EIF
Medea (EIF)
★★★★☆ Towering
Medea, Liz Lochhead’s triumphant retelling of Euripides has returned to Edinburgh. The new production, at the Hub as part of the International Festival, boasts a Medea from Adura Onashile that will surely be every bit as legendary as Maureen Beattie was first time round.
Burn (EIF)
★★★★☆ Fiery
Burn, Alan Cumming’s solo dance-theatre interpretation of Robert Burns in the International Festival at the King’s, has a definite spark of passion.
Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age
★★★☆☆ Mixed bag
Given the honour of closing the Edinburgh International Festival that so nearly never happened, Alan Cumming responds with his trademark gusto and skill. Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age at the Old College Quad is, however, an odd combination of the delightful and the infuriating.
Medicine
★★★★★ Shattering
Medicine, Landmark Productions and Galway International Arts Festival’s production for the International Festival at the Traverse, is a troubling, funny, emotionally devastating and brilliantly realised piece of theatre.
A Grand Night For Singing
★★★☆☆ Bouncy
A Grand Night For Singing, the showcase for the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein conceived by Walter Bobbie and restaged for the International Festival by Kim Criswell, is a wonderfully tuneful affair. Bursting with humour and bonhomie, it is attractive and occasionally infuriating.
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.
The End of Eddy
★★★★☆ Inventive realism:
The End of Eddy at the Studio is both creatively playful and grippingly real, as a production of rare immediacy is built around a combination of technology and human interaction.
Waiting For Godot
★★★★☆ Clearly impressive:
Suffused with hope and hopelessness, Waiting For Godot at the Lyceum in the International Festival exemplifies all of the humanity and cruelty of Samuel Beckett’s landmark work.
Oresteia: This Restless House
★★★★☆ Drips grandeur:
Huge and elemental forces drive This Restless House, the version of the Oresteia by Zinnie Harris originally produced by the Citizens’ Glasgow and the National Theatre of Scotland last year.
The Divide Parts One and Two
★★★☆☆ Long time coming:
The official Festival’s flagship production of Alan Ayckbourn’s The Divide at the King’s contains multitudes.
