In this wonderfully endearing show, one performer and his TV set work together to update a medieval poem in which a man loses his beloved pearl, once thought to be an elegy for the anonymous author’s lost daughter. Currently living with his bereavement, the protagonist in this mostly silent mixed-media production must eventually come to terms. Having been told he should spend more time with friends, he’s invited some people – the audience – round to his home.

Run or lie down? Jane (Shauna Macdonald) has a difficult decision to make and a 110 mile desert ‘death race’ during which to make it. This inspiring one woman show, from writer-director Gary McNair, engages with the physical and psychological limits people may reach when searching for solutions.

An Arachnophobic’s worst nightmare, Alan Bissett performs five distinct monologues that capture the individuality of each spidery specimen trapped in a lab in St Andrews. Bissett slides between accents (Scottish, neurotic New York, Southern USA Drawl and a dubious Venezuelan) with surprising ease, contorting his body language to fit each persona and creating impressive variety and distinction. 

Jeff Achtem’s brand of shadow puppetry and storytelling is wonderfully impressive, insanely inventive, madly lovable, and has the power to transform an audience of mostly adults into maniacally giggling children. For just under an hour, you enter a magical realm where a cluttered stage full of household items and puppets comes to life to tell the story of ‘two brothers on a trip across the stars’ as they flee their war-torn planet in search of a new home, accompanied by special effects and epic soundtrack.

In the ninth Fringe show by the City of London Freemen’s School, Phil Tong brings to the stage his adaptation of Agnes Owens’s novel. Looking back on her tragic life from a mental hospital, Peggy begins writing a book, and both her past and present are acted out onstage. Growing up during WWII, young Peggy secures a job as a paper girl and has an affair with her employer. Thinking he will marry her when she falls pregnant, she is instead abandoned, forced by her disapproving mother to have the baby adopted. 

Standing outside after the show, a girl is bawling uncontrollably. She is approached by a total stranger and asked, ‘Have you just seen Translunar Paradise?’ Almost the entire audience is puffy-eyed, slightly vacant, still in tears or lost in thought; this is a piece of theatre that stays with you long after it ends. It’s so affecting that it elicits real joy and sorrow from most, if not all, audience members. Involving and thought-provoking, it’s one of the most powerful things I’ve seen onstage.

(and a half) 

Revealing the personalities behind the bodies of medal-winners and aspiring Olympians, ‘The Prize’, by Steve Gilroy and Richard Stockwell, presents the narratives of a cross-section of real athletes, drawing its material from interviews. With variously hopeful, dark and inspirational stories, the strength of the script is its incisive exploration of how setbacks and disadvantages are dealt with. 

The ‘Waiting for Godot’ of Fringe puppet shows, this is existential meta-puppetry-improv-theatre as you’ve never seen it (and we’ve all seen that before, right?). Pioneering puppeteer group Blind Summit return to the Fringe with a new form of last year’s hit show, granting their Bunraku-style puppet, Moses, centre stage based on audience enthusiasm for the lewd little guy.

(and a half) 

A new comic play by Lee Griffiths, featuring Matt Ralph and Paul Biggins, ‘Rod is God’ tells the story of Rod, who is stuck in a dead-end job, and his slacker flatmate Jack, who concocts the harebrained scheme of starting a cult to get rich quickly, recruiting a ruthless PR professional to the cause. As the venture grows beyond their control, the script explores how they deal with unexpected outcomes and some personal changes undergone along the way.  

Literally transported (by coach and boat) to the world of Macbeth realised on Inchcolm island, audience members are absorbed into this incredible production from the outset of the journey. Fine touches such as live bag-piping, blankets to guard against ‘Shakespearean weather’, and cackling witches roaming the boat pre-performance offer a taste of what is to come. 

The multiple award winning South African Director Yael Farber has taken on the classic Miss Julie. She’s given her a darker twist, setting it in the Cape Karoo on South African Freedom Day. It is 18 years since the first non-racial elections of South Africa but a nasty storm is brewing between the white-african land owner’s daughter and her fathers favourite farm worker.

A coffin stands starkly on stage as the audience files in and settles down to watch Six and a Tanner. This central image will inform the rest of this searing one-man play, as Glaswegian David Hayman performs a monologue that he himself encouraged playwright Rony Bridges to write. 

Donnacadh O’Briain is the Artistic director of Natural Shocks production company and the Creator of Peep, the x-rated plays and box venue that has quickly become the most talked about show at this years fringe. I met up with him to discuss the box, theatre and Peep’s exploration of sex.

As I arrived at this sold out performance, I realised that Daniel Kitson has a cult following and as a Kitson virgin, I might have missed out on years of in jokes and references to old shows that I would not understand. Not the case. Although Kitson made reference to how previous shows of his had been received, this was a completely new show and chatting to the people around me, is a slightly unique script and style compared to previous years.

The timing of the recent capitulation on the Lords reform issue fits perfectly with the latest by comedic offering by Robert Khan and Tom Salinksy, and shows just how on-target the talented writers of Coalition are.

I feel I should apologise in advance for this review because I do not feel that any review I could write can possibly do this beautiful new play by Tom Holloway justice. So deep are the feelings it created, I still felt heartbroken hours after - not even watching Usain Bolt win gold could stop me crying.

And No More Shall We Part stars Dearbhla Molloy and Bill Paterson as Don and Pam; probably two of the most believable and likeable characters I have seen on stage, which makes it all the more heart-rending. They are married, have children who have moved away and show all the signs of being a couple who have lived together their whole lives. 

Theatre Uncut is a production of plays by a selection of leading playwrights from around the world who write pieces on the current political issues affecting their country. The purpose of Theatre Uncut is to invite writers to pen their views in order for them to be voiced theatrically to provoke and encourage positive discussion and action. Launched successfully in 2011 it is back this year by popular demand and today’s first session showcased four well written and witty plays containing material portraying an exaggerated and comedy take on present situations.

Kaya Muller, once a pop star, left it all behind to become a hermit, and totally immersed himself in the study and interpretation of dreams. This unusual u-turn seems to have paid off, as he is now world-renowned in his field and can claim celebrities, dignitaries and world-leaders as clients.

More a workshop than a Fringe Show, Kaya begins by talking his audience through the fundamental rules that must be applied to begin to understand your dreams. What could be a flat show, is brought to life by a charismatic host, a slick slide presentation and an audience who were defiantly in the zone and ready to take the journey. 

The two-man show Letter of Last Resort centres around a humanitarian Prime Minister and her ‘Arrangements’ advisor as she attempts to write a letter of action in the event of a nuclear attack. The two characters are introduced in broad strokes, but throughout the play little character nuances creep in, giving you the chance to warm to them both.

Exiting the Traverse this morning I couldn’t help but wonder if I had missed something. 

Simon Stephen describes his new supposed coming-of-age play ‘Morning’ as possibly ‘the most moral’ thing he has written, and in part(I think) I get some of the points he was trying to convey, however if the character interactions and storyline isn’t believable then what is the point of a powerful message?

In The Age of Christian Grey and his red-room of pain comes Peep and their black-box of three intensely sexual plays. Peep is ultimately a peepshow, where the audience is separated by dark booths, with windows of reflective mirrors so that you can see the actors, but they cannot see you. 

You are taken to a booth and asked to put on your headphones. Immediately music/sex sounds boom into your ears. It was hard to ignore the unmistakable smell of PVC of which the booths are made from and which I felt could not have been a coincidence. The Set is indeed brilliantly thought out, and unlike anything I have seen before at the fringe. 

