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Edinburgh Festival Guide

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12-19 Aug

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BRING IT HOME

Kemah Bob's sophomore hour takes us back Inside: Basil Crumbwick Sami Abu Wardeh Sasha Nezlobin Sepideh Kaav Jill Dawson Sgàire Wood Harriet Dyer Rob Preston Spin Cycle Badgers

Ihsane © Filip Van Roe

‘ONE OF THE MOST VISIONARY CHOREOGRAPHERS WORKING TODAY’ THE GUARDIAN ON SIDI LARBI CHERKAOUI

IHSANE

BALLET DU GRAND THÉÂTRE DE GENÈVE / EASTMAN SIDI LARBI CHERKAOUI

FESTIVAL THEATRE 18–20 AUG AD CAP 20 AUG BOOK NOW EIF.CO.UK Supported by Flure Grossart

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6–29 AUG • 5:30PM

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Editor Louis Cammell Business Development Edinburgh & Adelaide Festivals Joanna Hare Design Team Dalila D’Amico Phoebe Willison

Deputy Editor Megan Wallace

Sales Team David Hammond Emilie Roberts Ema Smekalová

Writing Team Eilidh Akilade, Alvie, Rachel Ashenden, Anahit Behrooz, Evan Beswick, Samuel Cain, Clara, Edie, Si Hawkins, Oran, Jay Richardson, Claire Sawers, Xuanlin Tham, Gareth K Vile Cover Image Corinne Cumming

Radge Media Editor-in-Chief Rosamund West

Commercial Director Sandy Park

Deputy Editor Peter Simpson

General Manager Laurie Presswood

Digital Editorial Assistant Ellie Robertson Fest Street Dates 2026 12, 19, 26 August Advertising 0131 467 4630 sales@festmag.com

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Published by Radge Media C.I.C, The Melting Pot, 15 Calton Road Edinburgh, EH8 8DL. Every effort has been made to check the accuracy of the information in this magazine, but we cannot accept liability for information which is inaccurate. Show times and prices are subject to changes – always check with the venue. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without the explicit permission of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed within this publication do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the printer or the publisher. Printed by Micropress Printers Ltd, Southwold

Edinburgh 2026 Issue 1

5 Contents

10 Growing Pains Kemah Bob on following up her debut hour with Love child, which excavates their upbringing

15 Comedians in Conflict Sepideh Kaav, Sasha Nezlobin and Sami Abu Wardeh talk about writing and performing comedy while war rages

18 On the Cards Jill Dawson appears at EIBF to talk about her sortabiography on the life of tarot cards’ most overlooked illustrator

21 Rising Tide Glasgow-based artist Sgàire Wood curates JUPITER RISING x EAF, a one-night-only Edinburgh Art Festival event

Comedy 28 Rob Preston’s debut pushes the clichés of masculinity to farcical limits

Theatre 39 The leaders of a children’s theatre camp are apocalyptically ill-equipped for the end of the world

Dance, Physical Theatre & Circus 50 Tess O’Shea’s Kafkaesque flydrag clown show deserves some buzz

58 Listings Find the shows for you with our hour-by-hour show guide

Image credits (top to bottom, left to right): Corinne Cumming, Dylan Woodley, Joanne Coates, Charlotte Cullen, Rebecca NeedMenear, Izzy Reeve, Naushervan and Michael Aiden.

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Basil Crumbwick's Perfect Day Sam Eley’s chaotic alter-ego, 64-year-old oddball Basil Crumbwick, takes us through a day in his perfectly ordinary life 9:00am - I wake up in bed beside a woman so sexy that she makes Audrey Hepburn from the 50s (really nice) look like Audrey Hepburn now (corpse/some bones). Last night we made love, and I can remember the WHOLE thing. She wakes up and says: “Wow, I’m still thinking about that sex, you were bloody brilliant…” I say: “Last night? Brilliant? That was actually incredibly standard for me.” You understand? Because of how good I am at it normally. 9:05am - Eat large lasagna. 9:10am - I read the newspaper. Front page headline is that the bloke who trained dogs to smell Alzheimer’s has now trained them how to give people back massages, and they ain’t half bad. I also read that Adam Stibbs – the guy I met in Asda who asked me if I was wearing my leather jacket ironically – has fallen down a well, and tragically, he’s absolutely dead.

9:20am - My doorbell rings. I answer the door to a frazzledlooking man with a labcoat on and scorchmarks on his face. He says, “This is going to sound insane but you need to believe me. The future of this planet is in danger, and you’re the only man who can save us. In my hand is a quantum chronology spectrometer, or in layman’s terms…a time machine-” I headbutt the annoying nerd, knock him out, nick the time machine, and brieﬂy go back in time to 1974. I go to my childhood bully’s house and give him PTSD by showing him clips of Hereditary and telling him it’s a documentary. 9:25am - Get dressed.

Perfect Day

9:40am - I watch two ants get married, whilst I Google their life expectancy and cry my bleedin’ tits oﬀ. 9:45am - I stand outside Pizza Hut holding up placards of unborn fetuses and shouting, “you should be ashamed of yourselves,” to customers as they go in. The manager asks what I’m doing, but I refuse to tell him. 9:50am - Go to the toilet. 8:00pm - Bedtime.

9:30am - I ﬁnd a bitcoin behind the back of the sofa.

9:35am - I reach for a can of Lilt and it explodes as soon as I touch it. I realise I have developed super strength. I go to the GP, who explains I’ve actually always had it, and it’s 9:15am - The woman from a natural result of my muscles earlier asks if we can make love (big), but I’ve just never noticed again and I say no. before. I pick him up and put 6

him on my shoulders and it’s literally not even heavy at all. We run around the car park for a bit, and it’s a right laugh. Everyone agrees I would make a very good ﬁreman.

SHOW: VENUE: TIME:

Sam Eley is Basil Crumbwick: Soul Sewage Monkey Barrel Comedy until30 Aug (not 18), 11.25pm

Perfect Day Photo: Sophie Holde

★★★★★

“ITʼS AN UNCOMPROMISING PIECE OF THEATRE THAT MAKES VISIBLE WHAT HAS LONG BEEN SHUT AWAY.”* –THE LIST

*PRAISE FOR PREVIOUS DUTCH KILLS PRODUCTIONS

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Growing Pains Comedian Kemah Bob on the trials of growing up, inheritance, and following up their hit debut hour Words: Eilidh Akilade

emah Bob is eating an orange, with bright neon nails to match. “I always want to create something or share something that’s reflective of – oh my god, I feel like I sound so wanky – like the human condition, but my human condition,” she shares, carrying a laptop around her London flat. This August, Bob, originally from Texas, returns to the Fringe with their sophomore show, Love Child – an intimate yet wonderfully chaotic hour of comedy which questions what it means to navigate the trials and tribulations of adulthood, after a similarly rocky childhood. It’s all a bit exhausting: go to the gym, buy a house, eat enough protein, eat enough fibre, stop scrolling on your phone. We’re constantly attempting to “optimise [our] existence” and, quite frankly, Bob has had enough of it. And so, she’s glad to put such matters aside and ask what adulthood really is – which responsibilities bind us and which might just set us free? This line of questioning demands looking back as much as it does looking forward. In recent years, Bob has found themselves reflecting on childhood experiences – particularly, that of their parents’ relationship – which have stayed with them into adulthood. “I think a big question is how are you meant to be a good adult when you never really got to be a

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kid?” We don’t have a say in what we inherit but we do have a say in what we do with that inheritance. Bob is a “fucking nerd, which I get from my mum,” and so, genetics and neuroscience have woven their way into the show. Turning 32 last winter, Bob found themselves particularly drawn to recent research on brain development from the University of Cambridge, as reported by the BBC, which found that adolescence continues until none other than the age of 32. Understanding such development prompted Bob to look at past years with a renewed focus. “I feel like so much of my life at one point was kind of like happening around me, or just kind of happening to me, happening with me, but I don’t think I’ve given myself credit for how many things I’ve made happen. If we focus, what can we do?” Growing up oftentimes means giving yourself a much-deserved – but encouraging – pat on the back. There is, however, no tougher act to follow than yourself. Bob’s debut show, Miss Fortunate – a storytelling-like account of a trip to Thailand, amid ongoing mental health diﬃculties – was much-loved by audiences and critics alike in 2024. “I didn’t know how creating an hour would feel on multiple levels, not that I had never performed for a prolonged

11 Features Photo: Corinne Cumming

“How are you meant to be a good adult when you never really got to be a kid?”

