This week's Dispatch: 17 Aug 2026

Hello, and welcome to this week’s Dispatch. It’s an Edinburgh Festival Fringe special - rejoice!

That means a bumper edition with six reviews for you:

• Kirsty Mann: CORPSE - Red Lecture Theatre at Summerhall ★★★★★

• Badgers - Traverse 2 ★★★☆☆

• Harriet Richardson: Creep - Pleasance Below ★★★★★

• The Understudy - Assembly George Square Gardens ★★☆☆☆

• Nesting - Old Lab at Summerhall ★★★☆☆

• COMA - Assembly George Square Gardens ★★☆☆☆

We won’t stick around for small talk this week; the reviews can speak for themselves, though we have an intriguing mix of star ratings this year, as you can see. Not that we want to get into a debate about star ratings again, but they’re certainly not the full measure of a show, so don’t be afraid to read the reviews and make up your own mind; that’s what we’re saying (we know you will).

Regardless of the star rating, we hope you enjoy them. Let us know what shows you’ve been seeing… and maybe how many stars you’d give them?

By the way, our next Dispatch arrives will arrive early, with a review of the premiere of George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones: The Mad King at the RSC coming your way soon.

We’ll see you then!

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Badgers review - Traverse 2, Edinburgh ★★★☆☆

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Aug 17

There is an interesting central question to Malaika Kegode’s new play Badgers: what happens when folk tales meet modern methods of communication. That is, until you start to unpick it: Kegode uses a …