Festival Theatre
Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of)
★★★★☆ Delightful
Isobel McArthur’s Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) bursts out of the servants’ stairs and into the parlour with straight-talk and song, bringing irreverent Austenian charm to the Festival Theatre on the Edinburgh stop of its current UK & Ireland tour.
Calamity Jane
★★★★☆ Wholesome fun
Musical comedy classic Calamity Jane rolls into the Festival Theatre this week all the way from the Black Hills of Deadwood, Dakota. With it’s gun slingin’, high tales and hoedowns – it’s a real fun ride through the Wild West.
Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake
★★★★☆ Emotional artistry
Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, at the Festival Theatre until Saturday, remains a huge draw, and with good reason.
Little Women
★★★★☆ Heart-warming
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott’s classic and well-loved tale of four sisters’ tumultuous lives during the American Civil War, arrives at the Festival Theatre this week in Anne-Marie Casey’s adaptation first seen at Pitlochry in 2022.
Ghost Stories
★★★★☆ Supernatural thrills
Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman’s Ghost Stories is a very successful piece of theatre, and a suitably scary excursion into the supernatural. After a successful West End run, the play’s first attempt at a tour was cut short by Covid lockdowns, but it is finally touring nationwide.
Death of a Salesman
★★★☆☆ Modern Tragedy
Arthur Miller’s enduring tragedy Death of a Salesman leaves no question of the play’s outcome in its title, or in this new production from Trafalgar Theatre Productions and Raw Material touring to the Festival Theatre.
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
★★★★★ Long live the Queen
The Bohemians open their limited run of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – The Musical at the Festival Theatre to a standing ovation, with a production full of glitz, glam, disco, and heart.
The Makropulos Affair
★★★★☆ Provocative
In a new co-production with Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera revives The Makropulos Affair at the Festival Theatre for two performances only, in a production rich with detail and sumptuous design.
Mary Poppins
★★★★★ Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
Blown in on her umbrella by the gusts of Storm Éowyn, the new UK & Ireland tour of Mary Poppins arrives in Edinburgh in a fashion that can only be described by the mysterious nanny’s own superlative: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Cinderella
★★★★☆ Sparkling
Cinderella at the Festival Theatre is yet another example of a spectacular family pantomime featuring the familiar talents of Allan Stewart, Grant Stott and Jordan Young.
