Brothers, best mates and a boat load of pop hits transformed into sea shanties, a recipe for Fringe success and the premise of hit new musical ‘Shantify’, running daily at the Palais Du Variete in Assembly George Square Gardens.   It would be easy to suspect that this show may simply be a concert of song after song, but rest assured that this is a full production with a heartfelt and heartwarming story complete with wonderful songs and performances that will leave you grinnin

Things move very quickly at the Fringe, and the action is thick and fast with shows coming and going all over the place. Of course, you do have some shows that return to the festival on a yearly basis, but I think that it may be a rather difficult job to find one that has a history as vast of News Revue.   Now in its 45th year, News Revue is a current affairs parody show that sees a cast of four, accompanied by a talented musician, play a multitude of well-known figures from

What is it really like to be a performer in musical theatre? What really happens backstage? What do the cast members really think of each other and think of their audience? Well, if you would like to know the answers to these important burning questions and would like them set to fun, catchy show tunes, then look no further then Alexander S. Bermanges ‘I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical’, playing at Gilded Balloon at the Museum. This production is a deep dive into the world o

I love a murder mystery. I’ve seen a fair few on stage, ‘The Mousetrap’, ‘And Then There Were None’, ‘Witness For the Prosecution’ and yes, I do call ‘The Play That Goes Wrong’ a murder mystery. I am that person who delights in shows such as ‘Midsummer Murders'’, ‘Vera’ and I will admit to watching ‘Death in Paradise’ on repeat. Safe to say, I’m a fan, and that is what brought to a show that I saw last year at the Fringe ‘It’s a Mystery’, a celebration of all things Murder My

Charlie thought that he had done everything right with his life; he’d found a girl and gotten married, he had a good job, and he thought that everything was going to plan. But when his marriage breaks down, and he’s let go from his job, he is forced to sit back and re-evaluate his life. A simple text ‘Anyone fancy a pint’ in the group chat leads Charlie down a different and unexpected path in ‘Did You Mean To Fall Like That’, a one-man show written by Stephanie Martin, direct

There are many many different genres and types of shows available to see at the Edinburgh fringe but take a stroll down the royal mile and I can pretty much guarantee that you will end up with at least half a dozen flyers for various improv shows. Coming from a girl who absolutely loves a good improv, the range of choices in the genre at the festival can be a little overwhelming. There are musicals, hospital drama, murder mystery, crime scene investigation, the list could go

What do Titanic, Pretty Women, Dirty Dancing, Beaches, Legally Blonde and The Notebook all have in common? Well, they all fall into the genre of movies that have come to known as Chick Flicks and you may think that there is not much more to them than being crowd pleasing entertainment for a girl’s night, but that is where you are mistaken.   Enter KK Apple and Kerry Ipema, the double act behind ‘Six Chick Flicks’, (...or a Legally Blonde Pretty Woman Dirty Danced on the Beach

Unless you have filled up your diary far in advance, a trip to the Edinburgh Fringe can be filled with off the cuff decisions as you find yourself with hands full of flyers and surrounded by walls of colourful posters advertising the multitude of shows on offer. And with so much going on, plans can change at the last minute and hidden gems may suddenly present themselves.   Picture the scene, after a few days escaping it under greyish skies and a ferocious wind, the heavens o

True stories from history are no strangers to be worked upon and adapted for the stage, inspiring countless new stories along the way and we love to see it.   Anne Bonney and Mary Read, two famous female pirates whose stories have been a topic of conversation and speculation for many years, are the main inspiration of new musical ‘Tit Swingers’ by Le Gasp Productions. With the title based on the idea that both Bonny and Read fought off their enemies whilst bare breasted, the

How many people can you fit in a karaoke booth?   No, this isn’t the beginning of a bad joke. It’s an honest question and one that I’m pretty sure comedian and musician Alex Prescot would know the answer to. And said answer would probably have something to do with depending on how many fluffy cushions he can get his hands on.   In I've Got A Song About That, Alex Prescot (who also stars in Gigglemug’s A Jaffa Cake Musical), brings his musical talents to Laughing Horse @ City

