EdFringe 2014
The Lift
✭✭✩✩✩ Not uplifting
Some clever staging and energetic performances are not enough to mask fundamental drawbacks in conception and script in Edinburgh University Theatre Company’s The Lift.
Alba – A New Scottish Musical
✭✭✭✩✩ Curate’s egg
Tuneful, well staged and well performed, Finn Anderson Productions’ Alba – A New Scottish Musical has a great deal going for it, but also manages to lose its way before the end of its journey.
Once Upon A…
✭✭✭✭✩ Bursting with imagination
Immersive and interactive storytelling for the very young is taken into an altogether new realm up at Edinburgh Elim in the clever and inventive Once Upon A…
National Loaf
✭✭✩✩✩ Amusing romp
Charlotte Productions provide a quirky take on WW2 rationing at the Vault on Merchant Street in a production which could do with tightening up a tad.
Letters Home to live on?
Further outings possible for Grid Iron sell-out: Anyone unable to find a ticket for Grid Iron and the Book Festival’s Letters Home may be placated by the suggestion that further productions are possible.
Rumours
✭✭✭✩✩ Frantic fun
Energetic, consistent and farcically daft, Arkle Theatre Company’s production of Rumours provides some diverting entertainment.
Writer’s Block
✭✭✭✩✩ I’ll Take This Manhattan
Riverside Drive and Old Saybrook are packed with typically over-educated and over-analytical characters in this Woody Allen double bill, staged with great comedic effect by Edinburgh Theatre Arts.
New Venue for Hyde & Seek
Hyde and Seek, Michael Daviot’s show which has been plagued by noise-bleed at C-Nova on Cockburn street, is to move to a new building within the C family of venues.
Miss Julie
✭✭✭✭✩ Enticing scandal
In a new adaptation of August Strindberg by Jen McGregor, Black Dingo Productions return to the late 19th Century with a story about class, longing and scandal.
Weekend Breaks
✭✭✭✩✩ Carefully honed
Arkle Theatre Company’s accomplished production of John Godber’s Weekend Breaks probably gives more care and attention to the material than it deserves.
