Martin Gray
Sunshine on Leith
★★★☆☆ Sunshine and showers
With the Edinburgh King’s set to bring down the curtain for a refurbishment, what could be better than a good old Sunshine on Leith singsong to send it on its way?
Sunshine on Leith
★★★★☆ Bring me sunshine
Community theatre gets real this week at the Brunton in Musselburgh, where this fab amateur production of Sunshine on Leith is running until Saturday.
Anything Goes
★★★★★ Just go!
The West End hits central Edinburgh this week, as Cole Porter’s seaborne musical Anything Goes sails into the Festival Theatre for a very limited run until this Sunday.
Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World
★★★★★ Find your joy
With a title like Fantastically Great Women Who Changed The World, it’s unsurprising that the first night King’s audience for this touring production was mainly female.
Hairspray
★★★★☆ Pump up the volume
Unlikely civil rights heroine Tracy Turnblad dances her way to a social justice triumph as Hairspray returns to the Playhouse for a week until Saturday and comes back to Glasgow at the end of the month.
Sheila’s Island
★★★★☆ Captivating
A Nineties hit is back with a twist as the King’s Theatre is transformed into Sheila’s Island, the Tim Firth comedy on tour in an Yvonne Arnoud Theatre production.
Bedknobs and Broomsticks
★★★★☆ Spellbinding
Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the musical based on the 1971 Walt Disney film, flies into the Festival Theatre for a short but spellbinding stay, until this Sunday.
Hansel and Gretel
★★★★☆ Sweet treat
It’s back! Oh yes it is. After Covid sent the 2020 Brunton panto online, the regulars are once more live on stage before a very appreciative audience. Hansel and Gretel brings festive fun back to Musselburgh, bigger and better than ever.
Heathers The Musical
★★★★☆ Magnificent mean girls
When a beloved film turns stage musical, you can bet that the original’s best-remembered line will become a song. Not Heathers, whose most-quoted piece of dialogue involves, shall we say, the recreational use of a chainsaw.
Rapunzel: The Pantomime
★★★★★ Towering achievement
The Brunton’s panto is a little different this year – Oh yes it is! Covid means the Brunton’s 2020 offering was filmed, with smaller audiences able to watch Rapunzel in the venue’s cinema. As it turned out, tier changes meant that plan was abandoned, but a web link ensures kids of all ages don’t have to miss out.
