With a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, through several variations, improv could quite possibly be one of the most said and most heard words in the entire Edinburgh Fringe, especially in the flyering zones, but it remains one of the most popular genres out of everything that is on offer. Improv done well can see tickets flying out the door, and if you are lucky enough to have a ticket to see Murder She Didn't write by Degrees of Error burning a hole in your pocke

The beauty of the Edinburgh Fringe lies not only in the sheer amount of shows on offer but also in the recommendations of others. Someone may suggest seeing a show that hasn’t even come across your radar, but let me tell you, sometimes a recommendation can lead you to something great. Afronauts was a show that I hadn’t come across in the vast lists of available productions, but upon a recommendation I decided to give it a go, and it was one of the greatest surprises of the fr

Sometimes at the Edinburgh Fringe, you can find yourself with a gap in your schedule and pondering what to see next. When there is so much to choose from, it is impossible to be aware of everything and difficult to narrow down your options. And that is where the flyers come in, and sometimes on occasion someone handing out those flyers can catch you at just the right time. I was looking for something starting within the next hour to fit in before my next pre-booked show when

What makes being a musical theatre fan so wonderful is that everyone has different opinions and that everyone likes different things, but even so there are some things that we can all agree on and that is that sometimes there are musicals that are just bad. They can be badly received by the critics, be a complete lose at the bank and run for only a handful of performances, but hidden in a pile of terrible can be a little glittering gem; one song that redeems a bad musical. An

The Edinburgh is big, bold and beautiful, and somewhere that provides a stage to big names and new starters. Fresh new talent can find their space there, a launch pad for little shows grown in schools, universities and drama groups that fit in and fly between the big players. Small fish, big pond, you might say, but these fish are swimming upstream. Most definitely in the case of the Newcastle University Theatre Society who present their comical farce Love Labour's Found writ

What do a writer famed for the creating perhaps the world's best known detective, and a magician most known for his daring escapology have in common? The answer? Spiritualism. But there is one major difference. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a believer, pining his hopes on mediums to reconnect him with his deceased son. Harry Houdini was a debunker, horrified by the rise in fake spiritualists playing on the emotions of grievers. He spent the later years of his life exposing liars

With a title such as ‘How to Win Five Grand on the Internet’, you could be forgiven for thinking that Laurence Baker’s debut fringe show was, in fact, some sort of ‘how to’ guide teaching audience members how to make money without leaving the comfort of their chairs, but this production is actually an in-depth exploration of grief and control. When his father died, Baker managed to make enough money to cover his rent by playing poker on the internet. He learned how to play

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