Director, Teacher, Writer
Some shows are difficult to review because the performance in the room is not quite the performance that was intended. Unfortunately, audience disruption significantly affected the opening of TITCLOWN: daddy s little girl, breaking the fragile compact that clowning relies upon. Clown is perhaps the most responsive of theatrical forms, constantly negotiating with the audience in Continue reading…
For the last two decades, contemporary theatre has become increasingly fascinated by intimacy. Companies such as Complicité helped pioneer forms that blurred the boundaries between audience and performer, while works like The Encounter demonstrated how binaural sound could transform listening into an intensely personal experience. The appeal is obvious. Place voices directly inside an audience…
Success can be a tricky thing for comedy companies.Once you ve discovered a formula that works, the challenge becomes deciding whether to reinvent it or simply keep refining it. Police Cops have spent years perfecting a distinctive blend of action-movie parody, physical theatre and committed silliness, and Police Cops in Space is very much another entry Continue reading Police Cops in Space –…
There is something wonderfully cheeky about building an entire musical around a man who has already spent decades building musicals around himself.Created by musical comedy duo Flo Joan, One Man Musical takes aim at one of British theatre s most famous figures, presenting a lightly fictionalised version of Andrew Lloyd Webber finally deciding that the Continue reading One Man Musical – Pleasance…
Conspiracy thrillers are rarely interested in subtlety.They thrive on momentum, on ever-escalating revelations and on the intoxicating possibility that everything is connected if only you can find the right thread to pull. Voloz Collective s REDACTED: The Cover-Up of a Cover-Up of a Cover-Up embraces that tradition wholeheartedly, plunging audiences into a labyrinth of missing persons, Continue…
Acting is one of the few professions where rejection is not an occasional setback but an expected part of the job description. Actors are asked to walk into rooms, perform confidence, absorb judgement and then return the next day to do it all again. An Ode to the Casting Director, written and performed by Sophie Continue reading An Ode to the Casting Director – Assembly George Square Studios ★★★
Not every Fringe day needs to begin with a bang.Sometimes the ideal morning show is something gentler: a production that eases you into the festival rather than demanding emotional devastation before coffee has properly taken effect. The Wreck proves exactly that kind of companion. Charming, quirky and quietly inventive, Buzzcut Productions latest live-cinema work drifts Continue reading The Wreck…
Some shows arrive at the Fringe as finished products. Others arrive with the thrilling sense that they are still becoming. WENCH belongs firmly in the second category. There are rough edges still visible, connective tissue that could be strengthened and ideas that occasionally race ahead of their execution. Yet it is precisely that sense of Continue reading WENCH – Underbelly ★★★★
Trust is a fragile thing. Most of the time it sits quietly in the background of daily life, unnoticed and unquestioned. We trust strangers to stop at traffic lights. We trust colleagues to do their jobs. We trust the people sitting next to us in a theatre not to suddenly reveal themselves as monsters. Werewolf Continue reading Werewolf – Summerhall ★★★★★
Some musicals arrive at the Fringe as artistic experiments. Others arrive looking as though they already know exactly where the merchandise stand should go. Disenchanted! falls firmly into the latter category. Its commercial ambitions are obvious from the outset, taking a familiar collection of fairy-tale princesses, turning them loose on their own narratives and inviting Continue reading…