Rob Drummond as William Wonder takes you on a journey through the mythology surrounding the 12 illusionists that have previously tried and failed ‘The Bullet Catch”: A volunteer from the audience has to shoot a bullet, from a real gun, which is then caught between the Magicians teeth. It is a trick so dangerous Houdini refused to attempt it. The show has story telling throughout mainly revolving around William Henderson, a Victorian Magician and student of Houdini, who was the last person that died attempting this trick.  This sense of forboding slowly and subtly increases the tension in the audience building up to the final act of the ‘Bullet Catch’.

(and a half)

Dave Florez’s latest play shows us all the things that might go wrong when staging an intervention for an alcoholic family member, employing a mixture of dark humour, effective drama and a smattering of slapstick.

Early in the piece it is clear that the family and friends who have gathered to help Zac (Phil Nichol) have got plenty of problems of their own. Set in modern day Chicago, the play exploits the comic potential of the very American concept of an ‘intervention’, including the unintended consequences of good intentions, while also dealing with the harsh realities of addiction and the power of family secrets. A few interesting twists in the plot keep the action moving and help create some explosive scenes.

I’m always a little worried when I am reviewing the third part of a trilogy and I haven’t seen either of the first two  - what if I have missed something important?

Luckily, this is not that sort of performance. Koba is a bright 18 year old and the world is not what she expected – she writes her thoughts down on a small blackboard which grows and grows throughout the show, starting off as immediate and personal issues such as feeling too skinny and then, as the media infiltrates her conscience with depressing story after story – her feelings about life start to fall into certain headings – Evil, War, Power, Money, Hate, Pain, Fear….  

Following his award-winning success at last year’s Fringe festival, playwright Dave Florez is back, and this time he has an army of comics tackling the subject of alcoholism in his show The Intervention. Words isobel Palmer

Dave florez didn't follow his father into banking. Instead, he embarked on a career of writing, acting and stand-up comedy. No job security, no nine-to-five, no pension. Eyebrows were raised, but little more. And a decade or so later, dad, originally from Spain, should be proud.

For the small-time actor and rather average stand-up comedian, his playwriting triumph at last year's Fringe is followed by a new high-profile production called The Intervention. In Edinburgh Festival terms, he's hit the big time and then some.

Yes, that Les Dennis. The Family Fortunes host and stand-up, has reinvented himself as an actor and is heading to Edinburgh with his very own play. Words Isobel Palmer

Les Dennis has 16,467 followers on Twitter, a dedicated website, and appears in a tiny-budget movie entitled Wounded that is so hip it just won a prize at London’s Independent Film Festival.

What? The Les Dennis that used to host a TV quiz show and do impressions of Mavis Riley? The miserable middle-aged one who had a meltdown on Celebrity Big Brother? Yes, the very same, and yet, no, not quite. Because Les, now 58 and talking about his new Fringe show between performances all around the country of Legally Blonde The Musical, has perfected the art of reinvention.

Forces sweetheart, and force to be reckoned with, Claire explains how her role in Willy Russell's Educating Rita really does take her back… Words Isobel Palmer

Claire Sweeney has always wanted to play Rita. Ever since the daughter of a Liverpool butcher read Willy Russell’s Educating Rita at school, she has had her eye on the role. So much so, she reveals, that when she auditioned for drama school, she performed a scene from it.

Sweeney reckons she was 13 or 14 at the time, but can still recall, verbatim, the speech about vain old pensioners not telling hairdresser Rita about their hearing aids: “And snip, that's another granny gone deaf for a fortnight!” she quotes, with a joyful flourish.

There’s something about Dickens that has Miriam Margolyes hooked. He’s changed her life she says – to the best of times, of course. Words Mark Fisher

She’s played Professor Sprout in Harry Potter, Madame Morrible in Wicked, Queen Victoria at least twice on TV and, most recently, an overbearing mother in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg at Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre. Yet, however varied her career, Miriam Margolyes constantly returns to one figure. Whether she is working on film, TV or the stage, she is never far away from Charles Dickens.

In the crush of the London Underground carriages, lives intersect like the lines that thread beneath the city. One Under masterfully brings to the forefront the thoughts that capture our imaginations as we sit solemnly waiting for our stops in a subtly and deftly told piece of drama. 

Engulfed by the hubbub of the Pleasance Courtyard, for an hour Invisible Show II makes you privy to the secret lives of those embedded in the milling crowds, with a set of headphones and your keen eyes your only guides.

Able to snap between bold physical expressions into understated naturalism in a heartbeat, this three-strong cast gives one of the best Fringe performances of 2011. The play follows three recently liberated prisoners and their struggles to readjust into a society that has discarded them. Magnificently expressed by Paul Tinto, Verity Hewlett and Shane Shambhu, Release deserves accolades aplenty and your crucial attendance.

Arthur Dodsworth has recently retired and this afternoon it his ‘pleasure’ to play host to his former secretary, Peggy Prothero, as she opportunely drops in for a visit. Charmless and brash Miss Porthero is keen to fill in her old boss on all the changes at Warburtons since his departure, saving her most callous bombshell until the very last minute.

Private Peaceful tells the tale of Private Tommo Peaceful as he forces himself to stay awake by tracking the journey of two Brothers in Arms, himself and his older brother Charlie, from their home in the West Country to the killing fields of Ypres. Acted alone by Leon Williams, Michael Morpurgo’s children’s novel is beautifully recounted and perfectly pitched for the family audience this Fringe.

Every moment of 1927’s The Animals and Children Took to the Streets is absolutely infused with gorgeousness. Whether the cast find themselves in the grimy, cockroach-ridden rooms of Bayou Mansions or the heady heights of the Mayor’s office, there is not one second that is not beautifully and intricately realised.

Confined to a bathroom, this adaptation recasts Odysseus as Grant, a modern war veteran who, although physically at home, is not mentally there: instead he is battling the demons of his mind, in a desperate attempt to return to his wife Penny.

Paddy Cunneen has outdone himself, writing and directing a tale of urban warfare in modern Glasgow that finds its unlikely roots in Greek tragedy.

Storytelling has gone a bit meta this Fringe. By that, I mean that many of the fascinating storytellers attending the festival are not only weaving their tales, they’re showing you the loom they did it on.

Chris Goode is a fine example of this. He begins this one-man play by explaining what inspired him to write it: his first, unrequited love for a boy in his class at school, a boy who had a girlfriend but spent his lunchtimes sharing a pair of earphones with Goode, listening to music and between them “making stereo”.

Patient H.M. is the most written-about case study in the history of neuroscience; in 2009, H.M.’s brain was dissected live on the internet to a global audience of over 400,000 people. What 2041 Objects beautifully brings to our attention is the story of the man behind the furor, Henry Molaison: how he lived his life, as well as the ordinary passions and pains that stirred him and ultimately led him to undergo a radical surgery that would leave him constantly trapped in the present.

In a dilapidated mansion in central London, a group of squatters host a party to launch their anti-capitalist campaign: unbeknownst to them the evening will have devastating consequences.

When I saw that Central School of Music and Drama was back at the Fringe after a couple of years’ absence, I knew I had to get a ticket to its graduate show. After all, in 2008 I was so moved by their alumni’s production The Boy from Centreville, about the Virginia Tech shootings, that I gave it five stars on this very site. This year’s topic sounded just as interesting – human trafficking.

Joe Bones’ hotly anticipated Bane trilogy is story-telling at its best: no props, no set, only Bones commanding the empty stage, creating each and every character, underscored by Ben Roe’s hauntingly evocative guitar strumming.  This film-noir parody is truly a must-see, with the ‘wastes no time, takes no prisoners’ hired hand Bruce Bane attracting big numbers, testifying to this show’s appeal.

This urban ghost story by Michael Wicherek is outstanding from every angle you look at it.

