stage
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Shameless and subversive: the fringe's feminist revolutionFrom a burlesque that belittles the patriarchy to an unholy reworking of the Bible, righteous anger bubbles over into artistic brilliance at the 2016 festival
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The shows we recommendPlan your Edinburgh schedule with this digest of our tips and reviews. Shows are listed by start time -
Tim Crouch on I, MalvolioThe actor and theatre-maker had such a good time playing Malvolio in Shakespeare’s comedy that he wrote a whole show for him -
Allegro review – Rodgers and Hammerstein's doctor dances through small-town dramaThom Southerland directs the European premiere of this musical about an Everyman’s dilemma, but it’s too detached from the wider story of America
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What sorcery is this? A £140 ticket for Harry Potter play now costs £8,327Producers of West End box office hit condemn secondary ticketing websites as a ‘plague’ on desperate fans
talking points
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How the fringe is celebrating Shakespeare 400From a Dream that draws on Star Wars to a starring role for the weird sisters, there’s a bevy of Shakespeare-related shows at Edinburgh in the playwright’s quadricentenary year
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Is there an American style of standup?Edinburgh is hosting heaps of US comics including Bill Burr, Ari Shaffir and Mary Lynn Rajskub, star of TV’s 24. Do they have much in common?
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A Midsummer Night's Dream: Shakespeare's great shapeshifterThis year’s crop of Dreams – taking in Blitz spirit and colonial India – shows how Shakespeare’s comedy is fertile ground for infinite interpretation. But it is Benjamin Britten’s opera version that digs deepest into its inner strangeness
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David Hare’s versions of Platonov, Ivanov and The Seagull, now at the National Theatre in a superb production by Jonathan Kent, leave you exhilaratedYoung Chekhov is the greatest of theatrical marathons
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Paterson Joseph as Shylock: 'You call me misbeliever'Paterson Joseph speaks Shylock’s lines from The Merchant of Venice, in which the moneylender reminds Antonio of the times he has insulted him
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Damian Lewis as Antony: 'Friends, Romans, countrymen'Damian Lewis performs Antony’s funeral oration for Julius Caesar from act III, scene 2 of Shakespeare’s tragedy
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Riz Ahmed as Edmund: 'Now, gods, stand up for bastards'Riz Ahmed speaks Edmund’s soliloquy from King Lear, in which Edmund reflects upon being an illegitimate son and plots against his half-brother, Edgar
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Laura Carmichael as Portia: 'The quality of mercy'Laura Carmichael speaks Portia’s lines from the courtroom scene in The Merchant of Venice, in which she tells the moneylender Shylock to be merciful
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David Morrissey as Richard III: ‘Now is the winter of our discontent’David Morrissey speaks the opening lines from Richard III in which the scheming Richard lays out his plan to turn his brothers, Clarence and the newly enthroned King Edward IV, against each other
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Eileen Atkins as Emilia: ‘If wives do fall’Eileen Atkins speaks Emilia’s lines from Othello, act IV scene 3. Emilia, Iago’s wife and Desdemona’s maid, counsels Desdemona on marital fidelity
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A year of solos capturing dancers' fears and freedomThe choreographed portraits in a video series featuring Zenaida Yanowsky, Robert Cohan and Jonzi D create an impressionistic portrait of the profession
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How I made an impression on Alistair McGowan and Rory BremnerAnt and Dec? Perpetual laughter. Boris Johnson? Strangle the vowels. Andy Murray? Just growl. Alistair McGowan and Rory Bremner try and make a mimic of Stephen Moss
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Bad-taste merchant Mike Ward cheapens the fight for free speechThe Canadian comic is at the Edinburgh fringe with his protest show about a joke that saw him ordered to pay $42,000. It’s not a well-argued defence
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Comedians begin recital of Chilcot reportComedians kick off Iraq Out and Loud, the reading of all 6,000 pages of the Iraq war report in a small shed at the fringe
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'Booed off in 17 seconds' – comedians recall their first gigsShappi Khorsandi felt as if she’d walked on the moon. Isy Suttie watched a man change a dressing on a wound as she spoke. Omid Djalili fell off the stage. So how did the first gigs of Paul Merton, Susan Calman and other top comics go?
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Obsborne’s Entertainer still speaks to a broken BritainPremiered after the Suez crisis, Osborne’s portrait of a clapped-out music hall star mirrored a Britain in decline. Sixty years on, it continues to reflect a country questioning its place in the world
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The emotional toll of stage actingActors often take their characters’ painful experiences away with them off stage. Kate Fleetwood, Michelle Terry and Ben Miles explain how playing murderers, heroin addicts and monarchs marked them deep inside
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Dixon Place: New York City's queer theatre havenIt has hosted one of the world’s longest-running LGBTQ festivals and after 30 years, Dixon Place still makes space for the city’s avant garde performers
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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – a dazzling duel of dark and lightIt’s convoluted, but the latest expansion of the Potter universe is thrillingly staged, with time travel and age-old quests given a dash of post-Freudian guilt
pictures & video
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'Bit daunting, really': the Edinburgh standups reading Chilcot in fullAt 2.6m words it’s something of a mouthful, but John Chilcot’s Iraq war report is being tackled by comics at the 2016 fringe in a performance expected to take two weeks. Here, they explain why holding the powerful to account is ‘exactly what Edinburgh is for’
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Isy Suttie's six tips for meeting The Actual OneHow should you act when you come face-to-face with a potential partner? Make sure you’re brutally honest. Isy Suttie and Stephen Wight demonstrate six ways to check your compatibility
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Edinburgh's Deep Time spectacularThe Edinburgh international festival will be officially launched on Sunday night with a staggering outdoor artwork that delves into the city’s birth from volcanic eruptions
you may have missed
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Read a new play by James GrahamIn a new play written for the Guardian, the award-winning writer of political smashes This House and The Vote, goes inside the Brexit bunker as its sweaty-palmed task force prepares to trigger Article 50
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The View from Castle Rock review – Alice Munro stories set sail