Brett Epstein is alone on stage. Or is he? We enter Surgeons’ Hall venue to find a table on stage. We are asked to submit a question to Brett, anything at all. He takes the stage - a bundle of nervous, but charming, energy. A 30-something LGBTQ+ New Yorker, he presents to a sizeable audience a cross-section of his life. He shares aspects of his romantic life, his acting achievements and aspirations. He has had co-starring television roles many times, but, such is human nature

We enter the lovely Bedlam Theatre to find four actors, seated on chairs stage left and right facing each other. There are intriguingly two paint pots on the floor. The play begins, stylistically, with all four now standing downstage. We learn that a couple is visiting another couple’s house. The power couple, Colin and Charlotte, are trying for a baby. Their house appears to be something of a showhome and the visiting couple’s curiosity is further piqued by a strange circle.

This is a fictional account of a Scottish women’s football team playing at the Homeless World Cup in Italy. However, at its core is a depiction of a real event. Homeless Football World Cups were established towards the end of the last century and now take place annually, with worldwide participation. There are two main aims : to transform the lives of participants and to change attitudes to homelessness. There are a myriad of factors that give rise to homelessness including (

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, better known as North Korea, is generally considered to be a pariah state. Amnesty International regard it as having the poorest record on the planet for human rights. Its nuclear testing gives widespread consternation to USA and Japan in particular. It is a totalitarian dictatorship, a one-party military state with dissent not tolerated. It has a cult of personality around the ruling Kim family, even with its own philosophy, Juche

Kicking back with old friends. What could be better ? Milo is having a couple (Liane and Davie) over to his place for drinks and a take-away, in an archetypal middle-class setting in Glasgow. Now in their forties, they are very old friends. They usually have a familiarity, ease and comfort together that are commensurate with the passing of time and shared experiences. After a comically rapid coital act, Davie and Liane are getting ready for the evening out when Davie drops in

We are about a quarter of the way through the 21st century, allegedly enlightened times. And yet, homosexuality remains banned in more than 60 countries. In many cases it can attract the ultimate sanction of the death sentence. In previous centuries of course, the world was even more unforgiving and Ascension relates the tale of an 18 th century Dutch sailor left on uninhabited Ascension Island as punishment for sodomy. It is always a moment of joy to return to Bedlam Thea

Before I can even get to describing this simply superb production, it is hugely beneficial to contextualise. The roots of World War 2 can be traced back to the end of World War 1. When the guns finally fell silent, those on the losing side ceded territory, had their armies forcibly reduced and were burdened with devastating financial reparations. But we’re not talking about Germany now, this is Bulgaria and its relatively unknown part in twentieth century European history. Bu

Corporate-speak, a form of Orwellian buzzword language only really employed within the confines of large organisations, has been around for decades. Blue-sky thinking, straw man, paradigm, mission statement, KPIs – Key Performance Indicators, if you were wondering. And if you’re still wondering, well… What manner of entity might have spawned such a culture ? We’re about to gain an insight. We enter the, sold out, Space venue to see a woman (ONE, played by Anna van Miert) surr

Die Hard was a seminal 80’s movie, starring Bruce Willis. If you haven’t seen the film, you might well get more from Yippee Ki Yay if you watch it first, but a quick plot summary is as follows : It’s Christmas Eve and New York cop John McClane has set out to visit his estranged wife and children in Los Angeles. The film opens with McClane on a plane, then chauffeured to his wife’s swanky workplace, a 40-odd storey tower where the remainder of the action takes place. A grou

The year 2020 started with high hopes for many people ; maybe there was something about it being a fresh decade. But COVID-19 was coming down the road, initiating in Wuhan, China, but in this era of globalisation nothing is ever truly local. It soon became a global pandemic. Notwithstanding notable exceptions, countries chose to shut down. Most people were compelled to remain indoors, isolated from loved ones, in some cases tragically not being able to say goodbye. It is with