Truly, from its bare evocative stage set that subtly changes with the scene’s mood and setting, to the snatches of music that ebb and flow in and out of the performance, Time for the Good Looking Boy creates an atmosphere that has the hairs on the back of your neck raised and your eyes fixed upon actor Lloyd Thomas.

When the village boasts the healthiest pensioners in the United Kingdom, the local undertakers must find a way to keep the bailiff and imminent closure from its coffin-shaped door. Coffin Up brings this macabre tale to life without a single word being uttered.

Written by Dave Florez and performed by Phil Nichol, Somewhere Beneath it All a Small Fire Burns Still, is one performance you are unlikely to forget.

Specifically written for Canadian comedian-turned-actor Phil Nichol, this play takes his personal facts and fictions and melds them to create a platform for his incredible, if not disturbing, acting abilities.

To anyone unfamiliar with the sporting culture of Glasgow, or its patter for that matter, I can imagine that Singing 'I'm No a Billy, He's a Tim'’ might not have a great deal of impact. Having grown up on the Southside of Glasgow myself, the play is the perfect explanation as to why I will always harbour a fierce hatred of football, thanks to exactly the kind of casual sectarian idiocy on display here.

Last year, Chris Larner accompanied his chronically ill ex-wife Allyson to Switzerland’s Dignitas clinic. In An Instinct for Kindness, Chris reveals the circumstances, morality and humanity surrounding the journey they made, and, in doing so, gives one of the most poignant and frank performances you are ever likely to bear witness to. This show is, simply put, remarkable, and the viewing public deserves to see it.

How does a Midwestern, churchgoing, motor-biking family-man become Rachael Jones? Lucy Danser’s world premiere of ‘Rachel’s Café’ gets under the skin of this very question. Based on the true story of Bloomington café owner Miss Jones, who Danser met whilst studying at Indiana University, this show is all about creating acceptance and understanding over a cup of coffee (or a nibble of cookie, as it turned out).

Reading the background information to The Observatory, one senses that Daniel Fexsmith’s debut play has all the potential to make a real statement amidst the sea of non-committal mainstream plays on the Fringe.  This production is plugged as his interrogation of the morality of conflict and the corruption of justice through a military frame, directly inspired by the Siege of Sangin in Helmand Province and the recent conspiracy to cover-up torture and murder carried out by British troops in Iraq.

Pleasance Bytes is a series of three interviews with stars of the Fringe, hosted my writer and reviewer Mark Fisher. It gives Fringe goers the opportunity to hear about the star’s life, passions and their involvement in the Fringe.

I attended on the 13th of August and sat in on the discussion with Julian Sands, who is appearing in A Celebration of Harold Pinter at this year’s Festival. He discussed why he enjoys coming to the Fringe and how he likes to keep up with the changing stage and screen.

Pachamamas draw their inspiration from the Latin American experience of the world: where life transcends daily reality and is infused with a sense of magic and the surreal. Emergence feeds off this perspective, pulling together storytelling, cabaret, physical theatre and the otherworldly into one hour-long performance. 

Chucker and Mucker are friends for life. Growing up in Halifax in the 80’s and 90’s, the two friends following their own paths gives us the story of The Historians.  Coming from similar backgrounds and born “in the same hospital at the exact same time” the show follows the two girls from birth into adulthood and shows how the choices we make and those that are made for us affect our lives.

Lee Fenwick's alter ego - the unemployed shipbuilder from Tyneside, Mick Sergeant - has previously done well at the Fringe. Unfortunately, in this year’s offering of dark humour and heartfelt dismay, Fenwick manages to push the bitter satire, along with the audience’s morale, over the edge.

“There’s something rotten in the cul-de-sac. And you know it!” This three-man production is the stuff of curtain twitchers’ dreams. Offering a masculine spin on The Stepford Wives, Matthew Osborn’s new comedy is, judging by the packed audience, going down like the proverbial cucumber sandwich at the Vicar’s tea party.

The Brighton-based performance company Flying Eye focuses on delivering pieces that explore real and heartfelt human issues, which resonate with the audience beyond the final bow. In this fashion, Cutting the Cord follows Sachi Kimura as she makes the life-altering journey from Tokyo to London.

David Leddy is a notorious ‘theatrical maverick’ (The Financial Times) and ‘Scotland’s hottest, edgiest young playwright’ (The Guardian), so I was excited for what was in store. The production is accompanied by a publication that contains the play’s full script. an introduction by the writer, references to all quotations and music as well as the creative team’s biographies.  I started to read as I waited in the queue.

Working in the local pub, the Kerryman, gets the better of the play’s protagonist as she turns her attention to acting school. Welcome to the Kerryman is one girl’s story of getting out of the hometown rut and the trials and tribulations along the way.

Hawke and Hunter’s Green Room is transformed in The Curse of Macbeth.   This well-known tale, which has been adapted by the Cambridge University ADC, is engaging, chilling and eerie.

Translunar Express is an unspoken performance translated through mime and dance with accordion music and lyric-less singing throughout. It is utterly moving: romantic, poetic, a little bit raunchy and sincerely touching. Yesterday I managed to hold back the tears in another show. Today I crumbled, and I wasn’t the only one!

I rather appropriately went to see Dr. Apple’s Last Lecture after a yoga session - it pays to be in a relaxed state of mind while watching this piece. 

I am not often particularly moved by theatre at the festival. This, I can honestly say, pushed me towards tears at times. 

Silken Veils is a short play about an Iranian woman coming to terms with her personal and cultural identity while living in America. The social and political upheaval of the Iranian Cultural Revolution is portrayed through its fracturing of a single family, and yet what comes through clearly is the prevailing reality within this terrible situtation for any Iranian. 

Brotherly Love is part of the Free Fringe, and there is no point harping on about what it isn’t or what it lacks. It simply is what it is: two men and one woman acting out a play about a husband and wife preparing for a dinner party with their barrister friends, when the cleaned-up-junkie younger brother pitches up to make amends. 

Theatrical force Steven Berkoff revisits the story that made his name – Oedipus.

The scene is the Sahara desert. Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Berkoff are on location, filming a movie called Legionnaire. The shoot is going painfully slowly. There is time to kill. But Berkoff has a solution.

Harold Pinter revolutionised British theatre – so much so that powerhouses John Malkovich and Julian Sands have teamed up to pay tribute to him.

What does John Malkovich listen to on his iPod? Apart, that is, from arias by Beethoven and Mozart, which make up the exquisite soundtrack to The Infernal Comedy, a musical play about an Austrian serial killer, which he’s currently touring around Europe?

A terrible accident changed Marc Almond from the confident singer of Soft Cell back to the awkward boy he’d been at school, but Ten Plagues is helping him to overcome his fears.

A renowned torch singer, lamenting the poor souls excluded from life’s feast and fortune’s favour, few can articulate a survivor’s emotional journey with more empathy than Marc Almond. Bullied at school, he would hyperventilate and black out in order to avoid being attacked, while as Soft Cell’s frontman and as a solo act, his debauched lifestyle saw him narrowly cheat death on several occasions. Famously, he survived a horrific motorcycle accident in 2004 that left him with memory lapses, his childhood stutter resurgent and having to learn to sing anew.

With a rock-star husband and a tantric sex life, most people forget that Trudie Styler is also a talented actress, as A Dish of Tea with Dr Johnson proves.

Trudie Styler is having a fit of the giggles. I’ve just asked the actress, film producer, entrepreneur and eco-warrior whether she’s ever been to the Edinburgh Festival.

“I’m ashamed to say I haven’t,” she replies, adding that she’ll be remedying the situation, however, when she makes her Fringe debut at the Traverse in A Dish of Tea With Dr Johnson.

This year sees Art Malik, one of Britain’s best-loved stage and screen actors,   undertaking a very personal project with his daughter, Keira.

