Suzanne Black

Rufus Wainwright - Out of the Game

Mark Ronson-produced album's expanded instrumentation feels misplaced

23 Mar 2012

(Polydor) Releasing career retrospective House of Rufus last year and now drafting in ubiquitous producer Mark Ronson, all signs point to reinvention for Wainwright. Never one to shy away from the idiosyncratic in his operatic and multi-genre-infused…

Bon Iver - Usher Hall, Edinburgh, Sat 22 Oct 2011

Justin Vernon's large ensemble fails to capture the albums' spare beauty

16 Nov 2011

To a long since sold-out crowd of ardent devotees, Justin Vernon takes the stage – after the audience impatiently chats through support act Kathleen Edwards’ countrified indie folk. (Vernon helped out with production and instrumental duties on Edwards…

Hotel Methuselah

Stunning and inventive multimedia production

23 Aug 2011

In a war-time hotel night porter Harry delves into his memories in this tense, mysterious multimedia work from Imitating the Dog. A frame around the stage offers limited views of the actors who work in tandem with pre-filmed dialogue and supplementary…

The New Conway Experience

Bringing hilarity to the masses

23 Aug 2011

Appearing haphazard while remaining in control isn’t easy. John Conway is the genial host for an assortment of skits and bits that feels more like post-pub drinks at the house of a funny friend. Balancing the well-crafted with the pleasingly…

Unanswered, We Ride

An emotional portrait of grief

23 Aug 2011

Joe Tippett and Martha Wollner take on multiple roles to flank Joy Barrett’s journey as bereaved mother Reese in a portrait of all-consuming, selfish grief. Despite one jarring attempt at an Irish accent, all aspects collide to create an engrossing…

Cul-De-Sac

Capable garden-fence comedy

23 Aug 2011

Scripted by Matthew Osborn, this natty little three-hander (Alan Francis, Mike Hayley, Toby Longworth) relocates The ’burbs to Middle England. Taking the tested trope of a seeming idyll masking a sinister reality, the deviant Tony Deveraux rules the…

Silken Veils

Tenderly performed memories

23 Aug 2011

We join a Persian woman (Leila Ghaznavi) as she freaks out about her impending nuptials. Using puppetry, silhouette-work and animation to complement live action we are taken on a journey through her memories of Iran, suffused with the poetry of Rumi. A…

Ian D Montfort - Spirit Comedium

Witty send-up of hand-wringing mediumship

23 Aug 2011

Resplendent in the New Age uniform of beads and sandals, Tom Binns takes on an industry that is at best delusional and at worst predatory. While sending up the vagaries of ‘cold reading’, Montfort drops ‘real’ psychic insights. A witty send-up of…

New Art Club: Quiet Act of Destruction

Comedy-dance due don't do their talents justice

23 Aug 2011

War between two English villages provides the narrative for this comedy-dance duo’s latest. Tom Roden and Pete Shenton’s years of working together shows and at moments their previous inventiveness shines through, but an hour that’s light on dance and…

Neil Cross - Luther: The Calling

19 Aug 2011

(Simon & Schuster) Luther was a BBC crime drama fronted by Idris Elba (The Wire) that aired last year and earlier this summer. It followed Elba’s tortured police detective through a series of investigations that foregrounded a battles of wits with…

Russell Kane

Caustic and hilarious self-flagellation

17 Aug 2011

It’s hard to judge Russell Kane’s show because he’s already done it. For the ‘difficult’ follow-up to his Edinburgh Comedy Award-winning 2010 show Kane performs Manscaping as himself, offers up heckles, anticipates critic and audience responses and even…

Beowulf – A Thousand Years Of Baggage

Postmodern interaction with a classic

17 Aug 2011

As Beowulf was pitted against the manbeast Grendel in the Old English epic, NY theatre company Banana Bag & Bodice pits Beowulf the man against Beowulf the text in this clever, stylish interaction with a classic. Seemingly set in a jazz club, three…

