Assembly
Russian clowns Derevo are back in town with the whimsical love story Once. Fringe favourite Gavin Robertson, always a clever theatre-maker, returns with a new piece, Escape from the Planet of the Day That Time Forgot. Attrape Moi is a contemporary circus show from Quebec, and the Australian company Casus, who did the fab Knee Deep, are back with a new piece, Driftwood. Plastic Boom are a new circus company and proteges of the brilliant Gandini Juggling so there should be no dropped balls in Water on Mars. If you like cabaret, then the Marie Antoinette-inspired Torte e Mort sounds like a winner; the same goes for Lady Rizo: Multiplied. Also under the cabaret section comes Peter and Bambi Heaven: The Magic Inside which has tickled the fancy of Australian audiences in a big way. Clean Break offer a double bill of new voices with House and Amongst the Reeds. The headphones show Last Dream (on Earth) comes with rave reviews and is part of the Made in Scotland Showcase – always a good sign – as is Cora Bissett and David Greig’s Glasgow Girls. A Streetcar Named Desire is staged by the Tumanishvili Film Actors Theatre, who have delivered in the past.
International festival
After a lacklustre few years, the theatre programme in the international festival perked up in 2015. Things look promising this year too with John Tiffany’s Tony-nominated revival of The Glass Menagerie getting its European premiere and Thomas Ostermeier’s Richard III likely to give some people the hump. The two shows that really make my mouth water are the new one from the fabulous The TEAM, Anything That Gives Off Light, which explores the pursuit of happiness, and the newest creation from the fabulously talented James Thierrée, The Toad Knew. Add to that Alan Cumming in cabaret, Vanishing Point in action with The Destroyed Room and some of the team from the Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart behind Karine Polwart’s Wind Resistance, and this is a pretty enticing goodie bag.
Forest Fringe
The full programme isn’t announced yet, but the fringe game-changers are back in their 10th year with another artist-led programme for audiences who are simply asked to pay what they can. The Out of the Blue Drill Hall of Leith Walk will be playing host to some top-flight artists including Action Hero, Jo Bannon, Rosana Cade, Dan Canham, Richard DeDomenici, Brian Lobel, Deborah Pearson, Greg Wohead and more.
Gilded Balloon
Look out for Sweet Child of Mine, in which theatre-maker Bron Batten and her parents are on stage together discussing art and what she does for a living. It comes trailing awards from Australian festivals. There is a new one from Henry Naylor: Angel tells the story of the female sniper who shot 100 jihadis. Mule is based on the story of two young women imprisoned in Peru for carrying drugs. Homelessness is explored in One Day Moko, inspired by real encounters with those living on the streets. Spoken word magicians Tongue Fu are behind Animal (Are You a Proper Person), a show about learning to live with yourself, and The Fabulous Punch and Judy Show is billed as an X-rated assault on modern masculinity.
Pleasance
Breach Theatre gave us The Beanfield last year and they are back with Tank, which is about what happens when you inject a dolphin with LSD, which apparently was popular with scientists in the 1960s. Krapp 39 is inspired by Beckett and has had success in New York, as has the film-noirish thriller Hamlet in Bed. Dublin Oldschool comes with plaudits from its native Ireland. Mask company Familie Floz return with Teatro Delusio. Fringe old-timers Red Shift adapt Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities: Blood for Blood, and newcomers Bucket Club follow up the delightful Lorraine and Alan with Fossils, a tale of monsters, facts and fictions. Not Too Tame had a hit with the pub-based show, Early Doors, which returns for another run this year as well as Electric Eden, a new party-theatre show inspired by rave culture.
Among other highlights, a Mexican woman’s fight for justice is explored in Bucket List, from the multi-talented Theatre Ad Infinitum. Theatre’s exits and entrances are the substance of the madly enjoyable Figs in Wigs show, Often Onstage. Rising playwright Phoebe Éclair-Powell, who wrote Wink, considers love and lies in Epic Love and Pop Songs, and she’s got a show at Underbelly too, Torch, which entwines songs from Patti Smith, Viv Albertine and more with stories of female experience. Brad Birch rewrites Ibsen’s Enemy of the People in En Folkefiende, and after last year’s Weekend Rockstars, Hull’s Middle Child are back with Ten Storey Love Song about the residents of a Middlesbrough tower block. Also back with a new one are DugOut with Swansong, a piece about myths, lies and being a legend in your own lunch hour. The Marked, from Theatre Temoin, looks at real-life stories of homeless people.