Everyone knows his name, and no doubt his appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe – his first – will be a hot ticket. The press are already anticipating the new play, Rose, while the city has barely recovered from the world premier of his first executive-produced movie, Ghosted, at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

It’s more than 25 years since Art Malik shot to fame with a series-stealing performance in The Jewel in the Crown, but at 58, he seems busier than ever.

Melbourne-based trio The Suitcase Royale have been performing together since 2004, and now they’ve brought their “Junkyard Theatre” style to the Pleasance in a hilarious tale of a boxer whose wife’s apparent murder is investigated by an undercover private detective. 

Keepers tells the true story of Thomas Howell and Thomas Griffith, two 19th Century keepers of the Smalls Lighthouse off the West coast of Wales, who were tormented by isolation in the days without electricity and limited means of communication. With two chairs, a trapdoor and a ladder forming the set, The Plasticine Men describe the levels of the lighthouse they inhabit, it’s lamp, windows and the rocks and waves below, through strong physical performances and an impressive soundtrack.

Shortlisted for this year’s Total Theatre Awards in the Innovation category, winner of The Stage Award for ‘Best Solo Performer 2009’, and having been an Official Fringe Sell-Out Show last year, Theatre Ad Infinitum’s production of Odyssey returns to Edinburgh. In a thrilling and mesmerising performance of Homer’s classic story. George Mann narrates and plays all the characters, including Odysseus returning home after the Trojan War. This is quite simply one of the best hours of entertainment you’ll find at the festival.

Dance, music and colour combine in this inventive piece of theatre performed by Ankur Bahl. Exploring the blurred lines between illusion and reality, this is a quiet little play not afraid to take on complex ideas.

The audience huddle around in this cosy pub for a fascinating forty minute one-man performance delivered with such ease and conviction that it doesn’t feel like a performance at all.

Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus at Colonus is given a soulful retelling as Gospel at Colonus, a Pentecostal twist on a 2,400 year old story. Starring The Blind Boys of Alabama (collectively playing Oedipus) and The Legendary Soul Stirrers, the group that was led by Sam Cooke, the stage is packed with fantastic singers and backed by a live band. Not familiar with Sophocles’ original text? Well don’t let that put you off: the music will put a smile on your face whether you follow the story or not.

Kristen Thomson is nothing short of amazing in this one-woman, coming-of-age drama about twelve-year-old Claudia’s struggle to cope with her parent’s divorce and her transition into adolescence.

Clive Russell stars as Derek Hodges, a snooker player who was world champion at 17, but is considered past his prime by sport pundits and even his disinterested agent. Now an embittered alcoholic with a string of divorces, we join Hodges as he takes stock of his life in the dressing room before a big game.

Tony Tanner’s imaginative rendition of Sergei Diaghilev’s culturally rich life was enjoyed by a woefully small audience. This was a real shame, because Tanner’s impressively long and varied career on stage and screen shone through as he brilliantly encapsulated the character of such an interesting subject.

Anyone who has flown anywhere in the last ten years knows how irritating airport security is these days. Mindless drones force you almost to strip naked: belts, shoes and jackets in one tray, phones, cameras and laptops in another, nail polish and liquid eyeliner into a bag and then into another tray, being pushed around and scanned and spoken to as though you are planning to blow up the entire country if you so much as cough at the wrong moment.

This frustrating experience is parodied beautifully in the new production of The Man Who Was Thursday by young company The JAM Theater Collective.

On a small, hot underground stage, Glass-Eye Theatre uses only one prop – a length of red rope – to tell the story of Iris and how she came to appreciate the world around her. The play is very physical and all people and objects in the city are represented by half a dozen members of the cast, who strike appropriate poses to become trees, clothes on hangars, bookshelves and even ducks. The result is a funny and touching story that captures the monotony of a daily routine, but reminds you to appreciate all the little things you ignore every day.

After greeting the audience with a quiet “hello” and a brief pause, the shy-looking Canadian, complete with tweed waistcoat and sideburns, mutters “time to play” whilst easing off a baffled audience member’s right shoe. An intriguing start to what proved to be a delightfully entertaining performance featuring the lost magical art of shadow puppetry.

In this one woman show Rachel Rose Reid explores some of Hans Christian Andersen’s classic short stories through theatre in its most minimal form. Reid parallels her own life with that of Andersen’s by appropriating his work into her own reality.

Bryony Kimmings’ ‘intimate’ forty person capacity venue was littered with old suitcases, plastic flowers and hippy trinkets; her saccharine sweetness (as if it needed to be confirmed) was further backed up by free sweets at the door and our host clad in lederhosen.

If you are concerned that this might be a show entirely about one single football match, don’t be. Poland 3 Iran 2 is also a story of political revolution, war, train sets, Subbuteo and chess, as Chris Dobrowolski and Mehrdad Seyf explain how they came to be watching the 1976 Montreal Olympics match between Poland and Iran. There are some emotional moments and occasional laughs, particularly when close-ups of a 1976 sticker album reveal just how inaccurate British publications could be with Iranian and Polish names. 

Teenage Riot offers a bold insight into life as a modern day teen, looking to challenge and expose the way a contemporary audience perceives young people. With a minimalist set, a great soundtrack, and an ensemble of brave young performers, theatre company Ontroerend Goed (the team behind last year’s extraordinary theatrical experience Internal), explore the absurdities of peer pressure and the hypocrisy of adulthood.

It was a pleasure to watch this much-hyped solo play, written and performed by Nijala Sun, who is about to make it big in Hollywood. When theatre is talked about this much, it’s easy to worry that it won’t meet expectations, but in this case those fears proved to be unfounded.

Becki Gerrard exposes both her body and her inner self in this brave performance piece. Lip Service explores the importance of family history in a show that includes film clips, photographs, dancing, anecdotes, boiling kettles and quite a lot of spilt milk.

Daniel Kitson’s performance plucks out those fragments of life which stand out in the torrential flood of time. The story begins with the death of an old man, and decades earlier, the birth of daughter.

Like some latter day Stoic, Kitson ambles around the stage recounting the two lives: their learning, loving and living. And in all this apparent chaos, he highlights the importance of action and choice. He is an excellent storyteller, occasionally stopping to scratch his head, pull his suspenders up or adjust his spectacles. 

Seven panto stories are squeezed into 70 minutes of hilarity for all ages in Potted Panto, starring CBBC’s Dan and Jeff, who have had previous stage success with Potted Potter and Potted Pirates. Stories such as Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, Dick Whittington and Snow White are each condensed to ten minutes, including rapid costume changes from the two energetic entertainers, who play every character.

Verbatim theatre is always difficult to pull off. The skill of the writer lies in teasing out the threads of the interesting and the truthful from an inevitably unreliable narrator, and this is a trick that Davey Anderson has achieved with aplomb in ThickSkin Theatre Company’s debut production, Blackout.

A woman addicted to gin, crosswords and speed, who bred the world’s best racehorse and is the only woman ever to have been nominated as Private Eye’s "Sh*t of the Week"? How could I resist a description like that?

The Fringe guide did not steer me wrong on this occasion, and this biographical work about Jean Hislop, who swore like a navvy and once stabbed her husband, is a rollicking good time, of which the woman herself would most likely have approved.

Ankur and Pachamama Productions present a truly unforgettable experience with Roadkill, a totally immersive piece of theatre that addresses the issue of sex trafficking in Scotland. Based on the true story of a young woman brought here from Nigeria, the audience joins chirpy teenager Adeola on her bus journey into the city, accompanied by an older woman who looks after her. They chat with the people sitting around them, and soon the instinct to avoid strangers on public transport fades, as you can’t help liking Adeola’s naiveté and sense of fun.

