Yippee Ki Yay
Richard Marsh has clearly seen Die Hard more times than he’s had Christmas dinners. He’s here in his best Bruce Willis vest, brandishing a finger gun and a teddy bear, to retell the 1980s action flick in rhyme, from start to explosive finish. And why not splice it with the story of his marriage to a fellow Die Hard fan while he’s at it? But unlike Willis, Marsh won’t be barefoot: “Have you seen this floor?” he asks with a grimace. Read the full review. CW
Gilded Balloon at the Museum, 3-27 August
Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder
Kathy and Stella are the murder-obsessed hosts of Yorkshire’s least successful true crime podcast. Their favourite author, Felicia Taylor, has just been killed. That means they’ve got the chance to take on the job they were born to do. It’s time to solve a crime. Armed with only their Twitter feeds, their “murder gang” of limited online devotees and no experience, can they do it? This murder mystery musical presented by Fleabag producer Francesca Moody is a thrilling foray into silliness. Read the full review. AR
Underbelly George Square, 2-27 August
Trainspotting Live
Perhaps you thought Trainspotting was too coy. Maybe you thought Irvine Welsh’s novel was on the restrained side. Yes, it had scenes of drug-addled bed soiling, mindless assaults and fatal child neglect, but perhaps you wish it had been more visceral. If that is you, then Trainspotting Live will be right up your street. Adam Spreadbury-Maher’s exhilarating production plunges the audience into the world of Leith drug addicts and hardmen with a pulverising force. Read the full review. MF
Pleasance at EICC, 3-27 August
String v Spitta
The world of children’s entertainment has provided a rich seam for comedians: see Justin Edwards’ alcoholic clown Jeremy Lion or the delinquent gameshow Funz and Gamez. Ed MacArthur and Ghosts star Kiell Smith-Bynoe’s show String v Spitta is as delightful as those predecessors. It dramatises (I use the world loosely) an arch rivalry between aristocratic Sylvester String, reigning king of the west London party circuit, and from-the-streets TikTok upstart MC Spitta, kids’ favourite and pretender to String’s throne. Read the full review. BL
Pleasance Courtyard, 18-26 August
Lucy and Friends
Lucy McCormick’s half-naked body is covered in tomato puree. The floor is littered with confetti and broken glass. Everything is slathered in hummus. The disruptive artist’s new show is an intensely haphazard cabaret evening, in which she performs every act. With the pandemic, the scarcity of Arts Council funding and the unignorable pull to grow up and out of the arts, her co-performers have dropped out, she tells us. So she’s going solo. Since we’re here already, we may as well help her out. Read the full review. KW
Pleasance Courtyard, 2-23 August
Beautiful Evil Things
“This is the story of my severed head.” As first lines go, it’s hard to beat for drama. Deborah Pugh speaks as the decapitated Medusa whose head is emblazoned on Athena’s shield. She begins by telling us how it got there and proceeds to other swashbuckling stories: of the Amazon queen Penthesilea, the seer Cassandra, the wronged mother Clytemnestra. A scintillating monologue, co-created by Ad Infinitum’s Pugh and George Mann, which contains centuries of ancient Greek drama in 75 minutes. Read the full review. AA
Pleasance Dome, 2-27 August
Bangers
Cue the music because here comes a play that feels like a club night. Bangers, written by Danusia Samal and co-produced by Cardboard Citizens and Soho theatre, is a tribute to the sounds of early 00s R&B and garage. And with a DJ ruling each scene from behind his decks, we’re in for quite the party. Following the lives of two apparently unconnected strangers, Bangers weaves their stories of self-discovery together seamlessly. Read the full review. AR
Roundabout @ Summerhall, 2-27 August
Bridget Christie: Who Am I?
