SCOTLAND THEATER REVIEWS

A frighteningly life-sized portrait of the patriarchy. Built over the course of seven years with extracts from interviews with male-identifying individuals and their own personal stories, Them is rightfully enraging. From inculcating servitude from a young age to weaponised incompetence, the company...

Dementia is a scary prospect. The fate of many and incurable, it’s inevitable and painful for the patient and their family. Featuring interviews with professionals in the field of aged care and real-life stories, The Fish Bowl is a compassionate piece of theatre....

Echlin is an incredibly gifted writer. She visualises the pain of youth and externalises it with quiet humour and breezy observations that hide deep heartbreak. With a magnetic personality and expressive, captivating eyes, she takes her audience through a confessional journey where she tries to find...

David Head crafts an exquisite exploration of the relationship between humanity and technology with a big dash of capitalistic doom. Five stories are tied together by the dread and threat of an artificial future. With deadpan, confidently dark humour, Head paints an alarming picture of a world that�...

Edith Alibec writes a charismatic personality with a bitter edge and a silver tongue. She is incredibly funny, with a darkly sarcastic worldview cemented by side glances and sardonic asides. We are witnesses to her pain, becoming the confidantes of her most private thoughts. She is a universally rel...

It’s dreamlike and nightmarish. Confusing and alarming. The piece works on a subliminal space, has a few jump scares, and it is, frankly, quite weird. While in earlier productions the concept was clear and definite, this instance sees a puzzling storyline that doesn’t entirely make sense....

Amongst a raft of anonymous Air BnBs in Edinburgh, thirty-something Zara is running her own business and trying to make her way in the world. A new client has just arrived, but her colleague is running late. Tensions are high...

Desperate to shake her insomnia, Faye enlists the help of her brother, Naoise, to try a form of exposure therapy. But Naoise has a devastating secret that's about to explode....

When shy Aaron joins the hotel’s ramshackle team he’s faced with emotionally volatile guests, apathetic staff and inept management. Not to mention the rumour of a pair of singing ghosts haunting the corridors. ...

Ben Target is a critically-acclaimed performance artist and multi-award-winning comedian (yawn), but in 2020 he gave this up to become the live-in carer for an irascible octogenarian prankster. A life-affirming story about death, conveyed through the popular mediums of storytelling, servitude to the...

My salad days were spent growing up as a teen in the Blair era. My life has been shaped by Cool Britannia, The War on Terror and Sexed Up Documents. It's in my blood and created the outline of my now fully-formed Millennial Angst. Therefore, of course I wanted to review a show, examining and laughin...

If you have a couple of hours to spare and you want to try smoky, deep, fruity, warming, delicious whiskies, while also listening to folk tales, tasting notes that will blow your mind, and live singing that will haunt your heart and soul - look no further and make sure you get a ticket to Whisky & W...

If you enjoy RENT then go and see this. If you, like me, hadn't seen it and would like to, go and see this. It's not Broadway, but it's pretty close. ...

“How much time do you spend worrying about your decisions?” This is a show for anxious people. Theatre-director-who-was-nearly-a-doctor Adam Lenson steps on stage directed by Hannah Moss and delivers a life-affirming piece about the what-ifs we all come across. ...

Tipping into the contemporary interest in murders, Chasing Butterflies is a compelling, engrossing play that will have you hooked until the very end. While the suspicions of the farsighted may be correct from the start, a riveting origin story and an extensive list of gory details keep them on their...

The town where Anna and Eireni are studying has been hit by a number of racially provoked murders. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern, except that the victims are all immigrants. While a non-existing strand of organised crime is being blamed, the two women meet after a shocking event and decide to...

All in all, the production feels like it’s only at the beginning of its life, as is the company, so there’s plenty of scope to grow and become the big feminist project it strives to be. A stronger script, more decisive vision, and an external eye will make all the difference....

An audience of two steps into a small black box. They’re separated by a wall and can only hear each other through headphones when they talk into a microphone. Without Sin is an intriguing project that tugs at our contemporary need to feel. ...

There’s loads of theatre at the Fringe. Some is excellent, some is average, some is… questionable. Polish company Song of the Goat present a retelling of Shakeseare’s Titus Andronicus in what could simply be described as a gothic, choral, impenetrable behemoth of a production. It’s transfixi...

How do you deal with self-hatred? Do you go to therapy? Do you talk to your friends about it? Or do you create a one-hour comedy show and put it up at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival? For Alexander Bennett, the third option was the way to go....

What’s the worst gig you’ve ever had? I bet that Ollie Horn has had one much, much worse than you....

Some shows make you smile instinctively, and Jingle Street is one of them. Jingles, with their strong potential for catchy nonsense, lend themselves well to the world of musical theatre. The concept is funny and well executed, with overall silliness giving way at times to surprising emotion....

With rolling around on the floor, confetti, a paddling pool, and a toothbrush, The Last Show Before We Die is one of the most bizarre shows of this year’s festival. At the same time however, it’s one of the most moving. At its core, this is a show about endings. Last Show is formed around inter...

In Sophie Swithinbank's award-winning Bacon, friendship and love are inextricable from danger, anger, and hurt. It's a play that lives on the boundaries, the scales constantly tipping - literally, as the set takes the form of an oversized seesaw. ...

Gunter is an energetic, subtle, genuinely amusing, hard-hitting piece that ties the effects of violence and suspicion to the patriarchal structure and all its demands. Julia Grogan, Norah Lopez-Holden, and Hannah Jarrett-Scott materialise the story while Higman narrates it and contextualises it sitt...