Claire Halleran
To Save the Sea
★★★★☆ Defiant hope
Sleeping Warrior Theatre Company presents To Save the Sea at the Traverse and on a Scottish tour, a new musical capturing the efforts of Greenpeace environmental activists to prevent the disposal of Shell’s Brent Spar oil storage facility at sea in 1995.
Dear Billy
★★★★☆ Devotional
Gary McNair presents a remount of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Dear Billy, A Love Letter to the Big Yin at the Assembly Rooms on George Street for a ten date run at the fringe.
A Giant on the Bridge
★★★☆☆ Insightful
A Giant on the Bridge is a slow-burning and sympathetic piece of gig theatre, co-created with people who have lived experience of the criminal justice system, playing Assembly Roxy for the first two weeks of the Fringe.
Dear Billy
★★★★★ Joyous
Everyone has a Billy Connolly story. Ask around on any Scottish High Street, and folk will have a story about the Big Yin. Which is both the premiss and the promise of Dear Billy, at the Traverse for three nights only.
Seats Up at the Lyceum
Installation celebrates Scotland’s missing theatre:
The foyer of the Royal Lyceum has become the set of #TakeASeat, with freelance theatre designers creating a tableaux of empty seats to mark the loss of theatre during the Covid pandemic.
The Sideshow
★★★☆☆ In the zone:
In the week when moves to regulate AirBnB failed and it was decided to curtain Princess Street Gardens off during commercial gigs, Active Inquiry’s The Sideshow feels remarkably relevant.
South Bend
★★★★☆ Comic Journey:
South Bend at Gilded Balloon at the Museum is a sharp, bittersweet comedy that is smart enough to know when to be clever and when to be stupid.
The View From Castle Rock by Alice Munro
✭✭✭✭✩ Stately:
There is a classy and accomplished feel to The View from Castle Rock, the Book Festival’s collaboration with Stellar Quines.
