Reviews
The Music Man
★★★★☆ Massive
Huge production numbers and constant energy dominate Southern Light’s The Music Man at the Festival Theatre. Undeniably frothy and not a little silly, it has a scale and magnetism that draw the audience in.
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.
Blue Remembered Hills
★★★☆☆ Challenging
Leitheatre’s Blue Remembered Hills at the Church Hill is nasty and short. Which is exactly what is intended.
Macbeth (an undoing)
★★★★☆ Compelling
Zinnie Harris’s much-garlanded adaptation of Shakespeare, Macbeth (an undoing), returns to the Lyceum subtly tweaked and all the better for it.
The Gondoliers
★★★★☆ Sparkling
The Edinburgh Gilbert and Sullivan Society’s production of The Gondoliers has a vitality and melodicism that always catches the eye and ear.
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.
The Drifters’ Girl
★★★☆☆ Stories still unsung
The Drifters Girl, at the Playhouse this week as part of a UK tour, provides plenty of Drifters hits, hung around the story of Faye Treadwell, who managed the group up until 2001.
When Mountains Meet
★★★★☆ Joyfully moving
When Mountains Meet is the best kind of touring theatre – approachable, intelligent, melodic and utterly entertaining.
