A single figure stands on a lonely bare stage, surrounded by nothing but a simple wire frame bed, a scattering of scratchy sheets and a backdrop of the countryside. But is that backdrop the rolling hills of home, childhood days spent playing in the woods and water, or a daunting danger laden sparsity of no mans land? For young soldier Private Tommo Peaceful, it is both. He’s counting down the hours, spending the night awake and alone as he thinks about his life, looks back on

With the Edinburgh fringe, you find yourself desperately trying to see as much as possible and in doing so you have to be quite picky. And when you need your schedule to work out just right, there can be those shows that slip through the cracks simply because the timing just doesn’t work out right. That was the case for me and 5 Mistakes That Changed History, a show I wanted to see but could never make work. But this year, the stars aligned and it finally fit into my schedule

PowerPoints. You hear that one word and suddenly you’re flooded with flashbacks of your school days, work meetings and even that dreaded ‘next slide please’ from the Covid days. But this is PowerPoints like you’ve never seen them before, used not to feed us data and information but instead used in the most creative of fashions to make us laugh. This is PowerPoinDexter, the new show from PowerPoint comedian Ted Hill fresh from his golden buzzer on Britain’s Got Talent. He reac

Remember, remember, the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and plot. That’s the rhyme that everyone knows, about the story that everyone knows. But why would you want to know the truth when you can instead enjoy the chaos that comes with WIT Theatre Company’s hilarious retelling that plays wildly with what we know and flips it entirely in its head? Remember, Remember has been talk of the town this fringe season, selling out the Queen Dome and delighting with its absurd, over

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

The Trojan Horse is legendary, a mythological tale of trickery, soldiers hidden into a vast wooden horse wheeled into the city of Troy under the guise of being a gift. Referenced on several occasions in tales such as The Odyssey, you would be forgiven for thinking it’s a topic that wouldn’t suit a comedy makeover but theatre company Fishing 4 Chips have taken up residence at the Edinburgh Fringe to prove that soldiers hiding in a wooden horse (that may or may not have had a b

Take a walk down the road between George square gardens and bristo square and I can pretty much guarantee that you will hear something along the lines of ‘improv comedy tonight’ and ‘do you like improv’ maybe every five paces. Therefore, an improvised comedy troupe needs to stand out from the crowd, needs to present something different to lure in an audience, and this is something that Austentatious has down to a fine art. A big name of the Edinburgh Fringe, calling the majes

When the world first saw War Horse Joey stride across the stage nearly 20 years ago, it felt like we had never seen anything like him before. Puppeteered by three skilled artists, Joey was brought to life with care and emotion as we see witnessed an animal character take centre stage as a lead role in his own story. And he took the world by storm. And even now, it is still as breathtaking, Joey is still awe inspiring and the story of the bond between boy and beast is just as

With a plethora of theatre vouchers collected during the lockdown periods, our reviewer Debbie was finally able to put them to good use...