A handful of times in the opening stages of Bridget Christie’s new show, she stumbles over or forgets her lines. The critic sharpens his pen: is Christie under-rehearsed or – perish the thought! – might her supreme comic powers be on the wane? But the comedian is a step ahead of the crowd. This show is about life as “a 50-year-old menopausal woman”, and hesitation, forgetfulness – and hot flushes – are all part of its carefully worked-out modus operandi. This is a show that perfectly marries blustery campaigning material with blithering clown comedy. Read the full review. BL
The Stand’s New Town theatre, 2-10 August
Mog the Forgetful Cat
Who could forget about Judith Kerr’s egg-eating, burglar-foiling Mog? Fuzzy of tail and white of paw, with expectant eyes and loving smile, she has waited more than 50 years for her stage debut. Happily it is theatrical catnip: a delightful hour that adds songs to Kerr’s stories. The Wardrobe Ensemble’s show – co-produced with London’s Old Vic and Northampton’s Royal and Derngate – honours Kerr’s blend of warm humour, surreal reverie and gentle rumpus. It’s a warm-hearted portrait of family life and, of course, the cat’s place within it – whether on the comfiest chair or under your feet. Read the full review. CW
Underbelly, Bristo Square, 3-27 August
What Girls Are Made Of
Cora Bissett was a teenager when her band Darlingheart secured one of the biggest record deals in Scottish music history and shot to fame. Potentially life-changing gigs clashed with school concerts, and free drinks on flights made them giddy, but innocence soon waned as she came up against the industry and had to deal with broken friendships and being sexualised by the media too young. Thirty years on, Bissett takes stock in this autobiographical story infused with humour and song. Read the full review. KW
Assembly Rooms, 4-27 August
Frankie Boyle: Lap of Shame
A friend of Frankie Boyle’s, he tells us, stopped watching standup because it’s either “clever but not funny, or funny but not clever”. Boyle, of course, is an exception: his work makes you think, or has you marvelling at its merciless vision, even as it prompts laugh after appalled laugh. It also, these days, questions itself. Should Boyle only tell jokes whose ethical intentions are clear? Time after time, his vision and violent lyricism catches your breath – because they’re so alarming, and because there’s an honesty to them that cuts through the blandifying white noise, revealing our brutal-as-Boyle world, if only for a joke’s length, in its true colours. Read the full review. BL
Assembly Rooms, 3-13 August
Little Wimmin
You probably won’t remember the page in Louisa May Alcott’s novel where the March sisters lick a phallic, vodka-soaked ice sculpture. Nor the bit where they make lethal cocktails while dressed in hazmat suits. It’s safe to say this is not a direct adaptation. Revelling in brazen, absurdist satire, outlandish performance collective Figs in Wigs do anything but revere the 19th-century classic, instead hurling at it an off-kilter blend of feminist performance art, stomach-ache comedy and futuristic dance. Read the full review. KW
Zoo Southside, 21-26 August
The Rite of Spring
“How would you dance if you knew you were going to die?” was the question sparking Pina Bausch’s imagination when she created her shattering Rite of Spring in 1975. In a co-production with Senegal’s pioneering École des Sables, the answer is: you dance your death with excruciating commitment. Anique Ayiboe from Togo is electrifying as the sacrificial victim – grabbing at the air, revisiting earlier gestures with bigger, needier vehemence. Sweat-soaked, soil-spattered, she is left fearsomely exposed and exhausted until she collapses and releases us from this ferocious roar of a piece. Read the full review. DJ
Edinburgh Playhouse, 17-19 August
Catherine Cohen: Come for Me
When Cohen unleashed herself on the 2019 fringe – and later on Netflix – it was with an emotional car-crash of a musical comedy act, pasting sequins on her neuroses and narcissism and splaying them fabulously across the stage. In her second show, she still self-glamorises, ad absurdum. But as the set progresses, a slightly maturer Cohen emerges. Yes, anxiety about relationships, sex and her body stay high in the mix. And the ego is still all-consuming. But there’s reflectiveness, too, and perspective from a comic with a sense of her own daftness, that at every pivot, pose and sashay finds hilarious new ways to express itself. Read the full review. BL
Pleasance Courtyard, 14-27 August
Evening Conversations
Meet Sudha Bhuchar. She’s a middle-class, middle-aged mother of two mixed heritage millennials. Bhuchar’s monologue, inspired by discussions she’s had with her sons, ponders on big themes. There’s talk of her confused sense of identity, intergenerational trauma and moving from a childhood in both Tanzania and India to a life of Le Creuset porridge pots in Wimbledon. Unafraid to stumble over lines, she takes gentle pauses to sip from a large glass of water as she shares her meditations with us like we are old friends. A conversation with Bhuchar may be rambling but, by the end, it feels like time well spent. Read the full review. AR
Pleasance Courtyard, 22-27 August
And Then the Rodeo Burned Down
Like Dolly Parton sang in 9 to 5: it’s enough to drive you crazy if you let it. Kicking off with that track, this playful wild west two-hander upturns hierarchical, swaggering cowboy culture and delves into what happens when you’re pigeonholed, lassoed by life and barely getting by. First we meet a clown who plays second fiddle to a cowpuncher and longs for the glory of riding in the rodeo but winds up arguing with his own shadow. Then over a series of cleverly constructed, perspective-shifting encounters, which include even a bull’s eye view, creators Chloe Rice and Natasha Roland swap these roles, engage in power-play, flirt and fight. Read the full review. CW
theSpace @ Niddry St, 4-17 August
John Kearns: The Varnishing Days
You could watch John Kearns’ act for a long time before thinking of Van Gogh. But that’s the parallel Kearns invites as he combines art appreciation, daydreaming and tales of new parenthood. Kearns has enjoyed a recent brush with breakout success via Taskmaster and here this oddball act wonders aloud whether to make his compromises with the mainstream. But as with Dutch painters, so with south London comedians: art is about doing what you want, not what others tell you. And so Kearns dons his trademark tonsure wig and false teeth, and delivers the finest, and not at all compromised, set of his career so far. Read the full review. BL
Monkey Barrel, 2-13 August
