Theatre, Previews

Poignant preview

A bold, imaginative retelling of three Argentinean tales

As if getting into bed in the dark with strangers wasn’t intriguing enough, Micaela Tettamanti’s 45-minute show Poignant features one of the smallest audiences on the Fringe (only four are admitted at any one time) and has no actors or stage to speak of.

Hot Mess takes modern angst theatre into the nightclub

Experimental look at contemporary relationships from hot young playwright

Despite feeling increasing pressure to give in and follow every other hot young thing to London, playwright Ella Hickson doesn’t want to leave Edinburgh behind. A graduate of Edinburgh University, Hickson wrote and directed her breakthrough Fringe play…

King Lear, Queen Margaret, Twelfth Night and Titus Andronicus - Bard in the Botanics 2010

‘Every new play I’m approaching is what keeps me excited by this job,’ says Gordon Barr, artistic director of Bard in the Botanics, Glasgow’s outdoor Shakespeare festival. ‘Each of Shakespeare’s plays brings new challenges and opportunities because…

More Light Please delivers emotional take on economic migration

One-woman Fringe show drawn from experience of moving from Poland to Ireland

Natalia Kostrzewa is sitting in the courtyard of Warsaw’s Teatr Praga, enjoying the early evening air. She’s just performed her one-woman show, More Light Please, drawn from her experiences of moving to Ireland, and is delighted to have delivered it in…

Bunny

New writing exploring race and class tensions in modern Britain

We hear a lot about the violence and tensions of inner city life, yet in many respects a nation’s temperature is taken through its small and medium-sized towns. Dramatist Jack Thorne certainly thinks so, and his new play uses his hometown of Luton to…

While You Lie preview

Playwright Sam Holcroft talks to Kirstin Innes about the eagerly awaited follow-up to her searing de

‘What would happen if we started being completely honest with each other, right now?’ asks Sam Holcroft. ‘You could tell me everything you’ve heard about this me and this play; I could tell you exactly what I think of The List. What would happen to that…

Belt Up

Acclaimed audience-centric company returns to the Fringe with nine shows

Remember that unruly rabble that spent last August squatting in C Soco? The ones that kept partying and fighting the nights away with hordes of strangers? Well, they’re back, and this time they’re really making themselves at home.

Suspicious Package preview

Interactive iPod noir where not everything is black and white

Why watch a Fringe show when, for a small fee, you can star in one? Direct from a sell-out run in New York, Suspicious Package is an ‘interactive iPod noir’ which invites you to do just that. ‘I wanted to do a show where each person that turns up could…

The Vanishing Horizon preview

Idle Motion takes you on a journey through the gateway to the globe

On the face of it, a show by some recent Oxford graduates, about... some recent Oxford graduates who attend a book group doesn’t sound like particularly special or unusual Fringe fare. However, Borges and I, by young physical theatre company Idle Motion…

Bette/Cavett preview

70s television and Holywood royalty come to the stage in Grant Smeaton’s acclaimed show

When you go to the theatre – unless you’ve bought tickets for a multimedia extravaganza – you don’t generally expect to watch television. So you might be surprised at being pulled through the TV screen to become part of the live studio audience watching…

Five TV stars appearing at the Fringe

Simon Callow, Abi Titmuss and Clive Russell swap small screen for festival stage

Simon Callow -- The much-loved thespian, writer and theatre director returns to the Fringe with new one-man show Shakespeare the Man From Stratford, which brings the Bard and his characters to vivid life.

Bud Take the Wheel I Feel a Song Coming On preview

Lyrical generation gap drama from tipped young writer

Bud Take the Wheel... is the eagerly anticipated new work from Clara Brennan, whose short play Rain garnered much praise on its Fringe debut in 2008. Brennan’s new full-length piece may have a mouthful of a title but her graceful writing style promises…

Wolf

Richly atmospheric exploration of human-wolf relations

Inspired by current proposals to reintroduce wolves into the Scottish highlands (the last wolf north of the border was killed back in 1769), the debut production by director Kath Burlinson’s Authentic Artistic Collective (drawing performers from Cirque…

The Sum Of It All...

Storytelling to the fore in melancholic, stimulating multimedia extravaganza

Anomic is a brand new company, never before seen at the Fringe – but the style of the company’s debut, The Sum Of It All..., will ring some bells for Zoo regulars. Dan Shorten, Anomic’s artistic director, was also a co-founder of Precarious, and the…

Orkestra Del Sol and Julie Fowlis visit Fringe by the Sea

Fun-for-all-the-family events come to North Berwick

There are many things that come to mind when you hear the words ‘North Berwick’. Maybe golfing, maybe the seaside, maybe that brilliant sweet shop, The Sugar Mountain, on the High Street. But for five days in August, an added incentive to visit is the…

Diciembre finds dark humour in Chile's Pinochet years

Teatro en el Blanco go back to basics with politically engaging EIF production

The Pinochet years continue to leave a deep scar on the Chilean psyche. Playwright Guillermo Calderón tells Mark Fisher why Diciembre tackles some dark memories but still finds humour in his nation’s tortured past

Beautiful Burnout unites physical theatre with world of boxing

Frantic Assembly and National Theatre of Scotland collaboration

Marking the first co-production between Frantic Assembly and the National Theatre of Scotland, this piece of highly physical theatre has been written by Bryony Lavery whose past credits include A Wedding Story, Breathing Underwater and Her Aching Heart.

Edinburgh Fringe show based on 7th July 2005 London bombings

Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think of You addresses 7/7 London attacks

Molly Naylor is nervous, she doesn’t mind admitting. That’s partly because her first ever one-woman Edinburgh Fringe show is nearing the end of its rehearsal period when I speak to her, and is about to be unleashed upon preview audiences within a matter…

Five theatre shows from the continent at the Edinburgh Fringe

More Light Please Polish actor Natalia Kostrzewa stars in her own one-woman play (co-written by Jerzy Lach) about economic migration. The production by Teatr Praga is in English and features music by the Tiger Lillies. New Town Theatre, George…

LGBT highlights from Edinburgh Fringe 2010

The List’s LGBT section is about to take a well-earned break (returning in September, folks), but before we head off on our holidays, there’s just time to let you know about some of the gay-friendly stuff that’s appearing at a Fringe Festival near you…

The Memory of Water explores the complexities and humour of grief

A good many plays have exploited the emotional state of people at funerals over the years, but few so well as Shelagh Stephenson in her West End hit of 1996. Not since David Storey’s rather more earnest In Celebration has the existential crisis brought…

A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Dumfries among outdoor theatre highlights for 2010

The theatre season may be winding down in the Central Belt as we await the arrival of Edinburgh’s Festivals, but further afield there’s a rich selection of plays and performances for the outdoor theatre lover. The beautiful landscape and mild climate of…

Surge physical theatre festival brings The Venus Labyrinth to Glasgow

If you spot something which defies description hovering around Glasgow city centre during the last weekend in July, chances are it’s Conflux at work. Set up in 2009 to support Scottish physical theatre, street arts and circus, Conflux is about to hold…

Tam Dean Burn and White Horse Collective at Arches' New Works New Worlds festival

For several years now, the Arches’ New Works New Worlds festival has produced alternative views of both art and the world, and the signs are that Glasgow audiences are increasingly aware of it as a place to go for ideas that swim outside the…

Tron Theatre summer production sets sail for Valhalla!

Theatre-goers beware: reality will leave the building for artistic director Andy Arnold’s latest summer production. Following on from last year’s darkly comic Cooking With Elvis, Valhalla! looks similarly offbeat, replete as it is with magic swans…