Financial Times columnist Mrs Moneypenny has, quite aptly, chosen to host her celebration of wealth in a shop that sells overpriced appliances to those who live a lifestyle few people will ever experience. I'm only here for the free champagne.

As beautiful and predatory as its namesake, Wolf sets out to explore the relationship between Man and wolf, and to attack some of the myths that have grown up around these fascinating creatures.

This is a tale of Northern poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, promiscuous sex and rape. It is also, if you’re feeling clever, a half hearted metaphor about Eden, complete with Adam, Eve and the Apple.

The show is powerful and well acted. ‘Brutally honest’ is also one, perhaps slightly lazy way, of describing the first stage-adaptation of Richard Milward’s debut novel. It does, indeed, cram in everything, from domestic violence to lung cancer; rape to infanticide.

Set in a Victorian theatre and performed amidst the dark spaces of a shuttered Masonic Lodge, David Leddy's Sub Rosa is an atmospheric chiller that is blacker than the heart of Hunter, the unseen but powerful impresario that controls all its characters' lives.

I should start by saying that the next time I opened my fridge after this show, I spotted an onion and carrot and shut the door quickly, scarred for life and terrified by these innocent vegetables.

You wouldn’t expect anything less than brilliance from the team behind 2006’s global hit Black Watch, which went on from its Fringe debut to win awards and wow audiences across the world. Thankfully the National Theatre of Scotland and Frantic Assembly, along with writer Bryony Lavery and directors Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett, have created what is sure to be another Scottish success story with their latest piece, Beautiful Burnout.

David Hume, the Edinburgh based polymath, was not a big Shakespeare fan. Sure, for his time Shakespeare was impressive, but in the great scheme of things and compared to eighteenth-century masters like Moliere or Swift, he was nothing special. This is not the Shakespeare we have grown accustomed to; that is, Shakespeare the timeless master, able to transcend class, cultural and even linguistic barriers.

Girls who are boys, who like boys to be girls, who like to be flung around a mirrored tent, from half-naked man to magician’s cage... or something.

If you’re looking to raise the bar of your expectations for Edinburgh Festival shows, this is the one to see.

Jack Thorne is well versed in writing about the intense social pressures that dominate adolescence. A lead writer on Skins, Thorne continues to dissect themes of growing up in multi-cultural Britain in his latest work, Bunny.

These are true stories, told with real tears. Four girls act out verbatim conversations with their own mothers in a delightful piece of theatre that turns out to be just as touching as the concept itself.

In this production of Hamlet (as you’ve never seen before), Linda Marlowe’s confident, powerful and moving performance is truly commendable. Launching into the script in the guise of a cleaner in a dressing room, Marlowe’s flawless command of the language and nuances of the greatest work in English literature is captivating. By collaborating with six brilliant puppeteers from Fingers Theatre, the tragic tale is given life, colour and clarity through the company’s fantastic collection of puppets.

UCLU Runaground’s production of the farcical black comedy Mr Kolpert was originally written by David Gieselmann in German, and translated for the Royal Court in 2000. Runaground’s delivery and interpretation of the play is simultaneously well-timed and chaotic, as the mystery of Mr Kolpert’s ‘murder’ is gradually revealed to the dinner guests in clever and absurd conversations.

Not another reunion. The very name implies some sort of severance of communication, which in our wired age this is actually harder to do than staying connected. So by definition, almost, something is bound to go wrong: the trashy one is going to get drunk and start crying; the siblings are going to fall out and the new boyfriend is going to feel totally out of place.

A beautifully scripted and stunningly performed piece, Enda Walsh’s Penelope is a must-see for anyone looking for serious, thought-provoking theatre at this year’s Fringe. 

For someone not remotely interested in sporting activities and with a particular disdain for 'celebrities', of the reality TV show variety, the idea of sitting through John Godber's rugby-based play starring Abi Titmuss didn't full me with excitement. To my pleasant surprise, however, I was kept happily amused and even (embarrassingly) found myself joining in an impromptu applause and cheer during the final match scene.

This comedians' musical and its fantastically funny cast make for an entertaining and ridiculous show of unforgiving comedy and revenge. The all-star cast including Lizzie Roper, The Penny Dreadfuls and Sarah Pascoe bring this absurd tale of death to life, but it is Colin Hoult’s hilarious portrayal of the entire Bewley family that brings the show moments of comic brilliance.

Unfortunately the lyrics to the songs are delivered with such poor sound quality that at times their content is lost on the audience and they fail to get the laughs they deserve.

We apparently do most of our communicating through body language. How we stand, sit or lie; where our eyes wander; what we do with our hands. All this reveals a great deal about us – far more than often restrictive and scripted verbal communication laced with half-truths or deceit.

Freefall is a breathtaking piece of theatre. Through an ingenious combination of superb acting, technology and set design, the audience is made not only to see, but to feel the sudden shock and revelations of a man whose life is coming to an end.

Hurtwood Theatre Company's performance of Cake left me hungry, but predicting the future is bright. The young trio confidently delivered an absurdist play, setting the greed of 21st century capitalism in the mind of a sexually frustrated couple locked in a room with no exit.

The sex slave trade taking place in Britain is a serious issue and merits a serious discussion; in this sense Fair Trade should be commended for provoking the issue, especially with the impending Olympic Games in London. At several points the anecdotes taken from two genuine accounts almost become appeals as the victims realise they could have been sitting next to you on the underground, just like any other stranger.

Sam Holcroft’s raw and gripping new play ruthlessly exposes and explores two disintegrating relationships in a self-serving, sex-driven, consumerist society.

It is a true story rich in audience-pulling themes: extremely codependent twin girls Jennifer and June, of Caribbean parents, are ostracised by the rural and very white RAF community in which their technician father is based and stop communicating with the outside world.

Despite the justifiable aversion many of us hold to anything which contains the two words ‘Romantic’ and ‘Comedy’, ‘My Romantic History’ is a great piece of theatre with pace, intelligence and more humour in it than most stand-up comedies.

Looking at children and childhood with an unflinchingly honest eye, the revival of Decky Does a Bronco by Edinburgh’s own Grid Iron proves to be an extremely welcome rematch indeed.

In the summer holidays of 1983, five boys, four aged nine and one aged eleven, turn their council estate swingpark into their own personal Utopia. The boys long to be grown up, mimicking the ways of the TV stars and action heroes they admire, but when tragedy strikes they are all forced into adulthood far too early, struggling to survive in the face of awful loss.

Rhoda and Jerry inhabit the desolate office space of “Convenience Foods”. Together yet solitarily they negotiate their way through the corporate jargon to face their demise; the omnipresent struggle of nature and civilisation. The pair come up against contraptions and appliances, personal neuroses and the looming threat of invasion from the natural world in the form of taxidermied animals and decayed shrubbery.

Brilliant, bold and wildly creative – theatre in Edinburgh has never been more exciting or accessible, says Mark Fisher.

APPLES
The Traverse @ St Stephens
11-28 August (not 16, 23), 4pm
Telling the story of Adam and Eve re-imagined in the world of 21st century teenagers, this adaptation of Richard Milward’s debut novel is staged by Newcastle’s Northern Stage and Company of Angels.

THE AUTHOR
Traverse Theatre
6-29 August, times vary
Acclaimed in London, Tim Crouch’s provocative play puts the audience centre stage and asks us whether it is acceptable to allow violence to flourish in
the name of art.

Writing a serious play about sex trafficking was a difficult task for young graduate Anna Holbek, but with Emma Thompson in her corner she had the chance to spread her wings.

