EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: TIFF STEVENSON: MOTHER, Monkey BarrelAugust 27, 2019Person of interest on Mock The Week, People Just Do Nothing and The Bugle squats and delivers a show about the extreme sport of womanhood. Birthing her vision of the future before your eyes, how she hopes it will be... free from class war, poverty and consent issues. Also dragging the overdue spectre of what it is more likely to be: t-shirt feminism, Jordan Peterson and corporate wokeness from her loins. All without an epidural.
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: JEN BRISTER: UNDER PRIVILEGE, Monkey BarrelAugust 27, 2019Brister has it all: a wife, kids, a house and a job she loves (sometimes) so what the hell is she moaning about? Join Jen as she takes an irreverent look at the often controversial subject of 'privilege'. Who has it? Who doesn't? And why does no one like to admit they have any?
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: BIBLE JOHN, PleasanceAugust 26, 20191969 at the Barrowlands Ballroom in Glasgow, three women are murdered by an Old Testament-quoting serial killer, nicknamed Bible John. He's never been caught. 2019, four women bound by their obsession with true crime want to change that. Immersing themselves in the world of Bible John and his victims, they try to solve the case, once and for all. A riotous, furious, joyful exploration of violence, gender and one of Scotland's darkest mysteries.
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: LEAVE A MESSAGE, Gilded BalloonAugust 27, 2019Two friends, Ed and Sarah, travel to the small squalid bedsit where Ed's father passed away a few days earlier. As they wade through the debris, the fragments of one lost life begin to coalesce, just as another starts to show signs of cracking. Will we be remembered for anything more than the mess we leave behind? Either way, the carpet is beyond saving. A brand-new play, based on an actual afternoon.
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: THE WASP, GreensideAugust 26, 2019A gripping electric thriller, exploring the far-reaching, unexpected and devastating effect childhood bullying can wreak. Gasp-inducing moments between former schoolmates twist and turn in this tense, often darkly comedic, and ultimately shocking female two-hander.
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: SASHA ELLEN: PICKLE, UnderbellyAugust 25, 2019From disastrous dates, to ruining weddings, to causing whole islands to go into a state of emergency, Sasha Ellen chalks it all up to being a bit of a pickle. A storytelling stand-up show about romantic misadventures on an epic scale. A friendly romcom featuring an engagement, a missing person and a near catastrophe which explores love, loss and sexy, sexy helicopter pilots.
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: ELECTRIC, UnderbellyAugust 24, 2019Baby wipes, glitter and cans at the ready, Joni and Scarlett head off on their respective weekends. From two sides of Dublin City, the pair unexpectedly meet in the neon fields of Irish music festival Electric Picnic. Hysterically riotous and soul-stirring, Electric probes our innate prejudices and preconceived notions of who we are while taking you on the session of a lifetime!
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: YUCK CIRCUS, UnderbellyAugust 26, 2019Winner: Top-tier Fringe World Martin Sims Award 2019. Winner: Adelaide Tour-Ready Award 2019. Winner: Best Circus Fringe World Weekly 2019. Sugar, spice, and apparently 'nice'. With our bloody good sense of humour, we're going to rip into the uncomfortable using high-flying acrobatics, absurd confessions and groovy dancing. Get ready to witness a powerhouse of female circus performers kick art in the face.
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: COTTON FINGERS, SummerhallAugust 25, 2019Aoife's hungry and bored. Cillian makes a mean cheese toastie. As boredom and hunger are satisfied by half an hour in Cillian's bed, Aoife's life changes forever. As social and political upheaval grips her country, what hope does Aoife have to regain control? A timely, politically-charged show written by award-winning writer Rachel Trezise at the time of the historic referendum of the eighth amendment in Ireland, Cotton Fingers takes us on a journey from Belfast to Cardiff.
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: STIFF AND KITSCH: BRICKING IT, PleasanceAugust 23, 2019Musical Comedy Award winners 2018 sing about everything keeping them awake at night: tax, wooden cutlery and the consequences of last night's eight double G&Ts. Each. From the creators of the hit show, Adele Is Younger Than Us, Stiff and Kitsch: Bricking It is a story of life's favourite fears, told through one big night out and one miserable morning after. Everyone's scared of something, but there's safety in numbers: maybe we'll be braver together.
