Review
Traverse Festival (2)
Shielding , Doomsdays, Matterhorn & The Watercooler:
The Traverse’s online Festival continues with three more audio-only Breakfast Plays, as well as some treats that are more visual.
Traverse Breakfast Plays: New Tracks (1)
Traverse 3:
The Traverse are replicating their Fringe Breakfast Plays with streams from their new online-only Traverse 3, and the first two offerings – Contemporary Political Ethics (Or, How to Cheat) by Jamie Cowan and Rabbit Catcher by Rebecca Martin – both have much to recommend them.
My Light Shines On: Ghost Light
★★★★☆ Magical:
Ghost Light provides a poignant reminder of what we are all missing in this fallow year of live performance in Edinburgh during August.
Consequence
★★★★☆ Sharply crystalline:
Consequence is a beautifully limpid and thoughtfully imaginative online offering from Fringe regular Mara Menzies, as part of Fringe of Colour.
I love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change
★★★★☆ Deliciously cynical:
Room 29 theatre has come out of the Covid closet with a neatly packaged and deliciously cynical production of I love you, your perfect, now change available online for just 24 hours.
The Coolidge Effect
★★★★☆ Intriguing:
Wonder Fools have revived their intriguing two hander about the insidious effect of pornography, for an audio, lockdown production that actively enhances the intimacy of the original.
The Garden Party
★★★☆☆ Lucid:
The Garden Party, Vaclav Havel’s 1960s absurdist take-down of communist bureaucracy gets an invigorating and lucid outing in this live Zoom production from Big Mind Theatre.
Anno Domino
★★★★☆ Perfectly Pitched:
Alan Ayckbourn has taken a play ‘off the back burner’ for audio streaming by the Stephen Joseph Theatre, where he was artistic director for many years. It has all of the hallmarks of classic Ayckbourn – razor-sharp observation, subtle skewering of preconceptions, and exploration of murky hidden depths.
Five from Inside
★★★☆☆ Zippy:
A series of enigmatic, eclectic discoveries, Five From Inside’s guerrilla-portraits of isolation expose some of the tensions facing theatre-makers staring down a digital ‘new normal.’
The Tempest
★★★★☆ Virtual storm:
While many theatre companies have resorted to screening films of existing shows during lockdown, Banbury-based Creation Theatre has not only created a new piece of theatre but is performing it live.
