Edinburgh festival 2018: Lyn Gardner's guide to the best shows to see
The pick of the most interesting shows at the Edinburgh Fringe and International Festival
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There's no shortage of theatre shows at this year’s Edinburgh International and Fringe festivals – 3,548, to be precise – but with so many to choose from it can be hard to make a selection. Below are some suggestions for shows that look interesting. It is by no means a definitive list, and doesn’t even cover every venue, but it does give an idea of the range of work available at some of the most significant. As always in Edinburgh though, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
When browsing the programme, either in the brochure published today or online, do look further afield to places such as Dance Base, which always throws up some gems, and smaller venues such as Greenside or Space. You may discover your own fringe hit.
It’s a good idea to book a couple of shows each day in advance, but you should also leave gaps in your schedule so you can take advantage of word of mouth and the army of critics on the ground doing the legwork for you. Talk to people in queues about what they have seen and keep checking The Independent’s arts coverage to find up to the minute information about the shows you shouldn’t miss.
Birds of Paradise join forces with the National Theatre of Scotland for My Left/Right Foot, a new musical about an attempt to stage the Oscar-winning My Left Foot. Hannah Gadsby may have quit comedy, but she’s sure to make you laugh in No Bones About It, giving voice to the women whose stories are never told.
Hamilton (Lewis) is a musical parody that has nothing to do with Lin-Manuel Miranda. Gut feelings are explored by Kate Kennedy in Hunch. Thor and Loki, a comedy musical about the end of the world from Harry Blake, sounds fun and Frau Welt, about a woman striding her way to stardom, has already enjoyed brief success in London, and should repeat it in Edinburgh.
Nine Foot Nine is Sleepless Theatre’s examination of women taking up space and Gbolahan Obisesan adapts the story of four Nigerian brothers torn apart by prophecy as told in The Fishermen. The Victorian illusion “Pepper’s Ghost” is employed in Toujours et Près de Moi, a story of absence and heartbreak.
Assembly has really upped its circus offer this year. Jesse Scott and Laclan McAulay, co-founders of brilliant circus outfit Casus, use acrobatics to meditate on their relationship in You & I. Gandini Juggling bring 8 Songs, and Gibbon – about animal behaviours. Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground is the inspiration for the circus piece Sediment, from Australia’s Company 2. Canada’s wildly enjoyable 7 Fingers have two shows: Réversible and Sisters.
If all is lost, there is always the Greatest Showman Singalong or Jason Donovan and His Amazing Midlife Crisis.
Worth a punt: Jonny Woo, and Jerry Springer: The Opera composer, Richard Thomas, team up for Woo’s All Star Brexit Cabaret.
Dead Cert: Mark O’Rowe’s The Approach arrives from Ireland with rave reviews; it tells the stories of three women trying to make sense of their lives.
Edinburgh International Festival
When it was first seen at the Traverse in 2008, David Greig and Gordon McIntyre’s Midsummer felt like theatrical sunshine; let’s hope this rom-com has stood the test of time in this new staging by the National Theatre of Scotland. Katie Mitchell and Alice Birch collaborate on bringing Marguerite Duras’ strange novella, La Maladie de la Mort, to the stage. One of the titans of theatre, Peter Brook, is in action with The Prisoner which has a cast from across the world examining justice, truth and punishment.
Worth a punt: Geoff Sobelle had a massive fringe hit with The Object Lesson in 2014, and magic and illusion abound in Home, a show about different kinds of haunting.
Dead Cert: Druid’s production of Waiting for Godot, directed by Garry Hynes, has been acclaimed as a landmark revival.
The link between mental health and systemic racism are examined in Freeman, recipient of this year’s Charlie Hartill Special Reserve fund. Mental health is also the focus for A Clown Show about Rain, which uses physical theatre to explore depression. Familie Flöz, those clever mask theatre specialists, are back with Infinita, about the moments at the very start and end of life. Caitlin Skinner’s Propeller considers the possibility of change and how to make it happen and Spike Milligan is celebrated in A Sockful of Custard. Blind Summit are back with a new show called Henry, exploring the difference between acting and puppetry. Performers who have died as a result of suicide are recognised in Offstage, and the ever-thoughtful Ad Infinitum ask why we are driven to reproduce, in No Kids.
