Edinburgh Festival

A minimalist set and tiny venue require extraordinary actors, and Michael Matthews’ Blue absolutely delivers.

Hailing from Australia, Elisa Riddington brings her solo show, Child of Sunday, to the Edinburgh Fringe as part of the Free Fringe programme. The backdrop of the show on entry is a cross-shaped stained glass window with light pouring through. 

Everyone has a part to play in the fight against the climate crisis, even comedians, Stuart Goldsmith argues. His lighthearted hour at the Monkey Barrel gently encourages the audience to consider the climate and their everyday actions.

It’s hard to believe there are any origin stories that haven’t been explored yet at this stage given the success of previous shows such as Unfortunate at multiple Fringe venues, but there is still one, tiny tale to be told: that of a certain fairy from JM Barrie’s Peter Pan and how she ended up so small. 

Big Fish is one of two shows presented by students from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. The musical is an adaptation of the 1998 Daniel Wallace novel and 2003 Tim Burton film of the same name. The screenwriter John August then worked with composer-lyricist Andrew Lippa to adapt the piece for the stage in 2012, with this version directed by Tom Cooper.

As bass blasts through the speakers of the cave-like intimate theatre, Elle Dillon-Reams bursts onstage in a sequined jumpsuit, limbs pulsing in time to the rhythms. HoneyBEE, a solo performance combining spoken word, dance, gig theatre, physical theatre, and storytelling maintains this electric festival energy throughout. 

Abridged from Eileen Atkins’s play, the four-hander shows the visceral longing shared by the two women. With strands of personal letters and diary entries, they cross the thin lines between admiration, affection, and attraction.

The Titanic has been in the news quite a lot this year with its endlessly fascinating, tragic story. When a third-class passenger accosts the chairman of the White Star Line as he tries to spot his family on the quay before the crossing, an unlikely friendship starts. One a reverent from Scotland, the other a well-bread gentleman who’s proud of the work he’s done.

Pretentiously meta and absolutely bland, the piece is a paceless trudge. While the character alludes to sexual misconduct, by the end we still don’t know what happened. It’s not suspenseful, it’s merely frustrating.

Truly Siskind-Weiss’s father died when she was ten years old. Since then, her life has been divided by that watershed. In a tender monologue where she tries to make sense of death, Siskind-Weiss mourns the person she could have been. Grown up too quickly but still treated like a child, she now yearns for a simpler time when she could simply be reliant on someone.

It’s all a bit chaotic and disorganised narratively, with an unfortunate lack of poetry in the text itself. While Malseed takes an individual approach to her story, she doesn’t really say much of what lies behind the events. Belfast is painted like a dangerous city, but the causes for that are left up in the air.

What did our critic think of OH MY HEART, OH MY HOME at Summerhall?

It’s Midsummer’s Eve, and a young man is ready to plunge into the Thames to make his sacrifice. As we stand alongside him, we dive into British mythology and pagan beliefs as he goes on a journey defined by backhandedly bitter irony. Nathaniel Jones writes an ancient fable suspended in time, addressing the lies we tell ourselves in our attempts to romanticise our memory.

A deeply intimate performance by Robyn Hunter peels off the layers of bereavement and explores the reactive coping mechanisms we get wrapped up in. With effortless observational humour and a sadness only broken by bitterness, the piece unravels the fragmentation of the grieving experience through the eyes of a young woman.

A young detective works against the clock as she questions a suspect who looks like the least likely person to be linked to a murder. He's a devoted son, a successful businessman and a respectable member of society. But as the minutes tick away, the detective starts to suspect that all is not what it seems... Inspired by real events, the debut play from the Tony Award-nominated co-director of SIX: The Musical is a gripping interrogation drama about power, deception, and our perspectives on the truth.

What’s the worst date you’ve ever had? Can you remember the exact date it happened and recount the evening in every detail? Sasha Ellen can, and she’s going to tell you all about it! Sasha Ellen: When Life Gives You Ellens, Make Ellenade is a stand-up show in which Ellen takes us through her recent dating life.

Trauma-based dark humour is plentiful in modern comedy – as Krystal Evans says herself, making comedy out of tragedy is the best way to take the power back from it – but none do it quite like The Hottest Girl at Burn Camp, Krystal Evans' debut hour at the Fringe.

BWW catches up with the team behind Blub Blub to chat about bringing the show to the 2023 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Nica Burns, the longstanding Director of the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, has officially launched the biggest awards in live comedy at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.  

It’s a very American coming-of-age story. The script follows all the correct beats and the direction tackles the necessary points for it to be a well-paced and flowing piece of theatre, but the characters are walking clichés. Everything is done abnormally by the book, including the performances by the budding actors. It’s high-energy and quick, but it doesn’t say much. Szymkowicz covers angst and anger, attraction and pettiness, grief and overcoming it.

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 breaks open toxic masculinity to reveal its inner workings.

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 out who she is and why she is like that. She has no need for props or sets: a simple stool and a microphone to add dynamism to her characters are enough for her to craft a hypnotic performance. 

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’s not too far off from where we’re standing.

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 relatable individual to most millennials. From her relationship with her mother and her abandoned dreams to the search for love in the wrong places, Alibec pinpoints the contemporary malaise of the women in their 30s.