What is the difference between trauma and experience? Lauren is a journalist working on a domestic violence story. These cases are depressingly commonplace, but this one appears to have an undertone of male entitlement. The antagonist, Andrew, works for a politician. The victim of the assault once worked alongside him but has not had her contract renewed. Andrew, chillingly, has been welcomed back to the inner sanctum. Lauren prods at the story. Andrew’s boss peddles a party

The year is 1941. France is occupied by the Nazis, who wield significant influence in North African Casablanca. A stream of desperate refugees clamour to leave for America, but only the rich or powerful can hope to make it. European flotsam and jetsam gravitate to Morocco – but once there, they wait. And while they wait, everybody comes to Rick’s… There is an art deco-style set at the lovely Ghillie Dhu venue that evokes memories for anyone who has seen the film – and it’s ut

Three Can Keep A Secret  is piece of comedy drama with a twist: there is frequent audience interaction to influence the plot, making it a cross between drama and the ‘choose your own adventure’ genre. A boys’ poker night is the setting. The host, Mason, is expecting various party guests and with his wife, Denise, safely out of town, it promises to be raucous. Sonny and Moose arrive, yet…they don’t especially seem to be cordial with one another – are they in fact friends at al

Kofi is on stage, attired (if that’s the word) in an orange jumpsuit. A Black man is in prison – cue the pearl-clutching – and he has a life sentence. But it’s not what you think. Kofi (Quaz Degraft) is a numerical marvel, entertaining his fellow inmates by solving mathematical puzzles, and is clearly articulate. So, how did he come to be incarcerated? He is first-generation Ghanaian, raised in New York. His family has imbued him with a strong work ethic, and he has, albeit n

It's Eileen’s 90th birthday party in Northern Ireland. Her daughter Gilly has gone to some trouble to make it a special occasion, including the arrival of her own daughter Jenny and granddaughter Muireann – meaning there will be four generations of women under the same roof. There are party hats, balloons and the promise of a cake. It should all pass off rather smoothly – right? Eileen (Julia Dearden) is prickly, demanding and frankly more than a little truculent. She relentl

The sister of a famous pop star,  Standing in the Shadows of Giants  is Lucie Barât’s personal story – and it’s not quite what you might expect. Barât recounts her adult journey through drama school, auditions, fending off predatory industry suits, an unfulfilled career and part-time jobs. Her brother Carl has formed an indie band, The Libertines. History recalls how they find fame and an endless stream of parties, launches and media hype ensues. Frontman Pete Doherty’s drug

Grand Guignol de Milan, fresh from their recent triumphant, award-winning show at Prague Fringe, export a further series of vignettes, all with a distinctly Italian flavour and themed around the company’s stated raison d’être to revive Italian horror stories. Gianfilippo Lamberti takes to the stage, elegantly attired and with horns on his forehead. The Devil is the host and puppetmaster for the evening; however, he is interrupted by Salvatore (Lorenzo Balducci), not only rais

The social science of economics is not widely understood and is largely underappreciated. It examines macro decision-making – such as interest rates – and micro – for instance, at what price point a consumer may switch from high street to supermarket-brand butter. Ever wonder how a local authority decides whether to install a streetlight? Chances are, there’s been a study using economic data; the Value of a Statistical Life is frequently employed, giving rise to the idea of a

Playfight is a visceral, fast-moving production from  Theatre Uncut , that relentlessly demands your attention from the first moment to the last. It is performed in Summerhall’s Roundabout arena in the round, a slick choice. The set consists mainly of a ladder, representing a tree, perhaps the only constant in the lives of our three protagonists. The play charts the adolescent development of three friends. They are at first glance ordinary teenagers, with aspirations, hang-up

The   Good Friday Agreement  of 1998 more or less brought to an end a dark period of contemporary UK history. "The Troubles" was the term given to what was regarded by many people as a three decades long, low level, civil war, the status of Northern Ireland being at stake. Opposite factions held that it should revert to Irish rule or continue as part of the UK. The highest profile act as part of The Troubles was the attempt to assassinate the then British Prime Minister Marga