Car chases, secret weapons, hidden villainous hideaways, schemes and the battle between good and evil; all things that we are associate with the classic spy genre, and Spy Movie The Play (written by Matthew Howell and Jack Michael Stacey) takes all of that and flips it on its head in a hilarious love letter to spy movies that will have the whole family in fits of laughter. Meet Albert Cabbage (Matthew Howell) and his team as they aim to present the greatest spy movie ever mad

During its run at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023, Gunter by Dirty Hare, was awarded the Scotsman Fringe First Award alongside Playbill's pick of the Fringe and Lyn Gardner's Pick of the Fringe. The company was also named one of the Stage's Top Breakthrough Theatre Makers. The show, which is based on the true story of a witch hunt in 1604, now transfers to the Royal Court Theatre. It uses live music and spectacle to tell a story of forgotten history, turning it upside down, expl

With shows like Midsomer Murders, Death in Paradise, Endeavour, and Vera still proving as popular as ever on television, it’s no wonder that murder mystery seemed to be a popular choice at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. After all, everyone loves a mystery, a puzzle, the question of who done it, but with A Highly Suspect Murder: Murder at the Movies, this wasn’t your average sit back and enjoy theatre production. No, here the audience themselves become the detective and you ar

Politics. A hot topic, but perhaps not a popular one, especially at the moment but let’s take a step away from the current political situation and instead look at the past. After all, they do say that hindsight is a fine thing, and even in politics, time changes things and can even open the door for comedy, or to be more precise, satire. Penned by Harry Hill, with music by Steve Brown, Tony! The Tony Blair Rock Opera rips up the rule book, recounting the early life and politi

At the Edinburgh Fringe, you don’t have to look very hard to find a show that involves at least some element of improv, and over the years some now rather well-known theatre companies have made a name for themselves doing just that; Showstopper! The Improvised Musical and Mischief Theatre to give you just a couple of examples, now legends in the world of improvisation. But now, I firmly believe that you can add another company who have proven themselves to be experts in the a

Rom-Coms. Stereotypical. Predictable. Formulaic. Loved or loathed. With ‘Actually, Love’, GOYA Theatre explore the tropes of rom-coms in a refreshing manner through the eyes of Alex (Sam Woof, also the writer of the piece) and Stevie (Jordan Broatch) as they question both how the genre works and their own relationship with each other. Alex is a struggling songwriter who has been told to just write a love song, if only it was that easy, and Stevie is an actor who upon returnin

Raise your hand if you love musicals, and a cry of me, me, me is heard. Whether you aspire of being on the stage yourself, or just love the feeling of taking your seat in the auditorium and witnessing something wonderful, there will be something in Alexander S. Bermange’s ‘I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical’ that will feel like it was written and it is being performed just for you. In this exploration of musical theatre, from the viewpoints of both the performer and the fan,

Punctuation can make all the difference and can be incredibly important when it comes to naming something, after all it is punctuation that takes a classic story by Oscar Wilde and gives it a new title in the case of this production. And with an ellipsis and a question mark, Wilde’s story of nobility’s search for entertainment and escape from triviality becomes Say It Again Sorry’s ‘The Importance of Being… Earnest?’, a show that takes the story and twists it, mixes it delici

What do you get when you combine classical music, a classic horror story and the much-loved science fiction genre? A strange combination, you might just say, but in the case of Bowjangles: Dracula in Space, it just works. String quartet Bowjangles are no strangers to the Fringe, having won ‘Spirit of the Fringe’ with their previous show Excalibow back in 2018. As they proudly proclaim, they are genre spanners, taking everything you might know about string quartets and flippin

Laughter is something that the Edinburgh Fringe is certainly not short of, comedy is a part of its beating heart, something that people go to the festival for. But not all comedy productions set out with the sole purpose of making you laugh. In Playing Latinx, a solo show by Guido Garcia Lueches, comedy is used as a tool to convey an important message in a way that both entertains and educates. Taking place in Cairns Lecture Theatre, Summerhall, Playing Latinx takes the form