I’ll Be Seeing You –  ★★★★★  – Dazzling Pitlochry Festival Theatre  22 Sept – 11 Oct Review by Rebecca Mahar   What if Liberace walked into a play about Liberace? asks Martin Sherman’s new play  I’ll Be Seeing You . Full of grit, glamour, and unexpected existentialism, the answer can be found at Pitlochry Festival Theatre, where Fra Fee, Simon Russell Beale, and Sherman himself confront the legacy of Mr. Showmanship. Simon Russell Beale as Liberace and Fra Fee as the Writer. Pic: Tiu Makkonen. The Writer (Fee) begins the play with a tirade about Liberace, how he hates him and the dishonest way he lived, publicly denying his homosexuality— and yet now he, the Writer, has been commissioned to write a play about Liberace (“by an obscure little theatre in the Scottish Highlands… you wouldn’t have heard of it”), so what’s he to do? Approach his subject from the dishonesty angle, of course, concentrating on the trial in which Liberace sued the  Daily Mirror ...

A History of Paper –  ★★★★★  – Phenomenal    Pitlochry Festival Theatre & Dundee Rep 9-12 Sept (Pitlochry), 16-19 Sept (Dundee) Review by Rebecca Mahar   A History of Paper  at Pitlochry Festival Theatre, a co-production with Dundee Rep, leaves its stage littered with the insubstantial, all-important fragments of a life and its audience with tears.   A one-act musical from writer Oliver Emanuel and composer Gareth Williams,  A History of Paper  encounters He (Alan Cumming) and She (Shirley Henderson), looking through a box of papers —memories— of their life together, and their time cut short. This musical begins in Glasgow on the eve of the millennium, December 1999, after He’s had a bad breakup and She shoves a note through his door telling him to turn down his music. He sends back a note folded in the shape of a rose; She agrees to go to dinner with him, where He folds a Pizza Express menu into a paper crane; and the rest is history. Al...

Bacon -  ★★★★☆ - Raw Hunchback of Notre Dame -  ★★★★☆ - Visceral And Before I Forget I Love You, I Love You -  ★★★★★ - Extraordinary Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33): Wed 19 – Sat 29 Aug 2026 Review by Rebecca Mahar Review commissioned by, and originally published on All Edinburgh Theatre, 1 September 2026. Edited by Thom Dibdin. After thirty-four years, Pip Utton bids farewell to Edinburgh Fringe with a one-man repertory of three plays:  Bacon ,  Hunchback of Notre Dame , and  Before I Forget I Love You, I Love You . Each piece is sharply distinct in tenor and in the characters which Utton inhabits, this is a send-off which demonstrates his impressive range as an actor and writer. If there’s one thing Utton does brilliantly, it’s “the moment before.” Prior to beginning a play, a scene, a monologue, or whatever dramatic feat is to come, an actor considers the moment immediately before what is to come: what is the character’s mental, emotional, physical s...

I, Claudius - ★★★★☆ - Epic The Royal Scots Club (Venue 241): Mon 17 – Sat 22 Aug 2026 Review by Rebecca Mahar Review commissioned by, and originally published on All Edinburgh Theatre, 31 August 2026. Edited by Thom Dibdin. Local company Strawmoddie, known for their series of Terry Pratchett stage adaptations, take on ancient Rome in an ambitious two-part production of  I, Claudius , bringing the 1976 television series to the stage for the first time in this limited world-premiere run. The adaptation is penned by Strawmoddie Artistic Director Jonathan Whiteside, who directs alongside Caitlin Carter. It seeks to distil Jack Pullman’s thirteen-hour series – itself an adaptation of Robert Graves’ novels   I, Claudius   and its sequel,   Claudius the God –  into four and a half hours of theatre.   A scene from I, Claudius: Part 1. Pic: Andrew Morris. Visit All Edinburgh Theatre to read the full review !