Gilded Balloon
The Elephant Man
★★★☆☆ Effective:
There is a straightforward effectiveness to Fringe Management and Canny Creatures’ version of The Elephant Man at the Gilded Balloon that helps it overcome its comparative lack of inspiration.
Shakespeare for Museum
Three Captivate shows for new Gilded Balloon fringe venue:
Edinburgh theatre company Captivate, is to take its three hit “Shakin’ Shakespeare” adaptations to the National Museum of Scotland for the fringe 2016.
Gray Wins Stage Award
Andy Gray’s Willie is an “unmissable tour de force”.
Andy Gray has won a coveted Stage Award for Acting Excellence for his performance as William Donaldson in Willie and Sebastian at the Gilded Balloon.
Allie
✭✭✩✩✩ Nostalgic radge:
Ruaraidh Murray’s Allie at the Gilded Balloon Billiard Room is spirited and energetic but ultimately somewhat empty.
Kevin McMahon – Quantum Magic
✭✭✭✩✩ Tricky:
Kevin McMahon entertains as a magician in his Quantum Magic at the Gilded Balloon, but ultimately there’s an sense of deception that doesn’t come from his tricks.
Willie and Sebastian
✭✭✭✭✩ Immoral compass:
Foul-mouthed and funny, Willie and Sebastian is far removed from what might be expected of the established double act of Andy Gray and Grant Stott. Nevertheless it provides an entertaining hour, with Gray in particular close to his very best.
Boxman
✭✭✭✭✩ One-man wonder
Many plays tread a fine line between comedy and pathos. Such delicacy is not for Boxman in the Gilded Balloon Turret. Rather, it unheedingly hurls itself across that line with extremely successful results.
Review – Kiss Me Honey, Honey!
★★★☆☆ Assured comic performances
Mainstays of the annual King’s pantomime Andy Gray and Grant Stott are reunited at the Gilded Balloon Teviot in Kiss Me Honey, Honey!, a new two-hander written by Philip Meeks.
Review – The Agony And Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs Revisited
Is this a play or a TED Talk re-enacted? It is a compliment both to the quality of the writing by American monologist Mike Daisey and to the performance by Scottish actor Grant O’Rourke that it is so easy to forget that it is the former.
Review – Bath Time
✭✭✭✩✩ Radge recollections:
Sex, drugs and hands-in-the-air euphoric tunes are bangin’ away at the heart of Ruaraidh Murray’s cannily personalising tale of nineties Edinburgh gangland life.
