Author: Allan Wilson
Tartan Tat
★★★★☆ Authentic comedy
Shark Bait Theatre’s Tartan Tat, playing theSpace @ Niddry St for the first two weeks of the Fringe, is a very funny play set in a tourist gift shop on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile.
Napoleon’s 100 Days
★★☆☆☆ Basic
Napoleon’s 100 Days is a comic telling of Napoleon’s epic escape from captivity on the island of Elba, performed by its writer and producer Andy D (for Dickinson) at Paradise in the Vault for the first two weeks of the Fringe.
Dead Girls Rising
★★★★☆ Emotional roller-coaster
Silent Uproar’s new touring production of Dead Girls Rising, at the Traverse for three performances, is an emotional roller-coaster of punk gig theatre focusing on two young women as they navigate a pathway through lives faced with misogyny and a violent patriarchy.
David Bowie & Me: Parallel Lives
★★★★☆ Hilarious reflections
Gilded Balloon’s presentation of Jack Docherty in David Bowie & Me: Parallel Lives takes a 1997 interview on Docherty’s TV chat show with his teenage hero, David Bowie as a starting point for some hilarious reflections on a childhood growing up in 1970s Edinburgh.
Louder
Showcase: Most worthwhile
Framework Theatre’s Louder is a showcase for “semi-staged draft works of four brand new plays, all written & directed by early-career artists of marginalised genders.”
All Shook Up
★★★★☆ Hugely entertaining
Queen Margaret University Musical Theatre Society’s production of All Shook Up, at the Pleasance Theatre for four performances only, is a hugely entertaining jukebox musical from the book by Joe DiPietro.
Who We Are Now
Work in Progress: 70s/80s vibe
Edinburgh University Theatre Company’s Who We Are Now, written and directed by Thaddeus Buttrey and produced by Ching Zhan, is a rock opera presented as a work in progress, that is already giving off a very enjoyable 70s/80s vibe.
Listen to the Forest
Work in Progress: Enjoyably thought-provoking.
Valeria Levi’s Listen to the Forest is an experimental dance performance combining movement, spoken word, music and innovative use of sign language. It is currently in the second stage of its development process, with hopes for a final stage later in the year, but is already an enjoyably thought-provoking production.
Things I Know to be True
★★★★☆ Captivating
Things I Know to be True by the Australian writer, Andrew Bovell, staged by Edinburgh University Theatre Company at the Bedlam to Saturday, is a less well-known piece, although Higher Drama students may know it intimately.
Plinth
★★★☆☆ Horrors of war
Writer and performer, Al Seed’s latest creation, Plinth, produced by his own company and Vanishing Point and touring to Manipulate, opens with Seed standing on a plinth giving a live rendition of a series of poses found in military statues.