It was Anna Holbek’s first job. Aged 21, straight out of the Italia Conti Academy, she found herself on the set of Pride and Prejudice, teaching Emma Thompson and the rest of the cast a song. In Latin. Suddenly, the lowly gofer was one of the team. Chatting over lunch, Thompson asked Anna if she could possibly rattle up a few of her drama school chums for a photo shoot. They would be dressed as prostitutes for an installation on sex trafficking that Thompson was working on.

As the Latin lesson shows, Holbek is not the type to hide under the duvet when a gauntlet is thrown down, which is how she, and a gang of friends in hotpants, became lifesize cutouts in a container in Trafalgar Square. It was part of The Journey, an art installation that brought the seedy, scary reality of sex slavery into the centre of London.

There’s something about creating stories for teenagers that Shameless and Skins writer Jack Thorne can’t resist, as his new play, Bunny, demonstrates.

Jack Thorne has a confession to make. The writer might be best known for his work on Skins, the cult TV series about teen life, but he’s so far removed from his target market that when he had a job in Vodafone customer support, he didn’t even own a mobile phone.  “I had no idea how to fix any of the problems,” laughs the 31-year-old.  “A lot has changed since I was a kid.  I didn't grow up with mobile phones.”

Simon Callow

What advice would you give to someone performing for the first time?
It’s a fantastic opportunity, and you never know who might be sitting in that audience – the author’s grandmother or Steven Spielberg. It’s the most diverse crowd in the world

What’s your first memory of the Festival?
My first festival was also my first job ever, so I remember quaking. I was playing the front end of a horse in Büchner’s Woyzeck.

Shakespeare, the Man from Stratford, Assembly @ Assembly Hall,
5-30 August (not 9, 16, 23), 2.30pm, From £10, Tel: 0131 623 3030

Zoo @ 140 The Pleasance
24-29 August, 20.25

An examination of masochistic, co-dependent lesbian relationship, inspired by ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’ and ‘Lassie Come Home’. What?!

The Space @ Venue 45
6-29 August, 16.10

Wide-eyed pioneers turned settlers. The hopes and dreams that founded a nation. A model of the Empire State Building; each window the gate to a story, a dream.

The Vault
28-31 August, 17.45

I’ve been trying to work out what it was about this production that made me so angry because, to be fair to ‘Two Shades of Blue’, the Fringe is all about this type of student-led light entertainment. They are its irreverent, innovative beating heart, and – when done right - what makes this festival such a magnificent bloody mess.

Assembly @ Assembly Hall
6-31 August, 17.25

Transfixing in its ring of truth and through the stellar performance of solo actor Liam Brennan, Djupid (The Deep) is breathtaking, life-affirming theatre.

Stand Comedy Club
7-30 August (ex. 17), 13.00

If Scotland ever produces a film equivalent of Reservoir Dogs the starting point must surely be Gagarin Way. It’s a performance sweating with tension, frustration and violence.

St Peter’s
26-29 August, 19.45

A basic text that sparkles is complemented by some witty modern additions to make this a thoroughly enjoyable, community-spirited evening.

Underbelly
23-30 August, 13.45

This exploration of life as the outsider, told by a black man who never knew another black person until he was 18, is a humorous and timely look at contemporary attitudes to race.

Traverse Theatre
19-30 August, times vary.

This year's production by 'Inspector Sands' theatre company had a lot to live up to, following last year's sell out debut of 'Hysteria'. Continuing the theme of 21st Century obsessions with self-fulfillment, 'If That's All There Is', seems a little darker than most problem-comedies.

Edinburgh University Medical School
22-31 August, 19.30

A tall, strong, tuxedoed character strides smoothly and silently past me and into the backlit doorway in front of a gasping audience.

Theatre Workshop
24-29 August 12.00

The post show party of CAODS’s 1970 amateur dramatic production of The Sound of Music proved to be a beginning for some (it was here his parents’ romance began) and the end for others (another actor collapsed whilst playing the guitar, eventually dying that same evening). His father was a Nazi, his mother a nun.

Assembly @ George Street
6– 1 August (ex. 10, 17 and 24), 14.50

Following the lives of a group of young women in the post-war era of austerity, Muriel Spark’s novel is set in a period of thrift, mending, making do and getting by. Contrasting the earthly pragmatism – even cynicism – of characters like Selina Redwood, with the pious distance of Joanna, a clergyman’s daughter, Spark depicted a Britain pregnant with the seeds of social and political change.

Zoo Southside
7-31 August (ex.11, 18, 25) 17.00

Two writers stretch towards each other across the ether. In the 21st Century, Bret’s romance-radar is blocked. A writer of pornographic plays, he is unable to evoke true love, floundering instead in an embarrassment of felching, fellatio and tumescent phalluses.

Underbelly's Hullabaloo
7-31 August, 20.10

The audience rolls into the Hullabaloo circus tent to the sound of Sinatra, welcomed by Megan Riordan ("Kim", as she will be known to us), looking every inch the casino hostess in her black cocktail dress.  Her auburn hair is immaculately curled, she wears a red sash tied round her waist and is holding a tray of "Vegas cheese balls", which she busily offers around the crowd.

The Space @ Venue 45
24-29 August, 14.25

A penal colony in late 1780s Australia is not a merry place, but between floggings, hangings and madness comes an opportunity to celebrate what many consider to be humanity’s greatest achievement: art. In this case the form is theatre, performed by convicts, in a double-edged attempt to civilise and liberate.

Assembly @ George Street
6–30 August (ex 18), 19.30

More than another mere event, this is The Event. But don’t expect fizzling fireworks, lacy legged dancers, or acrobats. Instead The Event is a monologue told through the third person.

University of Edinburgh Drill Hall
20–29 August, 22.30

Distant dull voices crackle over loudspeakers sending orders to the audience. Lights flash and alarms pulsate. A deep ambient drone wraps itself around the audience as they walk along the concrete floor to designated standing areas. A youthful enthusiasm, also seen when watching A Bridge Too Far or Where Eagles Dare, was evident in certain members of the audience.

C Adams House @ C Venues
16-31 August, 19.30

“... it’s like that car advert...!”

Like a mother-of-five lost in Tesco on a Saturday morning hysterically looking for marmite, this thought kept dashing in and out of my mind throughout Brocante Sonore’s hour-long set.

Assembly @ Assembly Hall
6-30 August (ex.17, 24) 18.20

“Isn’t it amazing how superficial things can make you feel so good?” asks Robyn Peterson, former couture model, primetime actress and star of this new one-woman exposé of the world of 1970s High Fashion.

C Venue
23–30 August, 12.00

You go into mind out, sit down and scratch your head. You realise that the performance is playing with your expectations of a play, and is scripted as the previous two sentences have been. You are intrigued.

The Zoo
7-31 August (ex.17) 17.45

Othello from Iago’s perspective: the vision of its playwright tossed aside, with one of the world’s most fascinating villains left to run amok? Good on you, Louise Hill, you genius!

C Too
6–31 August, 20.00

Everything that makes Kafka’s novella so wonderfully nightmarish is delivered in dollops of macabre by this admirable production. The vision is outstanding; rictus grins, manic quiffs and pale faces haunt a monochrome timbre punctuated by splashes of scarlet.

Pleasance Dome
8-30 August (ex. 17, 24), 17.40

This play tells the story of two film makers – Joe (Lewis Hetherington) and Matt (Daniel Tobin) who, whilst making a programme on light-houses, accidentally capture the last moments of Stephen (Sam Taylor), a twenty-nine year old with a love of writing.

Assembly @ George Street
6-30 August, 15.20

Adapted from a novel by Ron Butlin, this play tackles the idea of alcoholism amongst the respectable suburban middle class.

Pleasance Courtyard
7-31st August, 13.30

The Chronicles of Irania, a new collaboration between two of Scotland's most exciting emerging female artists, is arguably the most poignant one-woman performance of the Fringe this year.

