Hugh Simpson
For Better, For Worse
★★★☆☆ Truthful
For Better, For Worse from PenPal Productions at C aquila is largely successful at combining a family comedy with the wider world, in a way that many have found too difficult to pull off in the past.
In Everglade Studio
★★★★☆ Sweltering
In Everglade Studio is a tuneful, tense and entertaining production from Black Bat Productions in The Box at Assembly George Square.
Come Die With Me: The Murder Mystery Musical Parody
★★★☆☆ Exuberant
Happy Sad’s Come Die With Me: The Murder Mystery Musical Parody, at Just the Tonic @ The Grassmarket Centre, is often as unwieldy and potentially confusing as its title. However, the end result is undoubtedly good-hearted and good fun.
Sir Percival and the Jabberwock
★★★☆☆ Epic ambition
There is a poetic sensibility at work in Kestrel Eye Production’s Sir Percival and the Jabberwock, at Greenside @ Infirmary Street, that overcomes huge difficulties to create a fascinating result.
Enquiry Concerning Hereafter
★★★☆☆ Philosophical
Enquiry Concerning Hereafter, produced by Adam Smith’s Panmure House, is a touching evocation of friendship mixed with philosophy.
Photon StarBlaster and the Suicidal Spaceship
★★★★☆ Seriously creative
Bonnie and Braw’s Photon StarBlaster and the Suicidal Spaceship at C aquila shows a wonderfully large heart, and boundless imagination, in its exploration of difficult themes.
Brief Candle
★★☆☆☆ Fllickering
Brief Candle, from Blushing Caligula at theSpace @ Surgeons Hall, is not the first play to take inspiration for its title from Macbeth. Unfortunately, its attempts at tragic grandeur do not match up to such a reference.
Shakespeare For Breakfast / Shakespeare Up Late: A Right Royal Visit
★★★☆☆ Charming and ★★★☆☆ Chaotic
C Theatre have two contrasting reworkings of the Bard in Shakespeare for Breakfast at C aurora and Shakespeare Up Late – A Right Royal Visit at C aquila. While there are differences in tone and intent between the two productions, they are not as marked as might be imagined.
Crash and Burn
★★★☆☆ Intermittent fire
There is an energy and compulsion to the opening of Crash and Burn, from Visceral Theatre at theSpace on Niddry St, that is subsequently dissipated, but the overall effect is still very interesting.
Tickbox 2
★★★☆☆ Quietly assertive
Lubna Kerr’s Tickbox 2 at the Pleasance Courtyard may not be an entirely new play, but still has a great deal to say to everyone.