Les Enfants Terribles and Pins and Needles join forces for Flies, an absurdist story about insects. If you were alive and watching telly in the 1970s, then The Rockford File, a homage to TV private eye Jim Rockford, will appeal. Third Man reimagine Cornish story, The Mermaid of Zennor, in Drenched, which features traditional sea shanties. Tall Stories don’t just make theatre for young audiences but for everyone; check out their vaudevillian staging of Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost. Starcatchers and Curious Seed collaborate on MamaBabaMe, a show for under threes and their carers.
The brilliant outdoor show Carmen Funebre is revived for four performances only and is joined by TBP's other show, Silence, about Europe’s refugees. The Power Play performances are staged off-site for just 15 audience members per show and are written by female writers from the Soho Theatre's writers lab and the Royal Court's Young Writers programme.
Worth a punt: Verse theatre may be out of fashion but The Song of Lunch, a tale of paths not taken, is written by Costa Award winning poet Christopher Reid, and stars Cold Feet’s Robert Bathurst.
Dead Cert: Simon Evans and David Aula team up for The Vanishing Man, a terrific piece of sleight of mind. Check out the pair’s brand-new show too, The Extinction Event.
The superb Glas(s) explore the bond between grandfathers and grandsons in Old Boy. Alan Bissett’s The Moira Monologues returns and with a new sequel too, (More) Moira Monologues. This is a great place to see theatre for children and young people and the programme includes two tried and tested shows: Mamoru Iriguchi’s Eaten and Andy Cannon’s retelling of Macbeth, Is This a Dagger?
Worth a punt: Uncanny Things. The stories and songs of old Scotland are explored with one storyteller, a singer and two Scottish harps.
Dead cert: Puppet State Theatre’s environmental tale The Man who Planted Trees is a pleasure for adults and children.
If you loved Two Destination Language’s Near Gone, then try the company’s new one, Fallen Fruit, a story of migration and walls coming down and going up. After the Cuts is Gary McNair’s dark comedy about a couple faced with the inadequacies of the NHS. Michael Pinchbeck collaborates with New Perspectives for the mixed-media A Fortunate Man, about a country doctor working 50 years ago.
Purni Morell translates Magne van den Berg's Big Aftermath of a Small Disclosure, about the allure of the self-destruct button. Chris Thorpe and Rachel Chavkin collaborate on Status, a show springing from conversations about nationality from across the world. Leo Burtin’s The Midnight Soup is a touching show about the importance of unremarkable lives. The fabulous Le Gateau Chocolat reimagines the Ugly Duckling in Duckie, Magnetic North’s Erewhon gives a technological makeover to Samuel Butler’s classic sci-fi novel and Darkfield, responsible for last year’s creepy Séance, take you into the dark with headphones for Flight, a show with no guarantees about your destination.
Molly Taylor’s Extinguished Things is about what happens when people disappear from our lives. The highs and lows of addiction are explored in award-winning Australian show, Notorious Strumpet and Dangerous Girl. Addiction is also the subject of Blackout, scripted entirely from interviews with recovering addicts.
The Big in Belgium strand of programming always throws up some hits: this year prepare to be groomed by a man with sinister intentions in De Fuut, see the mesmerising Valentijn Dhaenens star in Unsung – exploring the man behind the career politician – and check out the wordless storytelling of Another One, a show about broken hearts.
Paines Plough’s Roundabout venue in the Summerhall courtyard always throws up some hits: check out Island Town by Simon Longman, one of the most exciting writers around, and don’t miss Vinay Patel’s Sticks and Stones, a satire about failing to find the right words. Or revisit returning hit, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, which is brilliant gig theatre from Middle Child, who also have a new show – Eve Nicol’s One Life Stand – about the search for intimacy in the modern world. Kieran Hurley and Gary McNair’s Square Go is a story of playground violence. There is music too, in Tom Wells’ and Matthew Robins’ Drip, about trying to stay afloat when you can’t swim.