Zoo Southside
7-31 August, 20.30

‘Anomie’ refers to a feeling of isolation or anxiety, resulting from a lack of social regulation or shared values.

Precarious’ production presents anomie as a near-ubiquitous aspect of modern living, cultivated by a lack of moral guidelines, information-overload and insufficient engagement with the real world.

C Soco
5-31 August, 23.20

"A daringly elusive, ground-breaking production".  "Avant-garde theatre at its very best.  Disorientation and uncertainty envelop audience and protagonist alike".

The chances are if you look anywhere else on the Internet for Belt Up's production of The Trial, this is the kind of laudatory (and horribly misjudged) critical guff that you will encounter.

Underbelly
6-31 August, 22.05

This is a show that satirises the lengths to which people will go in their quest for fame, and in doing so shows just how far performers will go to push the boundaries of the Fringe.

C Too
16-22 August, 16.40

The intensity the actors aroused throughout this performance was incredible. If you want straight down the line talent, KCS Theatre Company’s production of Billy Budd should be your first port of call.

Gilded Balloon
5-31 August, 17.15

Despite a cast of strong actors, and a script by one of the America’s funniest playwrights, this revival of three short plays from Christopher Durang’s collection ‘Durang Durang’ fails to take flight, and leaves a clearly expectant audience a little disappointed.

The Traverse
18–30 August, 10.30

When  Mark Ravenhill entered the intimate space of Traverse Two (dominated by a beautiful and unnerving projected image of Bette Bourne in black and white) already laughing, the tone for the next hour was set.

Gilded Balloon
5–31 August, 14.45

Richard Dawkins has often been chastised for his Napoleonic approach to intellectual debate. Any academic opponents he meets are destroyed in detail, and as soon as possible.

Assembly @ George Street
6-31 August (ex. 10,17,24), 18.05

This powerful show is a theatrical exhibition of artworks and poetic text produced by Harry Horse, the author and illustrator, who died in 2007.

Bedlam Theatre
6-29 August (ex. 9,16,23) 14.30

Ella Hicks is evidently talented. I say that having missed 'Eight': her hugely successful, award winning play from last year's Fringe.

'Precious Little Talent' is engaging, entertaining and very well written.

C Too
19–31 August, 20.00

Kafka’s bizarre but illustrious novel is adapted for stage by Steven Berkoff and performed by Cambridge University’s Amateur Dramatic club for the festival. The expressive and inventive troupe will keep you entertained but the script adds little to the tale. Though it’s always fun to sample edgy drama, if it’s Kafka you want, the books are a better bet.

The Traverse
7-30 August (ex. 10,17,24) various showings.

Rude, lewd and absolutely fantastic this musical explores the emotion-stricken barflies of London’s Camden Town in the setting of the soulful Arizona bar, on the verge of closure. The play’s language is a mix of urban, cutting cusses and florid Shakespearean style while the musical score blends soul, jazz, reggae and blues.

The GRV
6-30 August (ex. 16), 00.20

“Why not put a mask on and walk out of the slaughterhouse of your life?”

Drowsily going up the winding staircase of the GRV at twenty past midnight, and being lead into a small room where the entirety of the set (a table and two chairs, a coat stand and three carefully placed televisions) was a subtle hue of blue, white or gray was a bizarre, yet strangely appealing beginning to my first experience of Dutch theatre.

Traverse Theatre
6-16, 24 August, times vary.

Declaiming in the most extraordinary accent, Edgar Oliver, legend of New York’s downtown theatre scene, introduces us to a weird world of dwarves, cabalists and little old ladies, all sharing a house on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

Traverse @ The Barony
7-31 August (ex. 14,15,21,22,28.29) 15.00

Handy if you can get a bar to close for an hour each day during your run: it makes for the most realistic of sets. Punters benefit too: your drink order sits on the table, ready to pick up and sip as you find your bar stool, vaguely aware of the piano man accompanying your entrance.

Assembly @ Royal Botanic Gardens
Daily at 30 minute intervals until 6 September

After sitting through countless shows, packed into closeted venues like sardines in a sauna, the prospect of wandering around the Botanics with only an ipod shuffle supplying the entertainment is more than a welcome one. That is until I wake up and see the sheet rain and purple sky.

New Town Theatre
9-30 August (ex. 17,24), 18.45

Vibrant and entertaining, this play embodies the spirit of the mid-19th century dancer and courtesan. Lead actress Georgina Roberts is particularly hypnotic as the charismatic performer.

Pleasance Courtyard
5-31 August (ex. 18,25) 19.40

You wanna get your hands on this truck?
You gotta keep your hands on this truck…

Pleasance Courtyard
5 - 31 August, 17.30

In 1998, news of a young boy called Ivan Mishukov hit the headlines. Aged four, he had run away from home and had spent the past two years living with wild dogs in the backstreets of Moscow. Inspired by this, the acting group NIE decided to write and perform a play based on this story.

Pleasance Courtyard
8-31 August (ex. 17) 15.45

Given that the play was written by Ben Schiffer (writer of ‘Skins’) and has two already-established actors (James Rose and Marina Niel) playing the lead roles, it is perhaps unsurprising that the performance is as polished and absorbing as it is.

The Spaces @ Royal College of Surgeons
7-15 August, 18.45

Set years in the future, Generation F follows the story of a teenage boy who has, due to a system malfunction, been transported fifty years into the future. During the intervening years, there has been a great flood due to our generation’s abuse of the environment, and this moral urges the audience to reflect on their own actions and treatment of the environment.

Underbelly
16-30 August, 12:00This unassuming depiction of the myriad hardworking lives associated with a car manufacturing company is witty and poignant. Inspired by the closure of a car factory in Birmingham, Home of the Wriggler indicates the central role of such institutions for many generations and families.

Bedlam Theatre
10-29 August 17:20The images conjured in the mind by the description of this show are sumptuously cosy and appealing – three Victorian ‘gentlemen of the road’ meeting below a street lamp to share stories.
However, The Lamplighter’s Lament is not quite what one expects. The piece is physical theatre - other than a short introduction, there is no dialogue – and these gentlemen tell only one simple story.

Assembly @ George Street
5-31 August (ex. 17) 16.15

In a Georgian townhouse not far from the Assembly Rooms is a hotel where all your worst nightmares about holidaying in Britain come true. Granted, Basil Fawlty is not present (you’ll need to head over to The Faulty Towers Dining Experience at B’est to bump into him), but all the hallmarks of a wet weekend in Scunthorpe are spread out for your delectation.

Zoo Southside
7-31 (ex. 19) 18.30

Luscious language, artful alliteration and for some reason (probably personal, subconscious, slightly overtired…) my first thought was Chaucer meets the Tellytubbies.

That was unfair.

Underbelly Pasture
8–31 August, 12.45

The six headed hydra of comedy surrealism and satire once again raises its head on stage, recounting Python history and using the excuse of Graham Chapman’s death to create a plot. Of sorts.

Pleasance Courtyard
5–31 August (ex. 18,25) 15.25

Icarus, the mythological character who attempted to escape Crete by flight before falling to his death, is a tale of the dangers of excessive curiosity, arrogance, and flying too close to very large hot objects while covered in wax and feathers.

McEwan Hall        
14-23 August, 19.00

"Imagine A Midsummer Night's Dream through a games console."  This, as laid out in the programme, is the main innovation behind the Beijing Film Academy's updated version of the Shakespearean classic.  It could be argued that with a concept like this, the BFA shot themselves in the foot before they even began staging their production.