Summerhall
If you were to stick a pin in the Summerhall programme you would be almost certain to come up with a show that would surprise and delight in equal measure. Check out the curated programmes from Paines Plough and Northern Stage. The former includes the return of Every Brilliant Thing, alongside Luke Norris’s new comedy about manning up, Growth; Alan Harris’s Love, Lies and Taxidermy; and the off-Broadway song cycle Ghost Quartet. Katie Bonna’s All the Things I Lied About should be fun too. The Northern Stage programme includes Rash Dash’s examination of masculinity, Two Man Show; Unfolding Theatre’s Putting the Band Back Together, about revisiting lost dreams; Hannah Nicklin’s Equations for a Moving Body; and Third Angel’s 600 People, looking at our place in the cosmos.
If you enjoyed On the Run’s So it Goes, check out their latest, Tell Me Anything. The housing crisis get the Sh!t Theatre treatment in Letters to Windsor House. Kieran Hurley’s Beats was terrific so I’ve got sky-high hopes for Heads Up about three people facing up to disaster. I’ve already seen a version of FK Alexander’s I Could Go on Singing, and it’s remarkable: uplifting and gruelling in equal measure. Inspector Sands are back in Edinburgh with The Lounge, set in a care home off the A1, and Ontroerend Goed are contemplating the end of humanity in World Without Us.
Jeremy Weller’s Grassmarket Project created some memorable shows 20 years ago, and he’s back with a new true life tale, Doubting Thomas, about a man with a violent past. Annie Siddons’s tale of loneliness in Twickenham, How (Not) to Live in Suburbia, has already won fans. It Folds is an award-winning Irish piece combining the talents of Brokentalkers and the Junk Ensemble. Brilliant puppeteers Blind Summit and Hijinx collaborate on Meet Fred which explores what happens when Fred loses his “puppetry living allowance”. Us/ Them revisits the Beslan siege; Jenna Watt’s Faslane talks to those working at the Trident site and those protesting there; and the stories we tell to ourselves in the violet hour, are explored in Francesca Millican-Slater’s Stories to Tell in the Middle of the Night.
Traverse
Daniel Kitson’s Mouse: The Persistence of an Unlikely Thought is going to be the show that sells out in a twinkling, and there is tried and tested work in the RSC production of Alice Birch’s Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again, as well as Matthew Wilkinson’s My Eyes Went Dark, previously seen at London’s Finborough. If you loved Rob Drummond’s Bullet Catch as much as I did, you won’t want to miss In Fidelity which combines live onstage dating with evolutionary theory. Al Smith’s Diary of a Madman reimagines Gogol’s classic in contemporary Glasgow, continuing the Gate’s relationship with the Traverse. Mark Thomas is back with a new play, The Red Shed, about the Wakefield wooden shed that doubles as the Labour Club. Daffodils is billed as a heartbreaker hailing from New Zealand; and there’s new work too from Julia Taudevin, Panti Bliss, Adura Onashile and rising talent Ross Dunsmore, whose first full length play, Milk, is the Traverse’s headline show.
Underbelly
Underbelly’s Circus Hub on the Meadows is back, featuring among other things a new show, The Carny Dream, from the wonderful Camille O’Sullivan. There’s also young UK circus company Silver Lining with Throwback; a dance theatre piece, Imbalance, from Joli Vyaan and Jonathan Lunn; and new Australian company Here and Now, whose Perhaps Hope looks for beauty in a polluted world.
I really like the look of Manual Cinema’s Ada/Ava, which uses overhead projectors and hundreds of shadow puppets to tell a story of loss and loneliness. Other Underbelly shows of interest include Triple Threat from Lucy McCormick (one half of Getintheback of the van); Blush, written by Charlotte Josephine who wrote Bitch Boxer, which tells candid stories of revenge porn; Smoking Apple’s tale of the fishing industry, In Our Hands; Gagglebabble’s Wonderman, which gives Roald Dahl’s twisted short stories the gig-theatre treatment; and Lucy Skilbeck’s previously seen and very rewarding Joan. If you are looking for cabaret then Grumble: Sex Clown Saves the World sounds promising.
Zoo venues
Zoo venues are always worth a look, particularly if you are interested in physical theatre and dance. It’s where I’ve often had my first glimpse of young companies from Idle Motion to Little Soldier and where artists such as Verity Standen first got wider attention. Footprint’s Daniel is inspired by the story of an 18 year old found guilty of having 50,000 indecent images of children, which made waves at the National student drama festival. The Ludens Ensemble’s Macbeth: Without Words draws on silent film techniques; and The Blind Date Project is improvised every night. Look out too for StoneCrabs’ Luna Park, set in the Coney Island amusement park during the Great Depression; and Scorched, a new piece from former Total Theatre award winners Open Sky. Natalie Reckert’s solo circus show, Image – Selfie with Eggs, looks great, testing the limits of endurance without cracking.
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