The Dark Philosophers

Dark Welsh classic given a postmodern twist

17 Aug 2011

Death is no impairment to being on stage (as being a goat is no impairment to being a stagehand) in this darkly comic delight from National Theatre Wales and Told by an Idiot. Weaving together two novellas from Welsh English-language writer Gwyn Thomas…

Medea's Children

A cautionary tale for divorcing parents

17 Aug 2011

Lung Ha’s Theatre Company is known for its use of performers with learning difficulties. Teaming up with Swedish company Unga Klara they bring us an exploration of the psychic trauma felt by children affected by divorce. The script, originally…

The Time Out

Interactive theatre with a motivational aspect

17 Aug 2011

An interactive piece for 12 players who get to don swimming caps (with headphones inside) and become a water polo team. If this fills you with trepidation, it’s meant to. The focus shifts between Ken, the cliché-spouting coach with motivational tidbits…

Tom Goodliffe

Lightweight autobiographical material, but with lovely rapport

16 Aug 2011

Goodliffe rails, good-naturedly, against middle-class problems like not liking your job, not having a girlfriend and the annoying questions people ask him because of his name. Taking in his love of maths (with an insistent musical riff on the subject)…

Mark Nelson

Straight talker whose profanity is utterly charming

16 Aug 2011

With no narrative arc or gimmicks, Nelson presents himself as a straight talker, not scared of eliciting shocked gasps with his more provocative material. He deals in the controversial with a cheeky grin, as if the words magically appeared in his mouth.

King Lear

Engaging spectacle gives Shakespeare a Jingju interpretation at 2011 EIF

14 Aug 2011

Two artforms, alike in their lengthy traditions and explorations of familial and martial subjects but divergent in their aesthetic, are brought together by their areas of commonality. Wu Hsing-kuo (Contemporary Legend Theatre) adapts aspects of…

Imran Yusuf

Religious perspectives on universal issues

14 Aug 2011

This year Imran Yusuf seeks to Bring the Thunder, playing on the fact that one of the Western media’s biggest bogeymen is Muslims seeking to effect change through conflict. In a shiny suit and oozing charisma, he nudges up against political and…

Free Time Radical

Wryly humorous evocation of mid-life crisis falls short of expectations

14 Aug 2011

After a massive flood wipes out London Jensen (Tom Frankland) seeks refuge in the flat of his rescuer Ali (Sébastian Lawson). Amidst a creatively interactive set the duo muses on surfing, relationships and their place in the world in an often physical…

Are You Happy Now?

Pessimistic two-hander about dysfunctional relationships

14 Aug 2011

First-time Fringe writer and director Sam Wright brings us a pessimistic two-hander about dysfunctional relationships. Mark Booth and Mark Jeary flit between the stories of two gay couples on the outs. The cast make an admirable attempt to convey the…

Lee Camp Is: Yet Another American Mistake

Rabble-rousing American gets mad at current affairs

12 Aug 2011

Lee Camp aims his freewheeling cannon at all the aspects of American (and Western) culture that are easy to criticise: childhood obesity, people who believe in aliens, sweatshops, war as big business, the moon landings, the death penalty, multinational…

Christmas for Two: Friends With You

Variable sketch show of audacious surrealism

12 Aug 2011

This sketch duo’s Friends with You starts with a rape joke. The way they treat the topic that has become a shibboleth of contemporary comedy is a statement of purpose, signalling their intent to sidle up against the profane, nudge things into the…

Blood and Roses

Multi-sensory journey with history’s courageous women

11 Aug 2011

Edinburgh’s tendency towards the wet would seem an admonishment against a promenade performance. The northeast’s Poorboy, whose raison d’être is the site specific, doesn’t shy away from the less sunny sides of life. Listening via individual headsets…

Anton's Uncles

Chekhov remixed as a highly entertaining divertissement

11 Aug 2011

Four dapperly dressed men cavort with the stage dressings, dance with each other and utter one-liners with a Wildean frivolity. The members of LA’s Theatre Movement Bazaar are so diverting with their antics that this play’s relation to Anton Chekhov’s…

Thirsty

Powerful physical evocation of the relationship between women and alcohol

9 Aug 2011

In a bathroom, on a hen night, two boozed-up young women dance, shriek and hector the audience, the epitome of Booze Britain. In one of the three toilet cubicles Shane Durrant sits astride the porcelain throne surrounded by music-making accoutrements.