Also operating under the auspices of Summerhall are Canada Hub who are bringing Adam Lazarus’ Daughter, a play about men and their attitudes to sex and power. Or get tickled by the Old Trout Puppet workshop, who confront their own and our mortality in Famous Puppet Death Scenes.
Worth a punt: Baby Face. Katy Dye’s solo performance about the infantilisation of women is the winner of this year’s Autopsy Award, which has a fine record of spotting hits.
Dead Cert: The Ballad of the Apathetic Son and his Narcissistic Mother. A wonderful performance piece between a real life mother and teenage son about letting your child go and growing up.
The fabulous Julie Hesmondhalgh stars in The Greatest Play in the History of the World, in which a man and a woman face a future where they are the last people left standing. Penelope Skinner has two plays at the festival (see Underbelly below). Meek is a co-production with Headlong, which is always a sign of quality, and is about a woman imprisoned and determined not to be broken. Nigel Slater’s memoir of a 1960s childhood, Toast, comes to the stage complete with walnut whips and French fancies.
Writer Chris Goode and the always inventive Dante or Die should be a brilliant combination for User not Found, a show about digital identities after we die. Mark Thomas has talked to leading experts on the NHS for Check Up: Our NHS at 70. Gun violence is the subject of Martin Zimmerman’s On the Exhale, set in the wake of a US school shooting, and directed by Christopher Haydon.
Worth a punt: Youthquake. The Traverse’s fantastically successful Breakfast plays, with new work from Ella Hickson, Kieran Hurley, Sabrina Mahfouz and more, all giving lie to the myth that millennials are only interested in avocados.
Dead cert: Underground Railroad Game. Fearless and fearlessly inventive Obie Award winning two-hander that considers slavery, race, shame and justice through the format of a high school history lesson.
Masculinity in crisis is the subject of Angry Alan, a world premiere from Penelope Skinner (who wrote The Village Bike and Linda), about online extremism and the Men’s Right’s Movement. Breach are a company to cherish and they consider the rape of baroque period painter Artemisia Gentileschi in It’s True, It’s True, It’s True. ThisEgg is a delightful company who had a hit with Me and My Bee last year, and return with Dressed, based on the true story of a woman’s response to being sexually assaulted at gunpoint.
Max Dickens’ The Man on the Moor was terrific last year, and he now pens Kin, a story of sibling rivalry and family estrangement. Fringe favourites Rhum and Clay are riffing on Dario Fo’s Mistero Buffo. Sue Pollard makes her Edinburgh fringe debut in Harpy, about an elderly female hoarder. Kirsty Osman’s Awakening is a one woman show about the topical issue of consent. Mabel and Mickey sounds promising, a debut solo show from Kit Finnie about an early 20th century Hollywood story but one that very much reflects our own times.
Over at the Underbelly Circus Hub, don’t miss Barely Methodical’s acrobatically alarming Shift, which I hope will upscale successfully to a bigger space. Cabaret meets drag and circus in the delightfully degenerate Little Death Club, and the jaw-dropping Circa are back in town, this time with a family friendly offering, Wolfgang, in which Mozart gets an acrobatic twist.
Worth a punt: Maddie Rice, recently seen on tour in Fleabag, performs her debut one-woman show, Pickle Jar, about a teacher who may not be a responsible adult.
Dead Cert: Simon Reade’s adaptation of Private Peaceful, Michael Morpurgo’s touching story of the terrible fate of a First World War deserter, is very simple, very effective theatre for all ages.
Dance, physical theatre and contemporary work is the name of the game at Zoo venues. Life-size puppets, mime and dance are employed in Paradiso, a piece about ageing and death. The Hillsborough tragedy is revisited in From the Gut Theatre’s Istanbul. The migration of birds and humans is explored in Zugunruhe. Fredrik Høyer, from Norway's Det Andre Teatret, meditates on long distance running in What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.
Worth a punt: Live Arts Bistro is a 12-hour marathon of performance art featuring work that is transgressive and boundary-breaking.
Dead cert: Toronto company Volcano are in town with Century Song, a live performance hybrid using vocals, music, movement and projections to explore the art movements of the 20th century.
The Edinburgh festival runs 3-27 August
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