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Photo: Corinne Cumming

period of time or anything, or not even like I hadn’t done an hour of material before, but more so how it would feel to craft something very intentionally and share it and go on tour with it and see how people feel about it in diﬀerent places,” they say. While taking stock of the enormity of that experience, both artistically and emotionally, Bob has spent the last couple of years learning to take care of themselves. Creating work which feels right to them is crucial in this; Bob had expected their sophomore show to be themed around love but it wasn’t to be – not yet, anyways. 12

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“I just don’t actually feel ready to talk about that in a way, and also I think this [Love Child] was just like screaming at me.” Treading that line between public and private isn’t all that easy but it’s a balancing act that Bob is learning fast. “I want to invite people to be kinder and more accepting of themselves, so that’s going to take some radical honesty on my part,” she says. Opening up is tough, especially when navigating topics of weight. But Bob holds a certain trust for her audience, many of whom are attempting to ﬁnd their way through similar pressures.

Photo: Corinne Cumming

Features

“We’re all together [...] we’re all like existing together, we’re all doing our best for the most part.” On stage, off stage – it’s a collaboration. And, for Bob, such collaboration takes more forms than one. Back in 2018, Bob founded FOC IT UP! (“it’s hard to call it a business, because it’s not like super profitable”): a comedy club for femmes of colour. Comedy isn’t known for its guaranteed cultural sensitivity and Bob saw an issue in this, for both audiences of colour and comedians of colour. “How do I curate a space where other women and queer people of colour can experience an audience that’s open and has goodwill? Also, how can I create an environment for audiences that feels a bit safer?” In April of this year, FOC IT UP! held its first FOC Fest: a day-long event for femmes of colour, consisting of workshops and panels, with a stand-up show in the evening to round things off. Going from strength to strength, this year’s Fringe will see FOC IT UP! bring two shows as part of Francesca Moody Productions’ Shedinburgh, hoping to reach new audiences and further establish the club. Bob is keen that audiences grow to trust FOC IT UP!: while the line-up may not be the big names you immediately recognise, you know you’re in for a good time. In Love Child and beyond, Bob is showing up: for herself, for her friends and family, and for work – like FOC IT UP! – that she truly cares about. “So I’m just kind of like combing through all that [...] and trying to make it really fucking funny.” And that’s a very grown-up

SHOW VENUE: TIME:

Kemah Bob: Love Child Pleasance Courtyard until 30 Aug (not 12, 19, 26), 6.50pm FOC IT UP! with Kemah Bob Shedinburgh 13 & 21 Aug, 10pm

Comedians in Conflict

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65 years after Peter Cook quipped about “those wonderful Berlin cabarets which did so much to stop the rise of Hitler”, how do comedians react to war? Words: Jay Richardson

“It feels like everything I say becomes geopolitical”

That changed when she moved to Germany in 2021. As an immigrant, she faced racism for the ﬁrst time and was agitated by Western contentment. Unable to forget the “pain and suﬀering” she’d left behind, comedy became an outlet to “scream my anger”. Photo: Oliver Look

n February 28th, Sepideh Kaav was in a Berlin taxi, on her way to a gig, when news broke of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death in a US-Israeli airstrike. The Iranian stand-up wrote a swift response before taking the stage. “And that was deﬁnitely an interesting experience,” she recalls. “Delivering the news and then immediately delivering a joke. Up until we’ve cracked the ﬁrst joke, such shocking things feel unreal.”

Sepideh Kaav

As discussed in her Fringe debut, 1979: Persianality Disorder, Kaav grew up in Tehran’s post-revolution Islamic theocracy, “where being a woman you don’t have certain freedoms” and she was arrested by the morality police for her student dress. Yet she’d already been turned on to stand-up by US counterculture icon George Carlin. “It really resonated with me," she recalls. “I would pretend I was doing it in the shower but I never thought I could actually do it.”

Sepideh Kaav

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Photo: German Bez Obrazie

However, when the American offensive began, “it changed the way audiences receive my jokes.” “I want to show that Iranian women are women. So I try to be relatable. But it feels like everything I say becomes geopolitical. For many people in Europe, Iran was an afterthought. But now it’s so real, everything has become a little more direct.” She’s anxious to not be seen as “leveraging” the conflict for personal gain. But when she couldn’t reach her mother after a round of bombing, “I was upset, I needed to address that on stage”. She won’t claim to represent Iran, “that’s very dangerous territory” because there are “so many different opinions, both in Iran and the diaspora”. But she believes she’s found sufficient balance, “the right path. Because I get hit from all sides”. Sasha Nezlobin’s debut is also the realisation of a “dream” born from a nightmare. In Russia, the émigré comic “was always trying to be the first. I made the first stand-up concert broadcast on television, the first stand-up TV show, the first sitcom based on my own life”. Yet when Russia invaded Ukraine, he protested on Instagram and was among a group of comics that signed an open letter to President Putin. Then, when freedom of speech laws were tightened, he fled to the US with his family. Airport security asked: “Are you leaving forever?” He replied: “I don’t know.” Only gradually has he recovered the freedom to more-or-less fully speak his mind. “I remember thinking, ‘can I say this about President Trump?’ I still had the fear from Russia. 16

Comedy

Sasha Nezlobin

And it took me three years to say something in public about Trump because I was scared.” His show, I’m Fine, reﬂects his belief that audiences have war fatigue. Like Kaav, he’s become more politicised than his comedy instincts might otherwise have gone. He yearns for returning to the more observational comic he was in Moscow, “when your struggles are just with your wife, your family and money.” Sami Abu Wardeh can relate, at least about the ﬁnancial struggle. The Irish-Palestinian comic was critically lauded for last year’s historical storytelling show Peace de Resistance, addressing colonialism with clowning and hand puppetry. But he needs his purer standup follow up, Sami Abu Wardeh Hates You, to be more commercial. The stumbling block is that he can’t ignore the Gaza genocide while performing in a country that plays an active role in that genocide through military support for Israel. Twice in the last two years he’s found himself committing the “cardinal sin” of turning on

Features

Photo: Dylan Woodley

However, after seeing clown comic Paul Currie's show pulled from London’s Soho Theatre after an audience member objected to his waving of a Palestinian flag, Abu Wardeh has become more pragmatic, more understanding “if an early to mid-career comedian doesn’t want to risk their only source of income”. Besides, he feels momentum shifting. “People seem more accepting of jokes about Netanyahu now”. And he’s strategic. “I tell stories of me telling the joke so there’s a layer of abstraction, presenting it a certain way so it’s easier for audiences to absorb, relax and laugh at.” “Last year, I had all this botSami Abu Wardeh tled up frustration. Emotionally, I’m approaching this one differhis audience. “Because our consensus reality ently. I am who I am, a member of the Palestinihas disintegrated, there’s no foundation to an diaspora, born abroad, mixed heritage with build jokes because there’s nothing we all a bit of a knack for comedy. I just want to be agree we can laugh atat," he laments. doing comedy.” “I had a few jokes, specifically at the expense of Benjamin Netanyahu, an internationally wanted war criminal. So it’s like making a SHOW 1979: Persianality Disorder joke at Hitler’s expense. But there were people VENUE: Laughing Horse @ Coco Boho shifting in their seats saying ‘oh, I didn’t like TIME: until 30 Aug (not 24), 5.15pm that’.” He was aggrieved early in the conflict when SHOW Sasha Nezlobin: I’m Fine a friend told him he didn’t need to talk about VENUE: Pleasance Dome Palestine. And he had bitterness towards TIME: until 30 Aug (not 17, 18), 9.30pm the comedy industry, fuming that “I wouldn’t have to if enough non-Palestinians spoke up SHOW Sami Abu Wardeh Hates You onstage and off. I wouldn’t necessarily feel the VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard need to keep reminding people”. TIME: until 30 Aug (not 17), 10pm

