Sweeney Todd -  ★★★★☆ - Vigorous The Famous Spiegeltent (Venue 333): Tue 12 – Sun 24 Aug 2025 Review by Rebecca Mahar Review commissioned by, and originally published on All Edinburgh Theatre, 22 August 2025. Edited by Thom Dibdin. Captivate Theatre take on the Famous Spiegeltent with their production of  Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street   through the 24th, bringing Sondheim’s chilling musical, directed by Sally Lyall, to life beneath the canopy. Sweeney Todd  is one of Stephen Sondheim’s most enduring classics. With music and lyrics by Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler, the musical spins the tale of its titular barber, returning to London after many years spent in exile after having been transported for a crime he did not commit. On his return, Todd finds that his wife Lucy took poison after being assaulted by the corrupt Judge Turpin, who sentenced him, and that the judge took his then-infant daughter, Johanna, for his ward. Hazel Beattie (Mrs....

Our Martin in the Background -  ★★★☆☆ - Reflective Scottish Storytelling Centre (Venue 30a): Sun 17 – Mon 25 Aug 2025 Review by Rebecca Mahar Review commissioned by, and originally published on All Edinburgh Theatre, 22 August 2025. Edited by Thom Dibdin. Billed as “the queer love story Noël Coward didn’t write,” Mark Kydd brings new monodrama  Our Martin in the Background   for the final week of the Fringe only, on odd afternoons at the Scottish Storytelling Centre . Our Martin is written and performed by Kydd. Inspired by the David Lean film  Brief Encounter , which was itself adapted by Coward from his own earlier play  Still Life , Kydd has spun a different story of a chance meeting at a railway station into a saga of unfulfilled love. Mark Kydd in Our Martin in the Background. Pic: Laverne Edmonds. Visit All Edinburgh Theatre to read the full review !

In the Land of Eagles -  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★  – Breathtaking Natalie Allison Productions 30 Jul-25 Aug Review by Rebecca Mahar   In a Fringe debut from writer and performer Alex Reynolds,  In the Land of Eagles  sweeps into the Baby Grand at the Pleasance for a full run, capturing and breaking hearts with its intimate portrayal of family, diaspora, and coming home.   “I know what you were doing at six,” Reynolds says conspiratorially to the audience, “the age. Not the time.” And she’s off, buzzing about the stage as she retells an adventure she had at age, in the exotic wilds of the back garden and the woods beyond. And of Grandpa, who comes every week for Sunday roast, talking her out of the tree she’s climbed and making her promise, in exchange for not telling Mum, to take him on the next adventure. In the Land of Eagles. Pic: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan. Suddenly she isn’t six anymore; she’s eighteen, Grandpa is seventy-eight, and after being diagnosed with a terminal illnes...

Come From Away -  ★★★★☆ - Inspirational Assembly Rooms (Venue 20): Tue 12 – Sun 24 Aug 2025 Review by Rebecca Mahar Review commissioned by, and originally published on All Edinburgh Theatre, 21 August 2025. Edited by Thom Dibdin. Captivate Theatre bring a stirring rendition of  Come From Away   to the Bijou at Assembly Rooms through to the 24th, the Fringe debut of this groundbreaking, heart-wrenching musical. Come From Away is set in the Newfoundland town of Gander, where during the week following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, seven thousand travellers found refuge after being stranded by the closure of USA airspace. A scene from Come From Away. Pic: Captivate. Visit All Edinburgh Theatre to read the full review !

King Lear -  ★★★★★ - Unmissable Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33): 60 Pleasance EH8 9TJ Review by Rebecca Mahar Review commissioned by, and originally published on All Edinburgh Theatre, 21 August 2025. Edited by Thom Dibdin. Pip Utton is back for a thirty-first year at the Fringe with his new monodrama  King Lear , at the Pleasance Courtyard for the final two weeks of the fringe only. This latest foray into the world Shakespeare, which had its world premiere earlier this summer at Prague Fringe, is a concise and all-consuming adaptation of one of his thorniest plays. Pip Utton as King Lear. Pic: Marjolein Mooij. Visit All Edinburgh Theatre to read the full review !