Barry and Stuart

Showing and telling their magical mysteries

8 Aug 2011

Be-suited Aberdonian purveyors of macabre magical comedy, Barry Jones and Stuart MacLeod have struck upon one hell of a gimmick. First comes The Show, filled with their favoured brand of slightly gory trickery and presented by the twosome with their…

The Infant

Absurdist comedy with a Gothic feel

8 Aug 2011

Maestros of the dark and twisted fairytale, Les Enfants Terribles (who brought us Ernest and the Pale Moon and The Terrible Infants), bring back to Edinburgh a play they debuted here in 2006. In a cell in an unnamed location a man is subjected to an…

Sideshow

Freakshow-themed one-man show lacks pay-off

8 Aug 2011

Surrounded by the paraphernalia of the freakshow, Robert Ingham (Lewis Davidson) reminisces on his life as an oddity and the world behind the velvet curtain. Switching between biography and sideshow acts, Davidson’s one-man show plays out like the pitch…

Nobody’s Home: A Modern Odyssey

Powerful portrayal of mental illness

8 Aug 2011

Confined to his bathroom (and his own mind), returning soldier Grant battles war-born demons, which parallel the perils faced by Ulysses, tussling with wife Penny (who doubles as Homer’s monsters) for firm mental ground. Excellently devised and…

Totally Tom

Impressive range of comedic prowess and accents

8 Aug 2011

Straight out the trap, Toms Palmer and Stourton launch into a run of standalone sketches. With great versatility they eschew running gags and call-backs; each sketch is a snapshot of a fully realised world which displays their impressive range of…

Joel Dommett: Neon Hero

Celebrity crush tale an from assured and skilled performer

8 Aug 2011

Dining out on the retelling of one week spent in the company of a unnamed celebrity crush, Dommett weaves a charming and self-effacing love story. Behind the trendy haircut and gleeful grin is an assured performer with the skills to back up his…

Brett Goldstein Grew Up in a Strip Club

Endearing personality wins over crowd despite lacklustre material

8 Aug 2011

Stand-up Goldstein puts on his raconteur cap to narrate a tender coming-of-age tale. Set in a strip club. Softly spoken and exuding a quiet confidence he articulately and admirably wins over a small crowd. The material, though a little lacklustre, is…

Terezin: Children of the Holocaust

Fictionalised account of a concert fails to convey emotional weight

8 Aug 2011

Writer Anna Smulowitz, who lost relatives in the Holocaust, presents a fictionalised account of a concert performed at the Czech concentration camp Terezin. Using a revolving cast of youngsters to portray the daily suffering of camp internees the piece…

The Life Doctor

Channelling of the most irksome of TV lifestyle gurus disappoints

8 Aug 2011

Written by Adam Lawrence and Phil Wang, Lawrence channels the most irksome of TV lifestyle gurus. The premise quickly falls flat as jokes fail to land or are utterly baffling. A stand-out turn by George Potts and some surprisingly witty pre-recorded…

Kieran and The Joes: Teampowered

Teambuilding seminar with more laughs than cringes

5 Aug 2011

Taking a cue from Office-style humour, which seeks to entertain with the toe-curlingly cringeworthy, Joe Markham, Joe Parham and Kieran Hodgson’s show takes the form of a teambuilding seminar. From the inspirational music and matching pink ties to pleas…

Zinnie Harris returns to Edinburgh 2011 with The Wheel

Vicky Featherstone directs play exploring change, place and conflict

27 Jul 2011

‘I had this idea of a woman that walks right round the world and comes back to the beginning and then gets the opportunity to play her life again. That was my opening premise. If we were able to go back to the moment where you have a fork in the path…