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On the Cards The illustrator behind tarot’s most common card deck has been lost to history. Jill Dawson’s hybrid work of biography and ﬁction rights that wrong Words: Anahit Behrooz

or those with even a passing familiarity with tarot, the Rider–Waite deck will probably be what first comes to mind. Named for its original publisher William Rider & Son and the accompanying guidebook written by poet and scholarly mystic Arthur Edward Waite, it is a work of striking visual originality, dense with medievalesque and pagan symbolism and the first major tarot deck to feature full illustrations across all of its cards. Yet the contribution of its illustrator Pamela Colman Smith has been largely erased, not only from the deck’s name but from the art historical and literary milieu in which Smith moved at the turn of the 20th Century. It was this gap in the historical record that first drew author Jill Dawson to retell Smith’s story in her semi-biographical novel Pixie, which takes its title from Smith’s long-running nickname. “I began with a feeling of wanting to right this wrong, and the great injustice of how she was treated,” Dawson says. Throughout her life, Smith struggled with poverty and obscurity: she was paid, in her own words, “very little money” for the 78 illustrations she created for the deck, and has been largely ignored in favour of the artistic men who moved in

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her circle, among them W.B. Yeats. Yet in researching Smith’s life through her letters and archives, Dawson was struck by her singular agency in negotiating an often hostile world that sought to put her in a box. “She seemed to inhabit it and take it into her own terms,” Dawson says. “Very modern, sort of like Madonna, or someone who reinvents herself constantly and keeps ahead of the crowd.” Pixie reclaims Smith’s story, ﬂooding the silences of her narrative with Smith’s distinctive and modern voice – ﬁlled with childlike curses, capitalisations and exclamations that lend the prose an almost Modernist style – and her coming-of-age journey towards creative emancipation. In this way, Pixie is somewhat of a Künstlerroman, interested primarily in the artistic development of its protagonist and how other aspects of her identity – her queerness, her racialisation, her poverty – intersect with this. “Self-actualisation is a theme I’ve been repeating in my entire writing life,” Dawson says. “How does a woman come to be herself? What does a woman need in this world to feel fully individuated? How can she survive the various constraints on her?”

19 Features

“I began with a feeling of wanting to right this wrong, and the great injustice of how she was treated” Dawson has been working with tarot for over 40 years, and is now herself a qualified Jungian tarot practitioner. While Pixie is her first book to explicitly feature tarot so prominently, it has long been a part of her creative life. She often uses tarot to help her write, doing readings for characters and allowing the cards to shape the story. In Pixie, she found that the card she pulled most frequently for Smith was the Justice card, reminding her of the importance of being open to other narratives. “I would not, using my rational mind, have picked that card for her,” Dawson laughs. “No way, I’d have gone [for] The Fool, or all sorts of other things.” Instead, in using tarot, Dawson lets other interpretations of her character bleed into her own preconceptions, allowing her to inhabit Smith’s world more fully – both the agency Smith exhibited and the chance and randomness that defined her life, as it does every life. It is a relationship to creativity that Dawson is drawn to, and that Smith herself exemplified: the possibility of simultaneous resolve and letting go. “I feel if you’re going to use tarot, you must have some respect for tarot,” Dawson says. “The idea is that you use elements of play and chance. You can’t impose your will too harshly.”

SHOW VENUE: TIME:

Jill Dawson: Pixie Edinburgh International Book Festival Spiegeltent 16 Aug, 12.15pm

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Top Picks: Book Festival

Authors reﬂect on obsession, inheritance, tradition and even karaoke at this year’s EIBF

Colm Tóibín: The News from Dublin Venue T, 28 Aug, 15:15

One of Ireland’s most proliﬁc writers, behind the likes of Brooklyn and A Long Winter, speaks to Chris Power about The News from Dublin, his new collection of short stories.

Polly Barton, literary translator(Butter) and author of What Am I, a Deer?, discusses obsession, authenticity and the joy of karaoke with fellow writer Aea Varﬁs-van Warmelo (Attention Seeking Behaviour).

The Front List: Colson Whitehead McEwan Hall, 21 Aug, 13:00

Colm Tóibín

Nonomiya/Song of Rona Island

Kae Tempest Photo: Michael Lionstar

Photo: Shinchosha

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad speaks with Samira Ahmed about his new novel Cool Machine, which is set in 1980s New York and concludes his Harlem trilogy.

Multi-hyphenate Kae Tempest adds novelist to his ever-growing job description, alongside playwright, songwriter and poet. He joins Edinburgh Makar Michael Pedersen to discuss his ﬁction debut Having Spent Life Seeking. Photo: Clara Nebeling

Venue B, 20 Aug, 15:45

McEwan Hall, 18 Aug, 13:00

Photo: Emanuele Spina

Polly Barton & Aea Varﬁs-van Warmelo: Lies, Crushes, and Karaoke

The Front List: Kae Tempest

Greyfriars Kirk, 24 Aug, 19:00

Venue NW, 30 Aug, 18:45

Best known for her darkly compelling 1997 thriller Out, Kirino, a titan of Japanese ﬁction, speaks to Kirsty Logan about Swallows, her new book about a woman carrying the child of a couple desperate to pass on their ‘elite’ genes. 20

Books

Natsuo Kirino

Colson Whitehead Photo: Ken Yoshikoshi

Natsuo Kirino: Swallows

Polly Barton Photo: Wakaba Noda

The renowned Noh Reimagined theatre company brings a centuries-old form of Japanese theatre, Noh, to Scottish audiences via a twopart performance which blends the art form with traditional Scottish music.

Nonomiya

Sgàire Wood, artist and this year's Jupiter Rising curator, on bringing her "ideal night out" to Jupiter Artland for one evening only Words: Rachel Ashenden

gàire Wood joins our Zoom call from her cluttered studio, armed with a tube of glue and a pink vape. I’m half surprised to see Wood with a fresh face, as I’ve just watched her ‘Extreme Beauty Routine’ on Vogue’s YouTube channel, where she transforms herself into a doll, complete with larger-than-life, sparkling eyes. But we’re not here to discuss how she has mastered the art of hyperreal makeup. Instead, the Glasgow-based artist and performer works meditatively on a sculpture as she talks me through her plans for Jupiter Rising X EAF26, a one-night festival that she has curated at Jupiter Artland. Jupiter Rising has become a highly-anticipated event in Edinburgh Art Festival’s calendar, bringing together late-night DJ sets and pop-up art performances in the whimsical sculpture park. Wood has been involved with Jupiter Rising for several iterations, delivering her signature Sgàireoke, which combines queer performance art and, of course, a healthy dose of cathartic audience interaction. But this year, Wood’s curatorial involvement is paired with her solo exhibition at Jupiter Artland, titled In Pride, In Piety, In Vigilance. Held in the Steadings Gallery, In Pride, In Piety, In Vigilance is rooted in Wood’s fascination with heraldry (the study of coats of arms) and

vexillology (the study of ﬂags). Growing up in Northern Ireland, the “weaponisation of heraldry, and of colours and symbols, […] was part and parcel” of everyday life. Bewitched by the theatrical pageantry of the Orange Order as a child, Wood’s art addresses the dissonance she experiences at the sight and sound of sectarian celebration, when she wholeheartedly disagrees with the cause. Wood relates this to the “rise of fascism in the UK and internationally” and the reappearance of ﬂags as “ostensibly harmless symbols of national pride.” Although recently the World Cup has blurred the lines, St George’s Cross has been appropriated by far-right and anti-immigration groups; highlighting the irony that St George was born in historic Palestine to a Palestinian mother, Wood probes the aestheticisation of violence through such symbols. Despite her depth of feeling and the weight of the issues she is exploring, Wood is conscious to avoid didacticism. “What disguises do violence, hatred, fascism and exclusion wear? What does that mean, as we try to navigate the rise of fucking fascism, and the far right? I’m careful not to have an answer or a lesson to teach everyone else.” The exhibition marks an artistic departure for Wood, whose practice consisted almost entirely of performance, costume and

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Rising Tide

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23 Features Photo: Charlotte Cullen Sgàire Wood

make-up until just a few years ago. “I’ve been having fun experimenting with what it’s like to create objects that exist once I leave the room, and they don’t need my body to activate them.” Towering, ﬂamboyant bird sculptures are the “mascots” of the show, analogous to the wider themes of the exhibition: “how we take colours, symbols, imagery from nature […] and imbue them with intense meaning and virtue.” The sculptures are conceptually anchored in heraldic animals and inspired by the fantasy of Jupiter Artland, which reminds Wood of The Prisoner, a 1960s sci-ﬁ series where people are trapped in a seemingly idyllic place.