Bram Stoker’s infamous nineteenth century tale was not only a classic in its own right, its influence has proven pervasive for a century and a quarter since and shows no signs of relenting. Cinema, radio, television and literature. And Fringe theatre, as it turns out. The stage is set with two partially transparent screens left and right and a sort of command gantry centre downstage, its multi-use becoming evident as the show progresses. There are no other props. The quartet

Edinburgh Fringe is a smorgasbord of shows, catering for a variety of tastes and interests. Many prospective audience members might recoil from a show about Greek mythology, perhaps for fear of their threadbare knowledge being exposed. Furrowed brows may even be involved – and that would be the tragedy in this case, because Ad Infinitum have devised a dazzling, high octane, entertaining show that everybody can appreciate. Ad Infinitum are, of course, no strangers to the Fri

Today Germany is a modern, progressive, inclusive nation, who could teach plenty of other countries a thing or two about the value of democratic institutions. Sadly, as everyone knows, it was not always that way : Hitler’s Third Reich lasted a dozen or so of their projected thousand years in the 1930’s and 40’s, but managed in that time to inflict catastrophic misery on millions of people, the detail of which is not always widely known. This included terrorising their own cit

It is November 1963. Roger Clement is a Frenchman living in New York. He works at an advertising agency and it is fair to say that he is a stickler for routine, invariably having a coffee at a favoured outlet, taking the train to work, always being punctual. He has an errant secretary, though he tolerates this as she seems to aid with the creatives. His colleagues clearly appreciate him, though he is apparently somewhat anonymous, as they don’t appear to know his name. That i

Mairead (Janet Moran) and Mal (Andrew Bennet) are a 50-something Irish couple going to a wedding. They have been together for 2 decades or more, with Mal having very quickly identified Mairead as the type of woman he could marry. For Mairead’s part, she recognised that Mal was a decent man. They have been close friends ever since, a true partnership, having a daughter. But, scratch the surface and all is not entirely what it seems. Mal had a heart scare, from which he came cl

Faye (Charlotte McCurry) is suffering from post-traumatic stress, following an encounter with a man who had broken into her apartment. She suffers extreme sleep deprivation and her diet of dry Rice Krispies could hardly be called balanced. The audience witness her conversations with an unseen therapist. She seems to be increasingly isolated from the outside world, having no useful family, disconnected from her only sibling. Increasingly desperate to break out from her situati

According to our protagonist, we spend 16 days a year queuing. That’s an awful lot of waiting. Busy people who are perfectly capable of decorating, gardening, cooking etc. will take short cuts, employing a gardener, or buying a ready meal. It seems, therefore, a logical extension of this idea that the neologism ‘codista’ – professional queuer – should be born. That it emanated from Italy should be even less of a surprise, given their historically legendary levels of bureaucra

The audience settle into their seats and are greeted by a set at first glance consisting trestle tables, tablecloths, rugs, lamps etc.. However, the rear part of the set immediately piques your interest. Why are there seemingly a myriad of entrances and exits, placed in a such a mundane suburban environment ? The set seems to taper away from the audience, suggestive of some modern time tunnel ; will the cast be entering a parallel universe ? And then, before we even meet the

Negotiation. It’s harder than it looks. Estate agents, brokers, banks, insurance companies, hostage specialists, Governments – people are trained in this art for a reason. The premise in Ultimatum , at first glance, appears to be simple. Two female strangers are in a room with one million pounds. They are given one hour to agree how to split the money. As long as they agree, the money is theirs, with no conditions. If they fail to agree they leave with nothing. The set is mi

Modern popular culture is awash with spy stories : James Bond, Jason Bourne, John Le Carre, Ken Follett, William Boyd et al, going back to Eric Ambler. The reality of spy operations is usually far less glamorous : painstaking, dull monitoring, reporting within a static hierarchical structure. Until we meet Denis Rake. Special Operations Executive (S.O.E.) was created during World War 2, with the fate of the free world at stake. Their role : espionage, reconnaissance, organisi