How far can you run in five minutes ? If you are an Olympic champion, primed, fit, alert, with spikes on a professionally prepared track, you could cover in excess of two kilometres. A woman in her 20’s, in average physical condition, awakening from yet another interrupted slumber in a war zone, grabbing her six year old boy together with a prepared backpack, hurtling down several flights of apartment block, in the dark, with panicking people flying out of other doorways, avo

A waiter  pours a glass of wine for a restaurant customer. It hardly seems like a philosophical matter, but not everything is as it seems here. The set is simple: a table, arranged with cutlery on a pristine white tablecloth, with a solitary chair. There is a waiter’s station stage left and two spare chairs. Our two performers, Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas, wander on to the stage at Summerhall. This seems unusual, as if they are about to issue a banal health and safety ann

A palliative  ward in a hospice is hardly a cheery portent for an afternoon at the Fringe. This was a charming piece, however, Two men are approaching the end of their days. Henry’s son, Justin, visits him frequently, dealing with a myriad of emotions. There is the obvious pain of watching his father slip away, but he is also wounded that his father kept details from him for so long. This triggers a memory muscle from his childhood. He has also recently split from his wife. H

There's  a band set up on stage, but this is no ordinary music show. It’s snazzy cardigan time! Steve Coogan’s comic creation  Alan Partridge  had various outings on radio and television, but Partridge’s post-BBC era saw the addition of his downtrodden personal assistant, Lynn Benfield. Lynn is at Partridge’s beck and call, underpaid and under-appreciated, despite substantial calls upon her time domestically. His boorish and dismissive attitude to her is tantamount to abuse a

A young  woman, Maia (Soraya Pouilly), awakens tied to a chair and blindfolded. She manages to struggle free, to rather unexpectedly find herself aboard a train, with three people observing her. Her newly acquired companions are a curiosity ; seemingly harmless but childlike. Their emotional detachment is an early tell as to the roots of this piece. She finds that she is at the rear of a train. Her new friends cannot offer any clues as to where she is or how she arrived here.

An Ivy league professor (Madeleine Potter) reveals herself to us in slices at Traverse Theatre. She is 53 years old, unmarried, no children. Sadly, suffering from stomach pains, she is diagnosed with stage 2 cancer, having malignant tumours. She describes watching her mother’s life ebb away at the age of 54 of neurofibromatosis. At the end, her mother did not even know her own name and was an unrecognisable shell of the woman she had known. Her own diagnosis would be devastat

World War I saw unimaginable devastation, the political and ideological scars of which were felt across the globe for much of the 20 th century. Around one in eight British serving men died during the conflict, significantly altering the balance of UK demographics, especially in urban areas. An inadvertent by-product was the nation’s new-found dependency on women, hitherto overlooked by patriarchy but now substituting men during and after the war, driven inexorably by the su

There's  a climate emergency. It seems like the human race, some of them, have woken up to this. It really shouldn’t be news though, as scientists made the causal link between fossil fuels and climate change around half a century ago. Planet Earth has been around, give or take, for 4.5 billion years. It seems to have taken us a couple of hundred to set it on the path to destruction. There is more jeopardy for young people, and in this new play a group of them have a birthday

A famous  quote coined as part of the US 1992 election campaign, and a stark reminder that when it comes to voting intentions, the public are prone to vote with their pockets. The phrase caught on: Gordon Brown had it on office screensavers during the 1997 campaign. And now it’s the title of a Fringe show. Ostensibly about economics, but not a lecture, there is a highly personal subtext for one of the performers, Joe Sellman-Leava, more of which anon. He delivers an entertain

A routine day at a rundown bookmakers on an Edinburgh high street. Two employees Pat (manager) and John (cashier) are chewing the fat, while Pat barely tries to disguise his contempt for bedraggled Harry, sadly, and with a tragic resignation, feeding money systematically into a roulette machine. Area manager Michelle breezes in. An awkward exchange ensues. John is dismissed to the back room, so that they eventually discuss a highly sensitive personnel and operational matter,