SCOTLAND THEATER REVIEWS

The Drowsy Chaperone will speak to any musical theatre fan who finds escapism in showtunes. A charming, heart-warming and frequently hilarious show, it features an ageing, reclusive theatre aficionado, who is dealing with feeling blue by listening to his favourite musical, a typical 1920s romantic c...

Famed British sci-fi writer Arthur C Clarke once coined the adage that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.  It is at this intersection that The Extinction Event resides, one of two Fringe shows from The Sorcerers For The Extinction of Death And Associates, with thi...

A celebration of Heaven and Hell and everything in between! Cirque Alfonse, the creators that brought you the five-star, Fringe 2015 sell-out hit Barbu, return with a brand-new show. Daring, raucous, eccentric and downright fun, Tabarnak combines edge-of-your-seat circus with crazy cabaret acts and ...

A rowdy piece of popular theatre written by Morna Pearson and accompanied by an exceptionally catchy original pop-punk score by Jonny Hardie, Let's Inherit The Earth flits between scenes on the theme of climate change, how it is driven by capitalism and how it is further exploited by that very same ...

It's hard keeping it together when your whole life is falling apart. But the pressures of teaching, Tinder and outrageous Irish best mates are a lot to juggle, especially when you're stumbling through the maze of trying to be a grown-up. Stranger danger, heartbreak and piña coladas are on the sylla...

Yasmin feels different, she feels weird. She longs to be normal like everyone else but that's proving difficult... Based on the writer's experiences, WEIRD explores the highs and lows of what it is like for a sufferer, and a sufferer's family, to live in the shadows of obsessive compulsive disorder....

'Looking out over the country, this country, where I was born and raised, I wonder what's going to become of us. Because this can't be the future, can it? Everyone just... changing the rules?' Roger thinks the world's gone mad. He hates his job, his ex-wife torments him and to top it all, his girlfr...

Locked in his bathroom during a tragic third date, Willy Hudson asks: are you a top or a bottom? Bottom is about bums, Beyonce and burnt fish fingers. Join Willy for a queer coming-of-age remix, as he questions if 'bottom' in the bedroom means 'bottom' in life - and whether Beyonce can help put his ...

My best friends, Sarah and Emma, asked me for my sperm. This is the tale of what happened after I gave it to them. A storytelling show about love, faith and trying to do the right thing. Made with Daniel Goldman and set in the same universe as Team Viking and A Hundred Different Words for Love....

The chorus of young orphans are a talented young bunch, and paired with the brilliantly boozy Miss Hannigan (Hazel Beattie), they easily rival recent big-budget tours of the show. Sally Lyall's direction shines particular in an early fight scene between the orphans, an example of the attention to de...

As one-liner comics go, you'd be hard pushed to find anyone as close to the top of their game as Gary Delaney. Building his following from regular appearances on BBC's Mock The Week, his show has become a beg, steal or borrow ticket at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe and it's easy to see why....

Juxtaposed against the classic folk melody, upbeat dance numbers feel out of place; perhaps some more traditional folk songs could have helped keep this bus on the right route....

Intertwining music with her stories of family, friends and showbiz, this really is a great mix of song and story....

Adapted from Karel Capek's 1930s sci-fi satire, War With The Newts is set on an oyster trawler, en route to a colony of human survivors after the titular conflict.  Along the way, the show takes in issues of race, refugees, nationalism and animal experimentation....

The ability to hold the attention of the audience in delivering a complex, multi-character script with one actor makes this piece a real treat for audiences....

Max is hiding in the school toilets.  There's only an hour left before he has to face a huge rite of passage in the form of a school gates fight with terrifying teenage tough guy Danny Guthrie.  With best pal Stevie there to pump him up, or, more realistically, warn that he's in for a pounding, th...

There's a growing trend of films and TV shows being adapted for the stage. Just look at the list of this year's Tony Awards Best Musical nominees (Mean Girls, Frozen, Spongebob Squarepants and The Band's Visit) or your local UK regional theatre summer/autumn programme (Summer Holiday, Flashdance et...

Take Shakespeare's star-crossed epic, Romeo and Juliet, and set it in a not too distant future in Scotland when a second independence referendum has been called. Imagine two families, on both sides of the debate and how far they might go to win their cause this time around....

It is not uncommon for cancer stories to be told by former patients in order to educate others to empathise with those going through treatment. Heather Keller brings her personal story to the Edinburgh Fringe in a solo theatre piece, Chemo Barbie....

As the peal of wedding bells ring out across Edinburgh's Royal Mile, the sweet smell of success fills the air as Interactive Theatre International bring their riotous farce, The Wedding Reception, back to the Fringe for another year....

A fast- paced, hilarious coming of age musical by Tony award winning composer Jason Robert Brown with book by Dan Elish and Robert Horne. Evan Goldman's parents have split up and he is forced to leave the buzz of New York for the 'lamest place in the world' in rural Indiana. Will he find his place i...

A monologue by Hannah Mamalis, The Egg Is A Lonely Hunter is a wry, absurd piece that finds humour in both the mundane and the extraordinary, from talking horses to being overly conscious of one's body....

Adapted from the comedy of Aristophanes, The Frogs features the god Dionysus, aghast at the state of theatre, descending into the Underworld on a mission to bring back the greatest playwright of all time in a bid to save civilisation through the arts....

The ancient Greek tragedy Antigone is a hugely versatile piece, lending itself well to adaptations to situations far beyond its original Theban setting.  In this new adaptation by James Beagon, the play is set in the near future, where Brexit has resulted in a hard border with Ireland and consequen...

All the way from New Zealand, Javier Jarquin has always wanted to be a ninja.  With martial arts lessons proving disappointing and traditional weapons like nunchaku hard to master, Javier instead dedicated his time and effort to adapting playing cards into deadly shuriken.  In this show, he attemp...