Although Jupiter Rising will be just as ﬂamboyant as Wood’s sculpture, the artist-turned-curator is not hardwired to the exhibition’s themes. Instead, her “approach to curating has mostly been about bringing people from my creative world and my creative community – mostly in Glasgow – to this festival”. The line-up of performance, DJs and clubstyle music features several Glasgow-based visual artists performing under their musical aliases. The enrapturing Shola von Reinhold (author of LOTE) as Princess Mangione III sings and plays on the harp in the Glasshouse. Late-night stages in the woodlands see

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Photo: Charlotte Cullen

“I’m kind of letting everyone do whatever they want” Junglehussi (photographer and DJ Matthew Arthur Williams) deliver a genre-spanning electronic set, while Poisonous Relationship (artist Jamie Crewe) deliver their “tender and demonic” dance ﬂoor experience. Artists Holly O’Brien, Aniela Piasecka and Kirstin Halliday tuck into the recurrent theme of anthropomorphised animals, oﬀering durational and physical performances that emphasise the zoo-like nature of Jupiter Artland. “I’m kind of letting everyone do whatever they want, but Kirsten and Aniela are planning a snake-themed striptease performance.” Meanwhile, O’Brien, clad in aquamarine latex, will perform again as a beguiling mythical mermaid, fresh from her solo exhibition Porthole at Horsepower, an up-and-coming independent gallery in Glasgow’s East End. This is Wood’s “ideal, vaguely arty, night out in a Glasgow club, transposed onto Jupiter”. Naturally, Sgàireoke is making a return, a persona-driven performance rooted in Wood’s art school days, when she performed in drag behind the DJ booth, bantering with the crowd. Described by Wood as “a bit of a chaotic mess”, Sgàireoke is a chance for the audience to “exercise some demons” through collective singing. “Yous are going to be the ones that are performing for me and for my approval”, jests Wood. She concludes: “I think people always rise to that challenge, especially at Jupiter”.

SHOW VENUE: TIME:

JUPITER RISING X EAF26 Jupiter Artland 22 Aug, 5pm Art

Sgàire Wood

25 Features

Top Picks: Art Festival

Activism, archive and collective presence feature throughout the best of EAF this year Glasgow Leatherdykes: From History to Today Bootblacking Workshop Custom Lane, 21 Aug, 12:00

An event exploring the history of leathercare and bootblacking in queer and kink subcultures from Glasgow Leatherdykes, a trans-led group promoting education and socialising around leather culture.

Sound performance Zifzafa from Lawrence Abu Hamdan centres on Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, where a planned wind turbine project will contribute overwhelming sound pollution.

Sadao Hasegawa: Carnal Desires

Opening with a durational violin performance from Magnus Westwell and Océane Robin, EAF’s launch event includes a performance from rapper and poet Mykki Blanco and DJ sets from AMR and Sweet Philly.

Glasgow Leatherdykes

Photo: Josie Rae Turnbull

Leith Theatre, 29 Aug, 19:00

The Biscuit Factory, 14 Aug, 20:00

Image: courtesy of Glasgow Leatherdykes

Lawrence Abu Hamdan: Zifzafa

Magnus Westwell: Caught Hold of Nothing + Launch Party

Magnus Westwell

Custom Lane, 14-30 Aug, 10:00-17:00 Image: courtesy Gallery Naruyama

Trans Masc Studies: History is a Home

Photo: Wakaba Noda

A rare exhibition of works by Sadao Hasegawa, a post-war Japanese gay fetish artist known for his blend of pan-Asian folklore, hypermasculine forms, and science ﬁction.

Custom Lane, 14-30 Aug, 10:00-17:00

Craigmillar Now, 21 Aug, 18:00

Level Up brings together the archive of Black social-documentarian, youth worker and community organiser Sandra George for an evening of music, dance, and collective presence.

History is a Home

Sadao Hasegawa Image: courtesy of the artist

Level Up: Block Party

Zifzafa Image courtesy Ellis Jackson Kroese and Katherine Blamire

History is a Home invites viewers into an exhibition, reading room and research space to explore queer history, compiled by Ellis Jackson Kroese of Trans Masc Studies.

Sandra George

UTTERL PRO O ATI E ONTRO ERSIAL RI ETING IT LE T E ITH E OTIONS I D RATHER NOT EEL N

OURAGEOUS DEEPL THOUGHT PRO O ING

LA T

A TOTALL ABSORBING AND S INTILLATING SHO SL

America is NOT a racist country

r tten an performe recte

GILDED BALLOON PATTER HOUSE enn 7 an

e e 1, A am ouse ham ers treet n urgh, 11

AUGUST

PAUL OATES

THO AS OES HG

No performance August 10 t h , 17 t h , 24 t h

THE STAR OF UNCLE, CATS DOES COUNTDOWN AND NICK HELM’S HEAVY ENTERTAINMENT UNVEILS HIS NEXT MASTERPIECE I N T E R TA L E N T C O M E DY A N D L I T T L E WA N D E R G R A C I O U S LY P R E S E N T

D OW N ‘ N ’ D I R T Y W E E K E N D

‘A MUSICAL EXTRAVAGANZA… GOOFY, EARNEST AND BRILLIANT’

‘A FLAWLESS HOUR OF COMEDY FROM A TRUE MASTERMIND’

B R O A D WAY B A B Y

NEW ALBUM DOWN ‘N’ DIRTY OUT 14 AUG

EDFEST MAG

PLEASANCE FORTH

13th, 14th & 15th August

10:15pm

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Photo: Rebecca Need-Menear

Comedy Reviews Rob Preston: Amazing Global Solutions HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Pleasance Courtyard until 30 Aug (not 18), 20.20

For Rob Preston, cringe is fecund comedic material. The character comedian revels in a silence that drags on a beat too long, an obnoxiously oblivious persona, and unwavering intense eye con28

Comedy

tact. If you’ve seen Preston’s more popular social media skits, you might be expecting this signature awkwardness, but it’s outshone by more ambitious material. For his debut solo show, he engages in some brilliant comedic peacocking: whipping out a series of bolder characters and engaging with clichés of masculinity only to push them to farcical limits. We have a class-baiting young Londoner who appropriates Patois while being the nephew of middle class chintz queen Cath Kidston; a Russell Brand devotee who uses therapy speak to rationalise war

crimes; a barber who takes dance breaks which simmer with k-hole-like intensity; and an Afrikaner entrepreneur who believes that multi-conglomerate brand partnerships can lead to world peace. Most interestingly, perhaps, is Preston’s arch take on sexual politics. His personas are alternately cucked by their own emotional insecurities, or making grand plans to tackle the sex recession with heterosexist vigour. Plus, there’s no way his delivery of the line “potty mouth, tight snatch” during an emotive monologue won’t make you cackle. ✏︎ Megan Wallace

HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Monkey Barrel Comedy (Cabaret Voltaire) until 30 Aug (not 17) 8:35pm

Cornish comedian Harriet Dyer makes no secret of her storied relationship with her own mind, which we get to watch ﬁzz over for the full 60 minutes that she’s on stage for the aptly-named Easily Distra… Making a selling point of being quick to move on to the next

thing is a stroke of genius. Who’s going to complain about tangents in a show all about them? Especially when they’re this much fun. It seems wherever Dyer goes, chaos follows. Cornwall, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol – they’ve all been so full of drama that she’s starting to think she’s the problem. Each anecdote is delivered with the sort of self-exasperated matter of factness that comes from a lifetime of having to accept that the tendency to, say, write oﬀ cars or accidentally subscribe to monthly slug deliveries from the internet, is just what you’re like. “You’ve heard what made it in to the show, imagine the

stuﬀ that didn’t!” Dyer quips in acknowledgment of the madness, but it's astonishing to imagine she has even more stories to tell. The average comedian, leaving the typical pauses between gags and extrapolating every drop from a sentence, could frankly stretch out the amount of material on display into three Fringe shows, not one. But Dyer is no average comedian. Coming from her, who cares about the machine-tooled approach? Delivered with her sixth sense for the perfect sounds and faces to top it all oﬀ, it’s a joy to be injected with such a concentrated dose of comedy. ✏︎ Louis Cammell

Review

Harriet Dyer: Easily Distra...