Liberace: Live From Heaven

Edinburgh Festival show features piano man playing at the Pearly Gates

27 Jul 2011

In cabaret, what turns a concert into theatre is the hook that hangs the tunes together. Hanging squirming from this particular hook is Liberace (reincarnated in Bobby Crush) as he plays for his immortal soul. We join the sequined piano man after his…

Josie Long - The Future is Another Place

Little miss sunshine gets political

26 Jul 2011

JosieWorld is a place built on home-spun whimsy and Ms Long presides over it with a refreshing optimism, pointing out all the little things that make us smile or inspire or deserve kudos. In her fourth Fringe show it is being impinged upon by a newfound…

Jonathan Trigell - Genus

A dystopian thriller that falls short in its attempts to become something more literary

21 Jul 2011

(Corsair) After dealing with child murder in Boy A and a rapist in Cham, for his third novel Jonathan Trigell expands the violence to a massive scale. Set in a dystopian future London, society is segregated along genetic lines: the biologically…

I’m Still Here . . .

Ably flitting between genres

25 Aug 2010

The West End pro takes a saunter through hits from Sondheim to Mika and Queen to ‘Moon River’ with a connecting thread of drama. His voice holds up well, ably flitting between genres, but a worrying ironic tone starts to creep in until during ‘MacArthur…

Up to Now

Of limited appeal

25 Aug 2010

Robert Shaw’s monologue takes us through events from the life of his grandfather, the composer Martin Shaw, in fin de siècle Europe. From conducting for Isadora Duncan to meeting with August Strindberg, events that should be illuminating fade into one…

The Wake

A nifty, audience-aware caper

23 Aug 2010

Recreating his father’s wake, impressionist David does his whole family, his wife does them differently, and they both do each other in a bid to find out who ‘did’ Alison. Jonathan Brittain’s award-winning student comedy is a nifty, audience-aware caper…

Paul Sweeney and Tom Webb

An hour of average comedy with a respectable laugh ratio

23 Aug 2010

Tom Webb is 5’5’’ of nervous energy, has four insightful handy hints, two self-effacing stories and one audience survey. Paul Sweeney has one full moustache, four slight comedy songs, lots of good ad-libbing and some lovely tattoos. It adds up to an…

Susan Calman

A vitriolic manual in self-loathing

23 Aug 2010

Glasgow’s pint-sized, squeaky-voiced professional lesbian talks us through her obituary. Written when she was drunk, it’s a vitriolic manual in self-loathing. Calman deftly manages the tricky task of stuffing truth into a comedy-shaped bag tied up with…

Mark Allen

Confident delivery often resulting in pleasing set-ups

23 Aug 2010

In our time-starved, online lives, Mark Allen investigates savouring rather than saving time over 90 languorous minutes. The concept, although not earth-shattering, is admirably adhered to with Allen’s confident delivery often resulting in pleasing…

Tom Allen

Navigating social dilemmas with confidence

20 Aug 2010

People often think their witty pub pal could be a stand-up. They’re often wrong. It takes effort to pull off the role of gay BFF gossiping about recent dramas but Allen succeeds. His show about navigating social dilemmas with confidence is well-crafted…

The Lasses, O

Scots narrative by the Scottish Bard’s women

19 Aug 2010

Janet Paisley re-animates a spectre from the hearts and minds of all those who were raised in Scotland or study its literary history, Robert Burns. Through the testimonies of five women close to him (midwife, storyteller, mother-in-law, smuggler and…

No Child ...

One-woman performance schools the school system

18 Aug 2010

Actress Nilaja Sun plays actress and drama teacher Miss Sun and her class of students as they put on the play Our Country’s Good, which is about convicts putting on a play. The logistics of one woman flitting from grizzled custodian to idealistic…

Atrium

Theatre interrupted

17 Aug 2010

Last year Belt Up caused a stir by blindfolding the audience during The Trial. Even without blindfolds there is a great deal of trust placed in a theatre company: to guide the audience clearly (and safely) to an as-yet unknown destination. When standard…