by Laura Kressly
Jess and Victoria are best pals and girlbosses extraordinaire. As a response to what they see as too much sadness in the world, they’ve developed a five-step approach to “change ourselves and those around us”. The satire of self-help seminars, relentless positivity in the face of personal and societal collapse, and late-stage capitalism’s grifter culture is smart and initially silly, but underpinned by a serious message.
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by an anonymous guest critic
This show is the very modern telling of a witch trial that you’ve likely never heard of. In 1605, in a small town in Oxfordshire after an altercation at a football match, Brian Gunter tries to get his neighbour Elizabeth Gregory hung as a witch, blaming his daughter Annie’s mysterious illness on her. Without wanting to spoil the story, it doesn’t quite work out as he planned.
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by an anonymous guest critic
Hannah Maxwell is back at the Fringe with her second show after 2019’s charming I, AmDram. This one is similar. It’s about what happened next for Hannah – moving back to Luton to care for her recently bereaved grandma. A show about 30-something angst, obsession and stalking should not be charming, but Maxwell manages to make it so.
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by Laura Kressly
After several hard years, Paines Plough’s popup theatre’s programme seems to know that our fractured, individualistic society needs some love and care. Six of this year’s shows reflect this: characters feeling lost, adrift or unfulfilled are desperately searching for someone or something to cling onto and give them purpose, or to help them feel less alone.
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by Laura Kressly
Known for masterful storytelling of gentle comedy and devastating tragedy purportedly from his own life, James Rowland opens his newest play with a line from Hamlet. This foreshadows less humour and more melancholy, but both come in spades in this monologue on father-son relationships and mental health.
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by Laura Kressly
The Spanish arrived in the Philippines in 1521. This was the start of centuries of violent colonial rule that still resonates today. Max Percy, a gay, mixed race Filipino man, carries this legacy in his body. It seems that no matter what he does, from visiting his Filipino grandfather, to flirting and fucking his way through London’s gay clubs, he is fetishised and othered. Percy’s complex solo show samples the racism and homophobia he encounters, shares Filipino creation stories, and uses movement to capture the tension between the different cultures he inhabits.
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by Laura Kressly
Zara is a fiercely intelligent sex worker who runs an Edinburgh brothel as part of a non-hierarchical cooperative. The canny business woman doesn’t seem like she’s rattled by much, until a new client turns out to be one of her former teachers. On top if this, her colleague that he requested is running late due to childcare issues. The dark comedy by Kieran Hurley examines a tangled web of contemporary issues, particularly capitalism, parenting and familial relationships, work, and aging.
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by Laura Kressly
In the Wes Anderson-esque, Scomodo Hotel looking out over the Edinburgh skyline, Aaron arrives for his first day of work. The row of identical, pastel doors foreshadows the farce that is about to commence, but this new play by Isobel McArthur uses the genre as a vehicle for a more complex story. Unfortunately this ambitious play tries to do way too much.
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by Laura Kressly
Lucy McCormick, performance artist extraordinaire and queen of the grotesque, starts off this show dressed in a felted tree costume. It calls to mind an out-of-place, awkward child in a school play unsure about what to do, but still enthusiastic. This is an appropriate start to the show’s premise: McCormick wants to put on a cabaret but doesn’t have any friends who could work on her show, so she drafts the audience in to help.
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By Luisa De la Concha Montes
This is a new play co-created by Scott Le Crass & Joe Wiltshire Smith exploring religion and creativity through effective humour. The play opens with Spanish painter, Elías García Martínez (Roger Parkins), entering the stage dancing to Rosalía, setting the mood for his camp, tender and charismatic character. Promptly after, a vibrant dialogue ensues.
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The Play's The Thing UK 