Photo: Matt Stronge

14 COMEDIES 12 TRAGEDIES 10 HISTORIES 1 BIG

PUCKING MESS

HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Assembly George Square until 30 Aug (not 17) 8.45pm

Susie McCabe offers a solid hour of observational comedy: after a difficult year, she has negotiated the collapse of her marriage, the death and funeral of her father and the unexpected arrival of a nephew in her new home. With her distinctive and very Glaswegian humour, McCabe dissects the ironies of becoming like a parent, the dark humour of death and family and hints at a political rage coming from a sympathy for the pressures of the wider political collapse. Although her humour is easy to label – working class, West Coast, lesbian and resistant to middle-class easy answers, her strength is in her presence and personality. Stories about internet dating, the challenge of having a public profile and bonding with a nephew are given a personal and personable flavour, despite their predictability. Reaching out into more forceful subjects – her father’s funeral, or a brief commentary on the politics of being caught between the boom-

ers and the millennials and Generation Z, are bracing and funnier – not least because of their darker wit. Ultimately, McCabe is winning and lively, landing the

lighter observational routines and digging deeper into the tougher material: Coming of Rage promises anger but delivers comfortable laughter.✏︎ Gareth K Vile

Review

Photo: Andy Hollingworth Archive

Susie McCabe: Coming of Rage

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Photo: Lucy Ridges

Hannah Platt: Cult Classic HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Pleasance Courtyard until 30 Aug, 7.15pm

Merseyside-born comedian Hannah Platt cuts into the male-dominated fields of comedy and cults with her signature coy smile. Riffing with the audience as her prospective followers, she sets herself the challenge of convincing us that she is charismatic enough to initiate and lead a cult. She cites the diminutive Charles Manson whose charms far outsized his 5’2” stature. If he can do it, so can she. Platt loosely but compellingly brings together disparate personal experiences, from her distant relationship with her mother to her queer awakening, induced by a series of icky encounters with men. We are told that – while serving her youth as an isolated goth in a small Northern town – Platt dabbled with Scientology via the dial-up internet in her childhood home. This is where Platt could go beyond the surface; she could excavate why she was vulnerable to the allure of Scientology and what impact it had on her while her prefrontal lobe was still Despite this, Platt demonin development. Without that strates fierce quick wit that depth, the show’s narrative charms the audience for an arc wanes somewhat. enjoyable hour. Thank god she 32

Comedy

shows greater promise as a rising voice on the comedy circuit than in cult leadership. ✏︎ Rachel Ashenden

Deﬁnitely not. Because while the Mexican-American clown has perfected her wide-eyed and frenetic persona, this is HHHHH a shrewdly crafted hour of VENUE: Monkey Barrel Comedy stand-up. TIME: until 30 Aug (not 17), A structure of three acts, 5.40pm three microphones and those three maxims never fully coBest Newcomer (2022) winner heres (with the exception of a Lara Ricote returns with summing-up song to the tune, her third show, billed as her naturally, of Tom’s Diner). But “smartest and stupidest yet”. that’s because Ricote doesn’t Smartest? Maybe – it’s built want it to, leaving much of its around an exploration of connective tissue in the aether. three Delphic maxims (‘know Through stories about open thyself’, ‘nothing in excess’ and relationships, being hard-of‘surety then ruin’). Stupidest? hearing and a fraught encoun-

ter with a museum guard, her goal is to evoke the rapture of being alive, if you’re open to it. It’s a grand goal, and one she hits sometimes. But the truest joys of a Ricote show are the moments of untethered glee in, say, a garbled rendition of My Anaconda, or a gloriously overdone impression of two canoes crashing. Some repeated gags (like periodically dribbling water down her front) wear thin. But in this whirlwind of a show, if any element grates, it’s only a moment or two before you’re pulled back in. ✏︎ Samuel Cain

Review

Image: courtesy of Avalon

Lara Ricote: INKLING

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Photo: Matt Stronge

Dee Allum: Raumdeuter HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Pleasance Courtyard until 30 Aug (not 18), 4.10pm

For anyone currently avoiding football after that busy summer, be warned, this show features strong soccer content. Although not as prominently as the ball-kicking poster might suggest. Our tactically-astute host arguably uses the game as a Trojan horse here, to attract a more varied audience than might normally choose a show about being trans (and The Odyssey also gets a fun mention, sword and sandal fans). The title is a word coined by former German international Thomas Müller to describe his uniquely in-between position on the pitch. The Müller Corner? Actually it loosely translates as ‘Space Invader’, with obvious parallels. A candid section about Allum’s voice – staying silent in ladies’ toilets, spooking predatory men – emphatically oﬀsets any scaremongering from elsewhere. Raumdeuter is admirably honest, but upbeat, and perhaps the perfect hour to win over trans-sceptical parents/ partners. Impressively assured throughout, Allum oﬀers a 34

Comedy

pleasingly non-binary perspective to trickier questions; trans athletes, for example, rather than proselytising. But then she also puts the boot in, where necessary, notably to one contentious novelist.

Most importantly, it’s consistently funny, and Dee is a joy to spend time with. While some set-pieces could feel forced, they work, and it’s all tied up with a solid World Cup analogy. Well played. ✏︎ Si Hawkins

Fringe debut. Perhaps there’s an element VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard of bias; as someone born in TIME: until 30 Aug, 8.10pm the same year as Hitchcock who also grew up in the sort of suburbia where a single amenity was less common Ever heard of Cambourne? than the site of children The small town just outside of rollerblading or bicycles on Cambridge isn’t exactly a dead tops of cars, I can relate. ringer for Edinburgh, having Nevertheless, I defy anyone to been erected wholesale at the resist Hitchcock’s immediate turn of the millennium, but the charm – and impressive vocal two places do have one thing talents – regardless of their in common if Cecily Hitchcock own upbringing. is to be believed: beneath the Family Recipe is ostensibly surface, they’re both stacked an ode to her culinary inher-

HHHHH

bananas wrapped in ham, the latter the inspiration for possibly the best reproduction of 1940s ﬁlm dialogue you’ll see all Fringe. However, it’s so much more than that. It’s also the tale of trying to ﬁt into British monoculture when you’re the kind of teen who thinks about the bodies underneath your hamlet; whose love of Austin Powers threatens to come out at all times, even when you’re tying to pretend you’re not gay in the nearest All Bar One. ✏︎ Louis Cammell

Review

Photo: Rebecca Need-Menear

with medieval corpses. Not itance, meals that everybody Cecily what the show is about, but else stopped cooking in the an insight into the mind of our 70s but, for whatever reason, Hitchcock: whose hometown her parents held on to: sauFamily Recipe performer, is the backdrop to a brilliant sage cabin; mackerel in aspic;

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Photo: Rebecca Need-Menear

were a Chris Cantrill Chris Cantrill: line,If this there’d be a catch. It’d Rewilding turn meanly on a sixpence

(who could it be?) commits a gross crime. Abrupt cuts to recorded content which develop for maximum laughs. Indeed, the narrative are handled melHHHHH there’s barely a sentence here odramatically rather than as VENUE: Monkey Barrel Comedy that hasn’t been worked over leaden attempts at real drama. (The Tron) and wrung dry. But it isn’t, and It’s a confident handling TIME: 12.10pm the form easily follows the that leaves loads of space pedigree in this thoroughbred for Cantrill’s wonky turns of show. phrase (“I took pause”), daft This is how it must feel to be a There’s a story here, about imagery (who else is talking Crufts judge, flicking through community, culture and, about panna cotta?) and a top pedigree certificates. It’s all implicitly, about the gross laugh rate. here: three-times Edinburgh pettiness of the culture wars, It’s the end that catches: award nominee; writer on that’s worn lightly enough that you need fireworks to cut SNL UK; Delightful Sausage it doesn’t become a straightto black and end it, and this member; Harry Hill’s ClubNite jacket. Cantrill and his family climax reaches too hard for alumnus. The parentage is have moved to a rural village something that isn’t there. good, too: Tom Parry of Pappy’s in Northumberland, where he’s Just for a moment, it feels like directs this very silly shaggy able to balance his insider/ Cantrill takes himself a bit too dog story. outsider status until someone seriously. ✏︎ Evan Beswick 36

Comedy

Take the tram to Ingliston Park and Ride for the Summer Sessions, with extra tram services before and after shows

Contactless terms and conditions apply.

You must Tap Off to pay the cheapest adult single City Zone fare, otherwise an Airport Zone fare will be charged.