Assembly @ George Street
6-16 August (ex. 11) 18.20

This charming, folksy poetry and acoustic music piece feels like being in Lorraine Kelly’s living room. Described as a show about “not being 21 anymore,” the overriding mood is one of contentment, reflecting on familial and romantic love. The chatty and warm style is not as saccharine as the title suggests, but the show does what it says on the tin so avoid if you’re a cynical-about-heartfelt-emotions type.

Bedlam Theatre
1-15 August, 16.00

This poignantly beautiful and devastatingly funny play is a devised piece brought to the Fringe by Babolin Theatre Company. The Cambridge based group have been bringing acts to the festival for four years and have built up a solid reputation. This year they have outdone themselves.

Augustine’s Church
9-15 August, 11.25

William Golding’s novel about a group of boys crash-landing onto a desert island and subsequently descending into a state of savagery, is a disconcerting look into human nature and the origins of society.

Just the Tonic @ The Caves
8-23 August (ex. 18) 13.40

An (oddly) handsome Oscar Wilde and a girl-crazy, self-quoting Lord Byron sip wine and behave like busy-bodied mortals inside Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey, discussing other dead colleagues and their possible appearance at the anticipated annual party held at the Abbey.

Traverse Theatre @ The Point Hotel
5-30 August (ex. 17,24), times vary.

Internal is one of those shows that it’s very hard to talk about without ruining it completely for anyone who goes along after you. Put simply, the experience begins like this: five strangers meet in the lobby of a hotel. They wait, chatting between themselves, as another five people emerge blinking into the harsh light of the outside world.

Underbelly’s Pasture
6-31 August (ex. 11,18,25) 17.50

A blonde from Basildon, Denise Van Outen offers her show as “a celebration of golden goddesses, peroxide princesses and sun-kissed sirens”. All this is done via the songs of her idols and inspiration: to name but a few the “absolutely bloody tiny” Miss Minogue, the tortured Britney whom she believes she could “sort out if I had five minutes with her”, and Bonnie “sounds like she swallowed Rod Stewart” Tyler.

Pleasance Courtyard
5–31 August (ex. 11,18,25) 12.15

Being 200 years since Darwin’s birth and 150 since the publication of the Origin of Species, not surprisingly someone has decided to put the Magnum Opus into song format. It’s extraordinary that, for such an expansive subject one can actually fit it into the bunker like conditions of the Pleasance Beside ‘theatre’.

Assembly @ George Street
5–31 August (ex. 17) 16.15

Imagine the experience of being thrown into a Fawlty Towers like hotel. This is a reviewer’s nightmare. Part of the sadistic fun of reviewing things is the ability to fade into the inky darkness at the back of a room, smirk, wince and write witty comments before silently slinking out at the end of the performance. The Hotel – more experience than performance – throws this system into disarray.

Assembly @ George Street
6–31 August (ex. 12,19) 13.50

It’s often a good idea to go into a show oblivious to everything but its name, time and location. Aside from making you feel like a Fringe hitman, sent information written on match boxes, this also allows you to soak up a show without any pre-conceived grudges or preferences. This is probably a luxury any paying Fringe goer would avoid.

Sweet in the Firth of Forth
8-16 August, times vary.

On a dank and rainy Edinburgh morning, travelling by boat to a mystery island seemed an uninspiring prospect. Even more so when the play we were planning to see would be performed outside, the audience huddled on straw bales in the midst of the cold seas of the unforgiving Firth of Forth. Thankfully, however, by the afternoon the weather had cleared and provided if not warmth, then at least kindly sunshine to allow The Bitter Belief of Cotrone the Magician the chance to show its best face.

Inlingua Edinburgh @ 29 Hanover Street
August 12-26, 21.30

Returning for its third run at the Fringe, Hitler Alone is the thespy equivalent of Haydn’s Surprise Symphony. Don’t enter the Red Room anticipating a gentle doze in a corner to bypass the more tedious moments of this 75-minute monologue: you’re liable to be awoken with a sudden roar and a shower of spit as Paul Webster throws himself wholeheartedly (and often sensitively) into the mindset of a crazed, cornered dictator.

Traverse Theatre
August 11–30 (ex. 17,24) 9.30

Gentrification: A Converation with my Neighbour Henry

‘The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in nature that is ours;
We have given our heart away, a sorid boon!’

Traverse Theatre
6–30 August (ex. 10,17,24), times vary.

We all turn into our parents eventually. In my case this would involve me eventually achieving a handicap of 15 at golf, a love of gravelly sounding folk music and grade eight oboe. Eventually, I’m sure.

Little Gem is a touching play about the relationship between three generations of Dublin women. They play off against one another as they deal with the life, love and death of the year. Not to mention the salsa classes, cocaine and dildos.

Traverse Theatre
8–30 August (ex. 10,17,24) times vary.

Monologues, like portrait painting, can fulfil various functions. Often the subtle shades of character come out most clearly from the sitter. The Palace of the End, however, gives us three separate portraits, all dealing with the larger issues which surround them. This is at the expense of realism in the character depictions.

Assembly @ Assembly Hall
6–30 August (ex 18th), 14.30

Gaza beach: sea side resort of the Promised Land. We hope you enjoy your stay. Our primary export is misery and we’d advise you to watch out for the ship we call ‘the kicker’ patrolling a few kilometres of shore.

Assembly Rooms @ George Street
6th – 31st August, 14.00-15.15 and 17.00-18.15

David Leddy, one of Scotland’s leading site-specific theatre-makers, draws the audience in to this production with a wonderfully unusual set, the promise of tea and the request that everyone wear the white rice-paper robes found on their seats.

The Vault @ 11 Merchant Street
10-23 August (ex.17) 22:15

I don’t like the word ‘vagina’. On entering the embarrassingly intimate Vault Theatre, I experienced a sinking in the stomach rather than a shift in the knickers at the prospect of having vaginas rammed, so to speak, down my throat.

Assembly @ George Street
12-31 August (ex. 17,24) 12.40

It’s quite a challenge to pull off a one-woman show, yet Rohan McCullough does so with sophisticated ease. The actress provides an entertaining and compelling performance that gives the audience an insight into the devoted and brilliant woman behind one of Britain’s (and indeed, the world’s) most celebrated and loved figures.

Venue 45 (Old Saint Paul’s Church Hall)
10-15 August, 13.00

Written in 1988 by Timberlake Wertenbaker, this powerful piece of historical theatre stages the journey and settlement of the first British convicts sent to Australia in the 18th Century. Her wrought and economic language probes painfully into issues of personal rehabilitation, the chemistries of unrequited love, the morally restorative powers of art, and most of all, the bitter ironies between the play itself and the play within the play (Farquhar’s ‘The Recruiting Officer’) performed by the convicts themselves.

Meadows Theatre Big Tops
7 August– 5 September, 21.00

Almost every day of my final year of university involved walking past a gorgeously clad bloke whose image was plastered onto a billboard outside the library. By bloke of course I mean ‘Lady Boy’: the strange limbo between the genders inhabited by the travelling circus of Thai dancers.

Assembly @ Assembly Hall, Mound Place
6-31 August (ex. 17,24) 12.00

This production of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, is as perfectly pitched as Anna Francolini’s Murrayfield accent (which was faultless).

Underbelly
10-29 August, 15.30

The bleakness of this dark production is perfectly suited to the crepuscular caverns of the Underbelly. We meet two men who share a flat, Ziggy – or Graham as he was known before ‘baptism’ – and Gary (though in fact Gary resides contentedly in a Beckettian box).

Sweet ECA
8-15 August, 18.00

A ‘friend’ recently introduced me to the ‘Saw’ franchise of films. A vital cultural reference for today I thought. So what happens when you mix this horrifying series of films with the equally horrifying bastion of modern culture that is Noel Edmunds and ‘Deal or No Deal’? The answer is probably ‘21 Girlfriends’.