A Pound of Flesh -  ★★★☆☆ - Unjustified theSpace on the Mile (Venue 29): Fri 1 – Sat 23 Aug 2025 Review by Rebecca Mahar Review commissioned by, and originally published on All Edinburgh Theatre, 18 August 2025. Edited by Thom Dibdin. Arbery Theatre brings  A Pound of Flesh , a reimagining of a Shakespeare’s  The Merchant of Venice,  to theSpace on the Mile for a full run of the Fringe in a production that asks: What if Portia never came to Venice? The Merchant of Venice  hinges its resolution on Portia’s coming to Venice, making this an intriguing question to ask. But far from simply imagining an alternate ending in which Shylock might get his bond,  A Pound of Flesh  seeks to reframe the entire story to centre on the relationship between its titular merchant, Antonio, and his dear friend Bassanio. This is an interesting choice, full of promise, but loses something in its pursuit: in “reimagining” this already tragic play as a tragedy, playwright...

Sam Blythe: Method In My Madness -  ★★★★ ★   – Exceptional   Guy Masterson – TTI presents Sam Blythe 30 Jul-24 Aug Review by Rebecca Mahar   Sam Blythe returns to the Fringe with  Method in My Madness , a one-man  Hamlet  that winds one of Shakespeare’s most famous stories up into a single hour, focused through a framing device that pierces right to the heart of the Danish prince’s most incongruous statement:  “now I am alone.”  Directed by clowning stalwart Elf Lyons, this reworked production is a shining example of great Shakespeare adaptation and solo work.   I  reviewed an earlier iteration  of this show last year for All Edinburgh Theatre, which Blythe now describes, in a recent   interview  with Paul Levy of FringeReview, as “a very embryonic version,” having previously stated that the show has undergone a “radical transformation” since then. This assertion bears out beyond expectations, with  Method in My ...

Jumper Bumps - ★★★☆☆   – Important   Emma Ruse Productions 30 Jul-24 Aug Review by Rebecca Mahar   In a playwriting debut from Perth playwright Amelia Rodger, Emma Ruse Productions bring  Jumper Bumps  to the Gilded Ballon Appleton Tower for a full run of the Fringe.   The “bumps” of the title refers to pregnancy bumps, which Eris (Rodger) imagines herself having by stuffing a jumper up her shirt. Eris desperately wants to be a mum, viewing motherhood as a woman’s highest calling and a chance to have a “redo,” making a better version of herself. Her friend and flatmate Atlanta (Katrina Allen) on the other hand has no such dreams, firmly holding to her desire to remain childfree, and the idea that “a woman doesn’t need to become a mother— it’s not our sole purpose in life.” Katrina Allen and Amelia Rodger in Jumper Bumps. Pic: Ella Hallgren.   The two young women live in amiable contradiction, but things get dicey when Eris starts dating a man refe...

Iago Speaks - ★★★★ ☆   – Fascinating   Rumpus 1-23 Aug Review by Rebecca Mahar   “Demand me nothing: what you know, you know: From this time forth I never will speak word.”   Iago’s final line in  Othello  is as fittingly enigmatic as the rest of this, Shakespeare’s most notorious villain. A riddle wrapped in a mystery wrapped in the green-eyed monster of jealousy, Iago keeps his own counsel, neither seeking to justify or explain his actions, and refusing to give his fellow characters, or the audience, the satisfaction of a tidy explanation for his heinous deeds. But what happens after the play, when everyone else is dead and Iago is taken away in chains? Joshua Beaudry and Skye Brandon in Iago Speaks. Pic: Rumpus. On the surface, this seems to be the question that  Iago Speaks  seeks to answer. Upon arrival into the space, the audience is greeted by Iago (Skye Brandon) pacing his prison cell, silent and stoic. But when the lights go down, an...

Mythos: Ragnarök -  ★★★★★   – Vegligastr/Spectacular The Mythological Theatre 1-24 Aug Review by Rebecca Mahar   Mythos: Ragnarök  blazes back into the Fringe, fresh from the Bifrǫst to the drone of bone-rattling music and the roar of the crowd. Half professional wrestling, half epic mythological storytelling, this show is the definition of spectacle.   Loki (Ed Gamester) emerges from the fog to introduce the audience to the world of the show: Ginnungagap, the yawning void, the space between the nine worlds in Norse cosmology, where the primordial Ymir spawned all the jǫtunn. Prophecy tells that when ice and fire meet and do battle the result will be Ragnarök, the end times— and right on cue Odin (Howard Drake) arrives.  Loki and Freyja in Mythos: Ragnarök. Pic: Mythological Theatre. Together Loki and Odin team up to defeat their fathers Surtr (Sam Gardiner) and Borr (Fin McCarthy), winning their kingly belts of the realms of Muspelheim (fire) and Nilfheim ...