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The Drum’n’Bass Aerobics Experience

KG S T H E AT R E CO M PA N Y

She/They

This amateur producton is presented by arrangement with musical theatre international. All authorised performance materials are supplied by MTI www.mtishows.co.uk

Aug 13, 14, 15, 22, 23 10:30 Aug 7-23 12:30 Aug 26,29 16:15

SPRING AWAKENING

The Gas Station at the Edge of the Universe 14:45 13:15 Aug Shakespeare Dice: 12-29 As You Like It 16:15

B A SED ON TH E PL AY B Y FR ANK WEDEKIND

MUSIC BY DUNCAN SHEIK BOOK & LYRICS BY STEVEN SATER

13:35

The 40 Year Old Ballerino

Sister Sophia Kicks the Habit Aug 7-21 16:15

Aug 7-23 17:45

Define Queerness Luscinia

19:45

A.I. Aug 14-29 Campfire 21:15 19:45 [Return] 21:50

www.VENUE13.com www. www.VENUE13 VENUE13.com VENUE13 @venue13fringe

BRISTO SQUARE underbellyedinburgh.co.uk 0131 510 0395

9.20pm

05 - 30 AUG

Tartuffe

Theatre Reviews

Stanislavski Can't Save Me From The Apocalypse HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Greenside @ George Street until 22 Aug (not 16), 3.05pm

Although the reference to the theatre practitioner Stanislavski in the title is more a broad joke than a serious engagement with the use

of method acting at the end of the world, Living Room Productions manage to take an unpromising premise – the apocalypse’s impact on the leaders of a theatre camp for children – and work through a sometimes laborious farce with moments of raw humour and poignancy. Via reverse timeline, the action begins at the end, as the leaders are forced to make dark decisions to survive, before heading back to an ironic moment of optimism. The characterisation is broad but nuanced enough to claim sympathy even for the irritating gang of ambitious camp

shown through gut-wrenching vignettes throughout. These snippets are broken up by musical interludes with choreographed, repetitive body movements, allowing you further into these atrocities. At times, the dialogue leans towards cliché, but this doesn’t detract from an incredible performance from the entire cast. Lauren Beeton and Sally Clune give are particularly transﬁxing performances that delve into sheer fear, hopelessness and the intoxication of power. S-27 is a full submersion into a disturbing reality that leans a little too closely into our own. ✏︎ Edwina Sleigh

leaders: the irony of learning acting skills in a world where hunting ability trumps proﬁciency in stage combat isn’t lost, and the playing out of relationships backwards lends them a more subtle charm. The juxtaposition of comedy and global destruction doesn’t quite meet the potential for darker comedy, but the theatricality of the characters, and nods to performance genres, will surely speak to Fringe audiences who are familiar with backstage antics and theatre’s foibles. Fast-paced and witty, it’s a rough but playful take on the destruction of civilisation. ✏︎ Gareth K Vile

Review

a dark rectangular room. May (Gabriella Munro), a young HHHH photographer, is charged with taking photos of dissenters, rebelling against the organVENUE: Holden Street Theatres isation, as they are directed TIME: times vary, various towards a door, and their dates between 11 Feb impending doom. and 15 Mar What ensues is a tour-deTICKETS: $20 – $28 force about the adaptability of human beings within an Inspired by the horriﬁc atrociauthoritarian dictatorship and ties committed in Cambodia’s the consequences of those S-21 prison, Feet First Collecadaptations. It’s a play that tive’s S-27 by Sarah Grochala has asks: just how far would you you in the brutal depths of a go to save yourself? Would you tyrannical regime before you’ve abandon a baby, kill your sister, found a seat in the theatre. sell your body? Guards aggressively ‘proThe answers to these quescess’ each audience member tions, and the complexities of before herding everyone into the sacriﬁces being made, are

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SpinCycle HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Underbelly Bristo Square until 31 Aug (not 17), 2.25pm

Charlie Kaufman has a lot to answer for. Namely, that the impact of his cult ﬁlm Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind allowed for amnestic brainwashing to become the new “and it was all a dream…”. Such is the case for Spin Cycle: which bills itself as a mix between the 2004 ﬁlm and

The L Word. But it really should have leaned into the latter not the former, not least because the show is strongest when it homes in on the sticky, opaque nature of sorting through the rights and wrongs of a disintegrating (sapphic) relationship. There’s plenty of meat to chew over in the show: class solidarity in the queer community, co-dependency at large, and how heteronormativity might creep into masc/femme dynamics. However, just at the moment that we reach a crescendo, any sense of catharsis is ripped away from the

audience by the Get Out Of Writing An End Free card of its protagonists suddenly, inexplicably forgetting one another. As a viewer, this is frustrating: not least because there is never any contextualisation of why this might be the case, (perhaps a misguided attempt at “show, don’t tell”). One thing about Spin Cycle that doesn’t tax your suspension of disbelief? The chemistry between the leads, which will have you fanning yourself with the stack of ﬂyers you’ll have accumulated while dodging through Bristo Square. ✏︎ Megan Wallace Photo: Bethan Rose

Theatre

show, with a demanding schedule no doubt leaving him unable to commit to a return to Edinburgh. HHHHH Enter Ed Easton from the VENUE: Pleasance Courtyard oc/cult sketch group Tarot, TIME: until 30 Aug, 4.50pm who takes over the role of ‘the man’ in a musical all about the life of a musical theatre titan What do you do when the (or, the musical theatre titan breakout star of your musical as he would probably prefer, gets snapped up by SNL UK judging by his attempts to not two years after it opened, monopolise the arts by buying leaving his idiosyncratic up the theatres): Andrew Lloyd performance to be ﬁlled? Such Webber. Further details of his was no doubt the question life as reported by the script on musical comedy duo Flo &; will remain a secret lest Lloyd Joan’s lips when George Foura- Webber’s notorious legal team cres signed on to the British catch wind, but suﬃce to say version of the hit US sketch these two indie musical writ-

ers do not pull their punches. While the play itself is excellent and the songs a spot-on mix of Lloyd Webber-esque melodies and biting lyrics, a huge component of its success during its original 2024 run was lead Fouracres, whose performance was not standard Broadway fare. More important than perfect vocals were comic timing, improv ability, and the ability to cut a speciﬁc ﬁgure that invites pity and ridicule in equal measure. No surprise to those who’ve ever seen Tarot, Easton has them in spades. Jesus Christ, what a superstar. ✏︎ Louis Cammell

Review

One Man Musical

Image: courtesy of Avalon

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Blackbox HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Underbelly Cowgate until 30 August (not 17), 12.40pm

In the centre of the stage is a box: 3 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 2.5 feet deep. It’s just a regular box, we’re told. But this is a magic show: and we know whatever happens in that box will be anything but ordinary. Henry ‘Box’ Brown, who famously escaped enslavement by mailing himself to freedom, is our magician and our storyteller. For those already familiar with Brown’s life, the significance of the box is writ large. Created by Rickerby Hinds, Blackbox sidesteps the usual

trademarks of hip-hop theatre the playwright is known for; there’s no rap or beatboxing here, but fervent, direct address to the audience through spoken word remains. Drawing directly from Brown’s memoir, the play’s 19th Century syntax is ﬂuidly delivered by actors Josiah Alpher and Jada Evelyn Ramsey. The latter is impressively chameleonic, voicing various ﬁgures in Brown’s life: his mother, cruel overseers, his wife. The language is moving: hope for freedom is “a melting power dissolving [the enslaved’s] chains”. Yet the play’s structure craves similar elegance. Save a few well-crafted moments – such as a predictable but rewarding ending – the two elements of magic and theatre don’t

integrate as powerfully as you’d wish. Weighed down by a largely chronological narrative in telling Brown’s story, the thrilling climax of the play – where the actors vividly render his miraculous, near-death journey in the box to freedom – is rushed. It’s a missed opportunity to linger with the signiﬁcance of the box: the real life magic of Brown’s escape from, and through, captivity. While one wishes this was braided more deeply into each moment of the play, Blackbox’s premise is nevertheless compelling: that the awed question, how did they do it? applies not just to magic, but to the resilience and creativity of generations of Black people ﬁnding ways to break their chains. ✏︎ Xuanlin Tham Photo: Jason Sullivan

Theatre

ALL LISTINGS

AMELIA HAMILTON BURGER AND A PINT GUY WILLIAMS

ANNA LEONG BROPHY DEREK MITCHELL KIRSTY MANN

EMMA HOLLAND MARK WATSON

RAY O’LEARY

ROSIE HOLT

RUBY WAX

SCOUT BOXALL TOM CASHMAN

SHAPARAK KHORSANDI TOM SAINSBURY

SIBLINGS

BRON LEWIS

VIGGO VENN

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J C O NE IUS

A ME RICAN AP O LO G Y TO UR 17:20 - 18:20 6 - 17 AU GU ST OU T TH E BOX JU ST TH E TONI C @ TH E CAV ES

T hank y ou f or y our at t e nt i on t o t hi s mat t e r. - A JC

“STANDOUT FRINGE SHOW” — MARK ASPEN REVIEWS

Experience live performance, your way. #MixItUp

S LL MI

60 MARMYINSS IN 60

7—30 AUG BloodyMarysPlay.co.uk 46

Book tickets on edfringe.com or the EdFringe app

school shooting, two of the victims try to process their trauma, caught between the potential of their futures and a political climate that seems HHHHH intent on crushing them. Since their school shootVENUE: Pleasance Courtyard ing had no casualties and TIME: until 30 Aug (not Wednesdays), happened on the same day 12.45pm as one far more brutal, the two students are adrift. Their Although tucked away in the own anxieties are enhanced Baby Grand, The Second Best by fears of climatic chaos and School Shooting is a reminder the pressures of social media. that a terse script and two When the clout from TikTok actors, with minimal scenogra- won’t oblige one student’s phy, can cover profound subfantasies of being important, jects with depth and sensitivity. they are pushed to a more melIn the aftermath of an abortive odramatic appeal for help.

The nuance of the characterisation, the logic of the plot’s development and the willingness to acknowledge the terror beneath the apparently superﬁcial engagement with the world push School Shooting into dramatically powerful territory. The two argue about their dreams and beliefs, trivialise themselves in an attempt to be heard, barely able to articulate their trauma or hopes. The solution might be friendship, it claims, but this is hard-won in the face of a society that wants to signify but never acts. ✏︎ Gareth K Vile

Review

Photo: Jill Petracek

The Second Best School Shooting

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Image: courtesy of Assembly

Krapp's Last Tape HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Assembly Roxy until 31 Aug (not 17), 1.25pm

You’ve got to be careful with 60-year-old pieces of the theatrical canon – especially ones as slight as this. Old man sits at desk, finds a journal recording of his 39-year-old self, listens, records, listens again, end. Are we just academically, stuffily, living off old glories? Well, no, and this 50-minute version performed by David 48

Theatre

Westhead and directed by Stockard Channing (yes, Rizzo) is a reminder of Beckett’s unnatural ability to create theatrical moments that are as odd and alienating as they are human and relatable. In a Q&A after this afternoon’s performance, Channing described a text with minimal wiggle room except for time, and the directorial role as one of a conductor. That feels right, and the play ﬂies or falls on whether the actor can hold moments of loaded nothingness, or navigate the mostly wordless dialogue between his past and present self. Westhead clearly can, and as he lays his head on the tape recorder towards the end (having

returned to what now feels like the only moment of hope in his miserable life, recalling staring into the sun-soaked eyes of lost love) we feel the weight of that head, and those regrets, like a black hole. On a technical note, the difference between Westhead’s light and breezy, full-of-hopeand-fire recorded voice contrasts painfully with the growls from the man in front of us. His joy of eating a banana is markedly different to his bitterness at drinking. He listens with a hunger that’s very different to the bile through which he speaks. A beautiful portrayal of a man dissected across time, media and life’s potential. ✏︎ Evan Beswick

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Photo: ?

Dance, Physical Theatre & Circus Reviews House Fly

as nothing more than a filthy pest. Yet carrying on in the HHHHH grand surrealist tradition of Kafka, Dalí, and also Ratatouille VENUE: multiple venues (masterpiece) and the Bee TIME: until 13 Aug and 24 - 29 Movie (not so much), Tess Aug, various times O’Shea’s House Fly paints the life story of one fly so vividly that the last thing you want From the 16th Century art to do is swat it away. Maybe practice of musca depicta humans and bugs have more (“painted flies”), to David in common than we think: as Cronenberg’s 1986 film, to ‘POV our fly asks plaintively, without ur a fly’ TikToks, culture has humans, “who will make the long been obsessed with the croissants?” housefly. Getting intimately From sweet innocent involved with our most natural maggothood, to the hedonbehaviours – eating, drinkistic joys of shagging in a ing, shitting, and dying – the compost bin, to discovering humble fly is often constituted an existentially threatening 50

Dance, Physical Theatre & Circus

addiction to pastries and cigarettes in Paris, House Fly is an unstoppably silly, gleeful delight over its half an hourish runtime: short and sweet, just like a fly’s life. In enviably couture fly drag, O’Shea is the full clowning package from antennae to ovipositor: a near-death encounter with an electric fly zapper, and many a comedic and perfectly timed bzz, demonstrate impressive mastery of her art. A fly’s brain may be the size of a pinhead, but to be this cleverly daft is no mean feat of intelligence. House Fly feels like what the Fringe was made for – and the buzz is real.✏︎ Xuanlin Tham

HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Assembly Roxy until 30 Aug (not 17, 24), 6.15pm

Ever thought classical music just needed more peril? Tale of the Firebird, a violin concerto performed by The Freestyle Orchestra, makes dazzlingly improbable companions of aerial and floor acrobatics, fire performance, and string instruments (which are, lest it be forgotten, made of wood). Take note, artists: this is what ‘interdisciplinary practice’ looks like. From the moment the performers appear on stage, bodies sculpturally arranged on the floor like woodland creatures sprouting from the ground, the traditional picture of a string ensemble – regimented seating plan, shoes – is thrust aside. On a stage that begins to even feel too small for the grandness of Firebird’s ambition, a violinist becomes a fire-breather; a double bass an acrobatic base. A violinist is thrown across the stage and caught, the sense of danger amplified by the risk to not just her body but her presumably hand-crafted, hella expensive instrument; an aerialist plucks a harp while in a mid-air splits. While the centrepiece fire-twirling plays into an age-old instinct of ooh fire pretty, it’s less integrated with

the music; Firebird is best when there’s total overlap between the instruments and the acrobatics. Watching with bated breath, one is ﬁlled with wonderment not just at the diﬃculty of the stunts, but also at what the job interviews for this gig must have looked like. The way momentum builds across the show can at times feel oddly disjointed, especially with numbers that are “just” an aerial performance accompanied by live music – a case of The Freestyle Orchestra

merely setting themselves a very high bar to clear. The sound mixing – maybe unintentionally – also takes away from the natural resonance of the instruments, and the audible seam between what’s live and what’s perhaps pre-recorded distracts from the wow factor. Despite this, and even in the performance’s wobblier moments, there’s a soaring bravery and commitment to spectacle here that must be commended. ✏︎ Xuanlin Tham

Review

Photo: Andrej Grilc

Tale of the Firebird

Pamela Raith Photography

Cabaret Review House of Life

and, probably, the fiercest silver heels you’ve seen on a celHHHHH ebrant. He’s joined by assistant Trev, in the dowdier costume VENUE: Underbelly George Square of an extra in The Office. TIME: until 30 Aug (not 17, 24), The pair’s goals: delivering 9.45pm the funkiest basslines and sauciest sax solos of the To enter the House of Life is to Fringe, and leading the conenter a megachurch whose gregation on an 8-step course only deities – human beings to enlightenment. and the joys they can create This year, the House returns when they come together – to collect its glittery crown are very much in the room. as a Fringe sensation after Our pastor, the ‘RaveRend’ launching in 2023. Since then is bedecked in a twirly golden it’s ascended to Underbelly’s cassock (and under it, an even enormous inflatable cow theajazzier one), a bedazzled beard, tre (“leave your troubles at the 52

Cabaret

purple inﬂatable doors”) and picked up heavyweight helpers, like Jerry Springer: The Opera composer Richard Thomas, who joins as musical supervisor. A show that promises the permanent end to sadness may sound like a parody of self-help gurus and evangelical churches. But that satirical shoe never fully drops: this is a show that jubilantly co-opts those languages in service of an earnest and almost irresistible rallying cry for joy and ‘self-actualization’. Only a small minority will be able to resist. ✏︎ Samuel Cain

Photo: PaulReview Blakemore

Music Review Badgers HHHHH VENUE: TIME:

Traverse until 30 Aug (not 17, 24), various times

Stories are at the core of this many layered play by writer/ performer Malaika Kegode. She’s onstage as our storyteller, stitching together many other stories told in myriad formats; journalism, folk song, Instagram Stories. A true crime podcast emerges when

aspiring broadcaster Meles, the daughter of the principled journalist and politically engaged single mum, Dorothy Costas, stumbles on a local mystery. Dorothy is terminally ill, and this might be the chance for the professionally stuck Meles to show her mum she is capable of creating important work before its too late. She’s been treading water making naﬀ podcasts and now’s her chance to get bolder. Bridget Brock is a reclusive folk singer who may know something about the disap-

pearance of a local musician who loved making field recordings of rivers and nature on his tapes. Could Bridget’s unusual badger collection hold any clues? It’s a folk tale woven around gorgeous live music performed by musical duo Jakabol inside a glowing cube. Live video feeds and voice filter effects over a microphone bring fresh, innovative spins on the storytelling. Even if not all the stories mesh smoothly, it feels like an inclusive call to creativity for everyone with stories to tell. ✏︎ Claire Sawers

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Kids Critics Romeo and Juliet for Bairns Clara, two, has a lovely time with a Shakespeare adaptation at the Scottish Storytelling Centre Image: courtesy of Richmond Theatre

What happens in the show? Two families of cats and dogs ﬁght. The cats have a party and there’s a fun disco. Romeo and Juliet fall in love. They go to sleep at the end. We built towers. It was a good show. What did you like about the show? The cat ears! The sparkly wand. Singing. The buttons, toys and lights. We had a pizza party. Is there anything you didn’t like? No.

their attention for the full 50 Would you tell your friends to mins, which is an achievement go to the show? in itself. I was wondering how Yes, [my sister] Katie. What did your grown-up she would manage the ending, think? but it was done beautifully. A lovely, interactive show The kids got to choose a stickSHOW Romeo and Juliet with lots of gentle sensory er (and allegiance!) before for Bairns stimulation. Brook makes sure sitting down and dance at a VENUE: Scottish Storytelling everyone, even at the back, disco and have a ‘pizza party’ Centre can get involved and rolls with wearing their cat ears and TIME: until Aug 23 (not 12, 19), the unpredictable nature of masks. It was fun and felt a various times children! She was able to hold little magical! 54

Kids

Oran, aged eight, takes a trip to see Darryl J Carrington’s wordless physical comedy show Out of the Box What did your grown-up think about the show? One mime/clown and a literal box of tricks! Highly inventive, fast-paced, building to a hilarious and baﬄing climax assisted by periodically bemused audience members. The crowd participation was extensive but consensual. I thought I’d been brought in at one point but it turned out I’d just misunderstood holding someone’s What happens in the show? sunglasses for them. It was I don’t actually really know it one of the most embarrassing was just silly. experiences of my life. I had There were lots of things that started wearing the sunglasshappened. I can talk about like es, Oran told me to. three things maybe? A puppy Big fan of the song choices doing tricks… not a real puppy. also. I was a bit worried it He used toothbrushes.

What did you like most about the show? The puppy! Cos it was cute? The robopuppy. Was there anything you didn’t like? Not really.

Would you tell your friends to go to the show? Probably. It was fun-yyyyyy. Wasn’t he being a mime? I would describe him as being a funny guy. SHOW VENUE: TIME:

Darryl J Carrington: Out of the Box Underbelly George Square until 31 Aug (not 18), 1.20pm

Photo: Kyle Bunby

You can write more about it than that… I don’t know which ones to say because there were so many things that happened. There was the Mission Impossible one – I held a bit of string or rope.

might be a bit young for an eight year old but he (Oran) was outraged when I suggested that – it worked for all the ages in the room.

Reviews

Darryl J Carrington: Out of the Box

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Black Blues Brothers: Let's Twist Again! Edie, eight, is stunned by the Black Blues Brothers’ amazing acrobatics

What happens in the show? Black Blues Brothers has ﬁve acrobats/dancers and is set around a train station. The stars do lots of dancing, miming and some amazing acrobatics like putting three

people on top of each other! It’s all pretty stunning and exciting.

athleticism and a musical score to match. I particularly enjoyed the ‘skipping scene’.

What did you like most about the show? I liked most when the dancers stacked chairs and were seeing who could go highest on their chairs.

Would you tell your friends to go to the show? I would most deﬁnitely tell my friends to go to the show - especially if they like acro or dance because it’s really inspiring.

Was there anything you didn’t like? Not really. What did your grown-up think about the show? The show was both fun and spectacular, with incredible

SHOW VENUE: TIME:

Black Blues Brothers: Let’s Twist Again! Underbelly Bristo Square until 31 Aug (not 18), 5pm

Photo: Ryan Warburton

Kids

5 year-old Alvie couldn’t stop laughing at Spencer Jones’ silly props and faces

What did you like most about the show? His doggy was invisible. He kept doing silly voices and crazy faces. Even his mop could do talking. He kept making me laugh. Was there anything you didn’t like? No. What did your grown-up think about the show? It was genuinely funny for grown ups too. Absurd and playful and wonky and daft. All the battered, budget props were perfect – a box full of

Would you tell your friends to go to the show? We already have! Kids and adults.

SHOW VENUE: TIME:

The Spencer Jones Experimental Kids Show Pleasance Courtyard until 16 Aug, 11am

Photo: Debra Hurford Brown

What happens in the show? The man was a silly guy, he drawed a face on his tummy. And he had wheels on his shoes. In his box there was a baby that was always crying and another baby that was hitting him.

those whining groan tubes, puppets made entirely from chattering teeth, creepy doll babies. It was incredibly sweet and wholesome in one sense – he’s an amazing, old fashioned entertainer and very talented sillyman, but with an edge to the jokes sometimes that reminded me of surreal comedians like Seymour Mace or The Delightful Sausage, for example.

Reviews

The Spencer Jones Experimental Kids Show

Comedy 09:15

Growing Up with Nits and Fleas theSpace on the Mile, 24–29 Aug

09:30

A Political Breakfast PBH’s Free Fringe @ Greek Gyros Grill, 12–30 Aug

09:45

Holmes/Shah theSpaceTriplex, 12–15 Aug

10:00

Alex Prescot: Cellars & Serpents (WIP) Laughing Horse @ City Cafe, 24–30 Aug 1 British, 1 Immigrant *Continental Breakfast Laughing Horse @ Bar 50, 12–30 Aug Mat Smith: The Middle Laughing Horse @ City Cafe, 12–16 Aug About Comedy: StandUp Comedy Course Laughing Horse @ Bar 50, Various dates from 12 Aug to 23 Aug Zero F*cks theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall, 17–22 Aug

10:15

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Wiki Knows Best – The Rest Is Islands Laughing Horse @ The Counting House, 12–30 Aug, not 17, 24

Nish Kumar: Angry Humour From a Really Nice Guy (Work in Progress) Monkey Barrel Comedy, 13 Aug

10:40

Louis Beer: Ultra-Processed Comedy Show (Work in Progress) Laughing Horse @ City Cafe, 12–16 Aug The Breakfast Club Laughing Horse @ City Cafe, 17–30 Aug

10:45

Hilarious History Laughing Horse @ The Three Sisters, 12–30 Aug Almost A theSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall, 24–28 Aug

11:00

4 Better or 4 Worse Laughing Horse @ Bar 50, 13–30 Aug, not 15, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23 Table Reads: New Comedy Script Showcase Monkey Barrel Comedy, 12–30 Aug, not 29 A Kiwi Idiot’s Guide to Great Britain Hoots @ The Apex, 12–30 Aug Comedy Brunch Scottish Comedy Festival @ The Beehive Inn, 12–30 Aug Bring Yer Bairn Comedy Gilded Balloon Teviot, 12–31 Aug, not 19

10:20

11:05

House Fly theSpace @ Niddry St, 24–29 Aug Grandad & Me Do Stand Up Comedy Laughing Horse @ City Cafe, 12–30 Aug, not 18, 25

Rose Matafeo: Work in Progress Morning Hour Monkey Barrel Comedy, 17–30 Aug Glenn Moore: Work in Progress Monkey Barrel Comedy, 12–16 Aug

10:30