BWW Review: AMELIE, King's Theatre, GlasgowAugust 20, 2019A story of an astonishing young woman who lives quietly in the world, but loudly in her mind. She secretly improvises small, but extraordinary acts of kindness that bring happiness to those around her. But when a chance at love comes her way, Amélie realises that to find her own contentment she'll have to risk everything and say what's in her heart.
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: CRYSTAL RASMUSSEN PRESENTS THE BIBLE 2, UnderbellyAugust 20, 2019After a swift rise to fame with her Nobel-nominated book Diary of a Drag Queen, DENIM's Crystal is back. Bringing her pages to life through song, dance and writhing around in a children's swimming pool. A tour-de-force show of a lifetime, 108-year-old Crystal reveals how to escape shame, escape the debt collector and escape James Franco who has been obsessed with her since 1996.
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: AMERICA IS HARD TO SEE, UnderbellyAugust 20, 2019This daring new play uses a blend of verbatim interviews, Methodist hymns and original songs to investigate the lives in and around Miracle Village, a rural American community for sex offenders buried deep in Florida's sugar cane fields.
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: JESSICA FOSTEKEW: HENCH, Monkey BarrelAugust 20, 2019Absolute powershed and regular host of The Guilty Feminist, Jessica Fostekew explores her big strong strength. Have you ever watched a feminist try and take 'hench' as a compliment? It's like watching a snake eat but funny. In preview, Hench was nominated for Best Show at the Leicester Comedy Festival. You've seen Jess in BBC sitcoms Motherland and Cuckoo and BAFTA Award-winning drama Three Girls. She's also in forthcoming feature films: Gavin Hood's Official Secrets and Michael Winterbottom's Greed. She writes for 8 out of 10 Cats.
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: LADYBONES, PleasanceAugust 20, 2019Archaeologist Nuala unearths a skeleton and her ordered life starts to unravel. Digging into the mystery of the bones, can she handle the chaos of what she discovers? Based on personal experience, this is an uplifting and compelling story about OCD, dungarees and being weird but not a weirdo.
BWW Review: RED DUST ROAD, Lyceum, EdinburghAugust 18, 2019Growing up in 70s' Scotland as the adopted mixed raced child of a Communist couple, young Jackie blossomed into an outspoken, talented poet. Then she decided to find her birth parentsa??
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: JENNY BEDE: THE MUSICAL, Just the TonicAugust 18, 2019Classically trained in musical theatre, comedian, writer and actor Jenny Bede is tired of waiting around for her perfect role. However, much like nationalism and Greggs, musical theatre is having a bit of a moment. Naturally, Jenny wants in on the action.
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: FATTY FAT FAT, PleasanceAugust 18, 2019Ever feel like your body takes up too much space in a world that doesn't want to make any room? Katie is fat. Pretty much always been fat, and will be fat forever. Join her in the Cha Cha Slide, munch on some crisps, and have a listen to what it's like to live in a body that people can't help have an opinion on. Fatty Fat Fat is a funny, frank and provocative solo show about living in a body the world tells you to hate. Leave your diet books at the door.
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: ROSE MCGOWAN: PLANET 9, AssemblyAugust 17, 2019Best-selling author, actress and activist Rose McGowan makes her debut at the Fringe. Through memoir, music, storytelling, projections and performance Rose creates a new world of possibilities: Planet 9. She invites the audience on a healing journey of discovery to this new planet. The antidote to all that is earthbound, from here we can see Earth from a new perspective and learn how to create a liberated, fairer society for ourselves. Like moon dust, Rose hopes you will take a little piece of Planet 9 with you wherever you go.
EDINBURGH 2019: BWW Review: PHOEBE ROBINSON: SORRY, HARRIET TUBMAN, AssemblyAugust 15, 2019Best known as the co-creator and co-star of hit podcast 2 Dope Queens, interviewing the likes of Jon Stewart, Tig Nataro and Michelle Obama to name just a few. Phoebe is also a New York Times best-selling author of You Can't Touch My Hair & Other Things I Still Have To Explain and her second book Everything's Trash, But it's Okay and stars in Netflix film Ibiza and Paramount's What Men Want. Sorry, Harriet Tubman marks her UK stand up debut.