A Doll's House - Duke of York Theatre, London (Young Vic Theatre Production)

This morning, I was sent a link to a razor sharp blog post by Australian broadcaster, Helen Razer entitled 'We do not make change by asking for praise about our twats, mams or makeup-free faces'. Within it she complains about feminism's change in direction, or as she calls it feminism's 'mutant daughter'.

Biding Time (Remix) - Summerhall, Edinburgh

This review was first published on The Public reviews.

Now that music as a product has been made redundant, live performance has reclaimed its rightful place as music’s home. Which makes the concept behind Biding Time (remix) seem necessary; a  hybrid between a gig and theatre, devised by a Band called Quinn, fronted by the ridiculously sexy Louise Quinn and director and writer team Ben Harrison and Pippa Bailey.

Breaking News, Summerhall, Edinburgh.

This review was first published on the public reviews.

Iceland has a reputation for producing art that is a little whimsical in nature, not to everyone’s tastes, but this reviewer is a big fan of Icelandic design, music, people and the accent. Not that there were any accents in Breaking News, created by London and Reykjavik based visual theatre company VaVaVoom.

Hag - Underbelly, Edinburgh

This review was first published on the public reviews.

We all know the rules of fairytales. You can’t have light without dark, you can’t have a hero without a villain. Baba Yaga, the narrator of The Wrong Crowd’s new show, Hag is certainly a villain. She likes to eat children, in fact she likes nothing better than tucking into a plate of child’s intestine.

Squally Showers - Zoo Southside, Edinburgh

This review was first published on the public reviews.

‘Isn’t it rich? Isn’t is queer?’, Sondheim once pondered, his lyrics ringing out from the soundtrack of  kitsch classics and dynamic synthesizers accompanying Little Bulb’s new dance show Squally Showers. He could certainly have been talking about Little Bulb, for what they lack in traditional dance skills they make up for in quirkiness.

The Islanders - Underbelly, Edinburgh.

This review was first published on The Public Reviews.

If you were a teenager in the nineties, the world of The Islanders will be familiar to you. A time when digital watches were cutting edge, making mixtapes was the meaning of true love and you shopped at second hand shops, not vintage stores.

The Love Project - Underbelly, Edinburgh

This review was first published on The Public Reviews.

If your favourite bits of the film When Harry met Sally are those gorgeous idiosyncratic scenes when the old couples reminisce about how they met, then you will thoroughly enjoy The Love Project, a charming verbatim play about love.

That is all you need to know - Zoo Southside, Edinburgh

This review was first published on the public reviews.

The shameful treatment of the recently pardoned Alan Turing is well known; mathematical genius and breaker of the enigma code, he committed suicide after being convicted for his homosexuality. Turing’s story is tragic, but That Is All You Need To Know is keen to tell the story of all of the people who contributed to breaking the code and remained silent and the impact this had upon their lives.

Big Girls don't cry: On crying at the theatre.

If you are a theatregoer, you probably had a little moment of recognition at that bit in Pretty Woman, when Julia Robert's character Vivien enjoys her first trip to the Opera and cries her eyes out (beautifully, of course). You know the bit, where an old lady asks if she enjoyed it and she replies; 'It was so good I almost peed my pants.'

No man is an island; Why so many one man shows in Edinburgh?

'No man is an island'; John Donne's popular phrase, written over 400 years, expresses the recently unpopular belief that human beings work better when they consider each other and work together. An idea that seems to ally closely to theatrical ideals of collaboration and the model of a theatre collective.

Adam Buxton, Kernel Panic, Assembly Mound, Edinburgh Fringe

This review was first published on The Public Reviews.

Adam Buxton is very popular. This might be because he is a face (or voice mostly) that we all know. With a career spanning 15 years, either performing with his company partner Joe Cornish or on various radio shows, television and film, his impishly bearded face or equally impish voice will probably be familiar to you.

Nirbhaya, Assembly Mound, Edinburgh Fringe Festival

This review was first published on the public reviews.

Rape threats have been noticeably present in Western press recently. Many female journalists are speaking out about the extent to which online rape threats have become commonplace, as  twitter exposes the reaction to equality’s gains.

Grounded - Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Fringe Festival

Many of us have felt the impact of digital advancements in the workplace, not just its affect upon employment levels, but also the feeling that the benefits of efficiency are a poor substitute for the tangibility of pen to paper, or face to face contact or the pleasures of understanding the mechanics of your instrument.

Missing - Gecko, Pleasance, Edinburgh Festival.

Gecko make me feel very nostalgic. This might be a personal thing; a younger me saw their first show 'Taylor's Dummies' when bright eyed and idealistic, so seeing them gets me reminiscing, but I hazard a guess that I am not alone.  There is something about Gecko's shows that always stirs the memories. 'Missing' is a sepia tinted show.

The Collision of Things - Move to Stand, Pleasance, Edinburgh.

There's something hard to get your grip on with the word 'thing'. It's one of those vague words that you use when you don't have anything substantial to get hold of. The set up for 'The Collision of Things' was low key and simple, a man moves into a flat in London, they drink a lot (there is a little too much drunk acting, although there was one moment of highly enjoyable drunken dancing) and chat about life and things and then...

Edinburgh Festival

I am in Edinburgh. There is a festival on. A Festival. Poor Edinburgh residents. I am finding myself just as fascinated by watching the tourists and off duty performers as I am watching the planned work on stage.