There is a warmth and sense of tradition to Jack and the Beanstalk at the Church Hill Theatre that makes it an extremely attractive proposition.
JACK & THE BEANSTALK – Edinburgh ★★★★
There is a warmth and sense of tradition to Jack and the Beanstalk at the Church Hill Theatre that makes it an extremely attractive proposition.
OLIVER! – Edinburgh ★★★
There’s a fascinating concept behind the Edinburgh University Savoy Opera Group’s production of Oliver!, at the Pleasance Theatre until Saturday evening. The simple idea is that there is not a child performer in sight.
THE ASH GIRL – Edinburgh
This is Cinderella by another name, and Wertenbaker goes beyond the glitter and the glib happy ending in the source to create a version which picks out the darkness and the morality of the tale.
THE ONE – Edinburgh ★★★
The play opens with unlovely long-time couple, Jo and Harry, having sex on their sofa while watching porn. Cassandra Sawtell’s Jo is bouncing around, munching on a packet of crisps, while Sam Coade’s Harry is also going through the motions, but with rather less flair.
THE ONE – Edinburgh ★★★
The play opens with unlovely long-time couple, Jo and Harry, having sex on their sofa while watching porn. Cassandra Sawtell’s Jo is bouncing around, munching on a packet of crisps, while Sam Coade’s Harry is also going through the motions, but with rather less flair.
ROCK OF AGES – Edinburgh ★★★
Big and silly, much like the hair, Allegro’s production of retro Eighties soft-rock musical Rock of Ages at the Church Hill knows how to hit the highs with ease. This juke-box musical has an equally off-the-peg musical plot with a small town girl coming to the bright lights and finding the pavements aren’t all gold.
HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL – Edinburgh ★★★
A gentle romance combines reinforces the right-on message that you can be who you want, in LYAMC’s tuneful take on High School Musical at the Church Hill Theatre to Saturday.
THE SORCERER – #EdFringe ★★★★
What larks: For careful execution and straightforward fun, it is difficult to imagine many recent productions of Gilbert and Sullivan have beaten Cat-Like Tread’s The Sorcerer at Paradise in Augustines.
AMERICAN IDIOT – Touring
Explosive and full of energy, Edinburgh based youth company Shoogly Peg bring the house down at the King’s with rock’n’roll musical American Idiot.
LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS – Edinburgh
There’s bundles of fun and bonkers B-movie mayhem in Little Shop of Horrors, the debut musical from TBC Productions, which is at the Studio on Potterrow to Saturday. Adapted from a Roger Corman movie from the late fifties, Little Shop has a wickedly knowing book and lyrics from Howard Ashman and a solidly rock-driven score from Alan Menken.
THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK – Edinburgh
Anne Frank’s diary of the time she, her family and four others spent in hiding in an annexe above her father’s business in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam, has made many appearances in different adaptations. Indeed, this version – a revision by Wendy Kesselman of an earlier dramatisation by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett – has already been seen in Edinburgh this year.
THE HAUNTED THROUGH LODGE – Edinburgh
Wobbly sets, missed cues, mixed-up lines and loudly whispered prompts are all in the script for the mid-eighties am-dram-set comedy taken on by St Serf’s Players for three nights only this week.
BOUNCERS – Edinburgh
It’s a brilliant, inventive and perceptive deconstruction of the Saturday night out. Originally performed at the Fringe in 1977 as a two hander it first appeared as a four-hander in the early Eighties. But this is the nineties remix, reworked again from its Yorkshire origins so that it has a solid Edinburgh feel to it.
GOOD THINGS – Edinburgh
There are plenty of Good Things in the Edinburgh Makars’ production of Liz Lochhead’s play of that name, in a production that is solid if not spectacular.
THE MEMORY OF WATER – Edinburgh
There are some very good performances of recognisable human dilemmas in Edinburgh Theatre Arts’ production of The Memory of Water at St Ninian’s. Shelagh Stephenson’s dark comedy, about three sisters returning to their late mother’s house to prepare for her funeral, is an effective blend of humour and pathos.
THE NETHER – Edinburgh
Problematic, simply because of its subject matter, The Nether is given a solid and suitably powerful production by student company Paradok Theatre at Checkpoint to Saturday. Set in the near future, writer Jennifer Haley’s Nether is an online world where immersion seems so real that it has replaced the internet and has taken over many forms of social interaction.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST – Edinburgh
Wilde’s comedy of love, class, secret lives and imaginary invalids needs little introduction. Countless numbers who have never seen the play, or witnessed Edith Evans, know exactly how she pronounced one line, but such familiarity means that it is difficult to approach it afresh and can have unfortunate results.
RUDDYGORE – Edinburgh
This is not the best-known Savoy Opera, and (perhaps unfairly) was deemed a flop on first production, coming after the all-conquering Mikado. It tells of young farmer Robin Oakapple, who plans to wed sweet Rose Maybud – but is in reality Ruthven Murgatroyd, one of a family of ‘bad baronets’ who live under a witch’s curse, and must commit a crime daily or suffer death by torture.
9 TO 5: THE MUSICAL – Edinburgh
Rollicking and rumbustious, but with surprisingly deep reservoirs of emotion, the Bohemians’ production of 9 to 5 The Musical at the King’s is a definite hit. There can be no denying that the musical – adapted from the 1980 film about three women from different backgrounds who unite to overcome their misogynistic boss – is an odd affair.