed by Alice Harding Review by Orly Benn Underbelly George Square - Buttercup ★★★★ In a visual age of mass media consumption and production, Alfie Jones’s ‘This Blighted Star’ is immeasurably pertinent as a modern analysis of surveillance, mass media safety, social conspiracy, and celebrity idolatry. Jones’s play, expertly directed by … Continue reading Review: Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025 – This Blighted Star
Written by Indra Wilson Co-directed by Cora Bissett and Niloo-Far Khan Review by Orly Benn Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose - Big Yin ★★★★ The care and generosity of Indra Wilson’s performance begins in the queue entering Gilded Balloon’s ‘other yin’, where patrons are handed silver-star stickers to use in acts of personal remembrance and celebration … Continue reading Review: Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025 – Float
Written by Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland Review by Orly Benn theSpace @ Niddry St ★★★★★ Fringe heroes Xhloe and Natasha return to the too-busy, too-expensive, over-saturated Auld Reekie Edinburgh Fringe with all three of their previous shows to remind us why Fringe is worth it and why we should all try to do what … Continue reading Review: Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025 – And Then The Rodeo Burned Down
Written by David Ireland Directed by Finn den Hertog Review by Dominic Corr Lyceum Theatre: Tickets ★★ A fraction of a degree away from our own believable reality, that’s the brilliance of David Ireland’s writing. Never so outlandish, it tips into fantasy, just enough of a distorted reflection to feel wholly believable, even if the … Continue reading Review: Edinburgh International Festival 2024 – The Fifth Step
https://youtu.be/tUbX6a8h8-s Based on the book by David Keenan Adapted and Directed by Graham Eatough Tickets - £20.00 (Con. available) ★★★★ Legacy sells. Just have a gander at the touring rock groups littering venues all over the UK, utilising their heritage and nostalgia for a few more coins in the purse and maintaining their influence and … Continue reading Review: This Is Memorial Device, Traverse Theatre
Direction by Bex Anson MHz Movement Artists - Philip Alexander McDonald, Rita Hu, and Suzi Cunningham ★★★★ Easily earning itself the most influentially abstract of the Manipulate Festival 2024 pieces, Bex Anson MHz’s highly visual expressive dance performance Ruins (performed by Suzi Cunningham, Rita Hu, and Philip Alexander McDonald) commands an entire spectrum of life. Three beings, the last humans on Earth, become … Continue reading Review: Manipulate Festival 2024 – Ruins at The Studio, Edinburgh
Direction by Alex Bird Original Direction by Ross MacKay and Arran Howie Tickets from £13.00 ★★★★★ Under the gaze of the one-eyed deity, the world below is changing. A golden age of peace and prosperity - infected with avarice, hatred, and endless aggression. Winter has failed to ebb, and the sun hangs low in the sky, … Continue reading Review: Manipulate Festival 2024 – Ragnarok at The Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
Directed by Nicolas Alline and Dorothée Saysombat Tickets from £13.00 ★★★ Mercifully, theatrical expressions and writings surrounding colonial conquest are prying open the locked eyes of ignorance with growing abundancy: Enough of Him, Blood and Gold, Meaning of Zong, the National Theatre of Scotland’s Ghosts, and at the previous Festival Fringe there was tremendous success with Dark Noon. A conversation and discussion often … Continue reading Review: Manipulate Festival 2024 – La Conquête at The Studio, Edinburgh
https://youtu.be/IfePa4DHrq0 Adapted and Directed by Alex Harvey and Charlotte Mooney - Ockham’s Razor Devised by Alex Harvey, Charlotte Mooney, Macadie Amoroso, Joshua Frazer, Lauren Jamieson, Lila Naruse, Victoria Skillen, Leah Wallings and Nat Whittingham Choreography by Nathan Johnston ★★★★★ Ockham’s Razor, the world-class and award-winning aerial theatre company presents a simple conundrum: can you really tell a Thomas … Continue reading Review: Manipulate Festival 2024 – Tess at The Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
Written by William Shakespeare Directed by Minna Gillett Associate Direction by Marina Funcasta Tickets from £8.00 ★★★★ The Taming of the Shrew holds a peculiar reappearing position amongst full-blown productions and grassroots community theatre. Odd, given the bleak finale and grinding boot of submission this play entrenches itself. It’s a tale in which the titular ‘shrew’, … Continue reading Review: The Taming of the Shrew – Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh
