Archive for Theatre

Shake It Up Baby! At the Epstein Theatre, Liverpool

October 13, 2025 at 3:26 pm · Filed under Theatre ·Tagged , , , , ,

Written by Ian Salmon

Directed by Stephen Fletcher

Starring Andrew Schofield

Reveiwed by Anthony C Green

Introduction

The reopening of the Epstein Theatre in September, following a two-year hiatus due to funding issues, is a cause for celebration. It’s a great little theatre, run by great people, and I hope its launch will prove to be a success.

The size of the audience on this night, with the theatre all but full, suggests it will be.

It was good to be back in one of my favourite places in Liverpool and, as a big Beatles buff, for my own return to be at the opening night and World Premier of a play based on the Beatles’ formative Hamburg period, 1960-62, was a bonus.

The play was written by Ian Salmon, who also wrote Girls Don’t Play Guitars, the story of Merseybeat all-girl group The Liverbirds. That was also promising, as I’d enjoyed that, as can be seen from my review from earlier this year Experience ‘Girls Don’t Play Guitars’ at Liverpool Royal Court | Counter Culture

As with his earlier work, the format of the play was of music performed live by local actor-musicians, interspersed with dramatised scenes, linked together by a narrative delivered by one of the central characters.

The decision to use former Beatles manager Allan Williams, played here by the excellent Ian Schofield, was a good one. Williams was an engaging local character who was never short of a witty line or anecdote or two, as can be seen in many YouTube interviews and clips.

He set the tone early, by introducing himself as ‘The man who will forever be known as The Man Who Gave Away the Beatles, which is my own fault, because that’s what I called my book’ (a very good book, which is sadly hard to find nowadays, unless you’re prepared to take out a bank loan).

Positives

That’s the first positive, excellent narration by Schofield in the voice of Williams, some fine dialogue, and the story of the period delivered more than adequately. At least, for non-Beatles buffs. Not quite so much for obsessives like me, who’ve read all the books and enjoy little more than picking up on inaccuracies. I’ll return to that later.

The music was also excellent. It can’t be east to find six young local lads who can not only act, but resemble the boys themselves (I’m counting Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best as Beatles here, because they were, in Stu’s case for a part of the period covered and in Pete’s for almost all of it) enough to at least get away with it, and who also have the musical and vocal chops to deliver excellent versions of the rock ‘n’ roll and standards covers that made up the vast majority of the band’s set at this time. But this was a task that the production team was able to deliver on.

The sparse set, a musical stage set up with suitably vintage instruments and microphones, with a small table and four chairs up centre, where non-musical scenes could be played out, worked well, as it had in Salmon’s earlier work.

Aside from Schofield, and bearing in mind that most of the cast took on multiple roles at different parts of the play, the standout performance, for me, came from Connor Simpkins as Sutcliffe.

Stu’, the talented painter and reluctant bassist who died of a brain haemorrhage aged only twenty-one in April 1962, has always fascinated me. I’ve visited his humble grave in Huyton, and even once started a Beatles Alternative History novel called Sutcliffe Remembers, based on the premise that he lived to a ripe old age, a project I hope to revisit.

It was through Stu’ that the two emotional high-points of the evening were delivered.

The first of these was when he serenaded new girlfriend, Astrid Kirchherr, with Love Me Tender.

Astrid was one of the three ‘Exis’ (short for Existentialists) along with Klaus Voorman and Jurgen Vollmer, who did so much to spread the Beatles’ appeal in Hamburg beyond that of drunken sailors and ‘women of the night’ towards a more art-school type crowd. It was Astrid who took the first iconic photographs of the Beatles, and eventually provided them with their iconic ‘Mop-Top’ hairstyle.

Love Me Tender was indeed the only Sutcliffe lead vocal (that we’re aware of) included in the band’s set. Sadly, no recording of this exists, despite his sister’s attempt to pass off a string-laden version that can still be found online as genuine. Her credibility was not exactly helped when, at the height of Britpop, she ‘discovered’ a cache of ‘lost’ Lennon-Sutcliffe lyrics which she attempted to sell to Noel Gallagher…

But the rendition here sounded much as I would have expected it to sound, and to see it sung as the two gazed lovingly into one another’s eyes, with the knowledge of the fate that awaited him, was genuinely touching.

Emotional punch number two was the moment, as the band returned once more to Hamburg, came when Astrid broke it to John (played by Michael Hawkins) that Stu’, arguably the first of three Lennon artistic soul mates, Stu, Paul and Yoko, was dead.

Arguably, dramatic power might have been added by seeing John’s reportedly hysterical reaction, which was so extreme that those present didn’t know whether he was laughing or crying, enacted on stage. But hearing Astrid’s words, a postscript from Williams and then a final song before the interval dedicated by John to his ‘best friend’ was powerful enough.

It was nice to see some rather neglected figures in early Beatles lore portrayed. This was especially true of Williams’ first wife, Chinese Beryl (‘Chinese’ because his second wife was also called Beryl – Allan seemed to have very niche requirements when it came to his spouses), because she did indeed play an important role in securing the Beatles work at this time, and was probably the level-headed sidekick that Scouse Del-Boy Williams required.

Beryl was well depicted by Jess Smith.

It would have been nice to see Mona Best, Pete’s mum, similarly portrayed, as she too was an important figure in this period. But so were a lot of people, and you can’t have everything.

Overall, both in terms of music and acting/dialogue, the play is a solid, enjoyable ensemble piece.

Negatives

I should preface this section by acknowledging that I’m not really the ideal audience for a show like this. If you’re a casual Beatles fan, and/or a fifties rock ‘n’ roll aficionado, then the likelihood is that you will leave the theatre happy and appreciative, and with substantially more knowledge about the Beatles in Hamburg than you did previously.

But we Beatles buffs are a pedantic bunch, and a lack of attention to detail can have a disproportionately negative effect on our enjoyment of any portrayal of the band.

I could cite numerous examples from the otherwise decent early Beatles movies Backbeat and Nowhere Boy, but I won’t, other than to say that they were good films which would have been better if they’d stuck to the facts as known at the time they were made.

For this play, local early Beatles historian David Bedford (not that one) acted as ‘Beatles historical advisor’, and, to his credit, out-and-out glaring errors were rare, though I’ll mention a couple that somehow slipped through shortly.

But my main problem with the play was that the story at the centre of the Hamburg period was lost, I suspect not through a lack of knowledge, but a lack of nerve, of a willingness to take chances.

The real story in a nutshell is that the Beatles were just one of many mediocre Liverpool bands who’d transitioned from skiffle to rock ‘n’ roll at the time of their first series of Hamburg engagements in August 1960. The anecdote that the leader of Derry and the Seniors, the first of the Merseybeat groups to make the trip, objected to the Beatles being sent out because they were ‘The worst band in Liverpool’ , and as such risked ruining the scene for everyone else, is well-worn, but almost certainly true.

But, through performing six to eight hours per night, night after night, for weeks on end, fuelled by booze and ‘Prellies’ (Preludin, a readily available amphetamine pill in Germany at the time), and the constant demands to ‘Mach Schau’ (Make Show) they got better and better, broadening their stage repertoire and their stage presence, progressing through the clubs, from the depressing Indra, to the slightly better Kaiserkeller to the Top Ten, to, in their final visit in December 1962, the prestigious Star Club with each visit and, as has been mentioned, also broadening their appeal beyond the usual rowdy Reeperbahn crowd.

In the play, however, the music was just as good at the beginning as it was at the end. Thus, hearing the famous remark by Derry out of Derry and the Seniors being made after a blistering performance of Johnny B Goode or whatever was incongruous.

I can certainly see the thinking behind this. Would a theatre audience want to sit through some raw, stumbling, sub-standard versions of songs before they reached an acceptable level?

Maybe some wouldn’t. But, for the story to work, I needed to see the improvement, the transition from the ‘worst’ to the best band in Liverpool, and I think it could have been done without testing the patience of the audience too much.

The sound of the band was augmented by a girl playing an electric keyboard. I don’t have a problem with this, but having her visible stage left, playing a very late-twentieth/early-twenty-first-century instrument was an error. Surely, the intent had to be to give the impression that we really were watching the formative Beatles in action? Her presence somewhat shattered the illusion, making the necessary suspension of disbelief impossible.

The decision to have the cast play multiple roles was also problematic at times. The same actor, Nick Sheedy, transforming himself from Pete Best to Ringo Starr was fine. A quick ruffle of the hair and a deepening of the voice, and job done.

And Andrew Cowpothwaite was fine as Lord Woodbine early on. But as a black Jurgen Vollmer, the third Exi? No, sorry.

The actor who played Klaus was also good in that initial role, but I wasn’t at all convinced by his later reappearance as George Martin.

When it comes to historical inaccuracies, I only spotted two.

The first of these concerned the first time that John, Paul, George and Ringo played together on record. This did indeed happen in Hamburg in 1960, two years before Ringo became a Beatle proper. It’s also true that a drunk Williams left his only copy of this record in the back of a Liverpool taxi. Neither this copy nor any of the other five acetates allegedly produced has ever resurfaced and would be worth a fortune today. The song in question was the old standard Summertime, though some also cite Fever and September Song as having also been recorded.

But they weren’t acting as the backing band for Rory Storm, the leader of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, the band Ringo was a member of at this time. They were backing the bass player out of that band, Lu Waters, who Williams thought he could possibly promote as a solo crooner.

The other error concerned the famous last chance ‘audition’ they did for George Martin at EMI.

Old George trotted out this anecdote for so long that there’s little doubt that he really remembered it as an ‘audition.’

But Mark Lewisohn’s epic Tune In, volume one of his planned three-volume Beatles biography, 1700 pages, and only up to January 1963, proved beyond doubt, with primary documentation, that it wasn’t an audition at all. The Beatles had already been signed, on the strength of the publishing rights to John and Paul’s original material.

I suppose, such things don’t matter much in the scheme of things, and I get poetic licence and all that, but I don’t see much value in continuing to recycle old tales once they’ve been shown to be inaccurate. Even if only a tiny percentage of the audience is able to spot such things, the appreciation of that tiny percentage adds a depth to a work which is otherwise lacking.

 Conclusion

As far as I’m aware, all Beatles films, plays etc have concentrated on the early days, when they were mostly a covers band, because of the notorious difficulty in getting the necessary permission to feature original Beatles material. So, it was a nice surprise when, as an encore, we were treated to a medley of Beatlemania period hits, I Want To Hold Your Hand/From Me To You/Please, Please Me/I Saw Her Standing There.

I’m not sure how the producers swung this, but I’m glad they did. The Beatles in their first flush of British fame, was a good place to end, and the performance looked and sounded authentic, and had most of the audience on its feet.

I still wish we’d seen something of the process of how they got from Point A to Point B in a mere thirty months, but, as I’ve said, I suppose I’m not really the target audience.

A good night out.

The play concludes its run at the Epstein on 11th October, but will no doubt be appearing at a theatre near you soon.

Anthony C Green, October 2025

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Artistic Obsession and Despair in Hunger

August 21, 2025 at 10:26 am · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , , ,

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The stage adaptation based on Knut Hamsun’s Hunger is a raw, unrelenting descent into the mind of a man undone by poverty and obsession. From the opening moments, where the Writer looks back at Oslo (then Kristiania) as he sails for England, the production plants us in the uneasy space between memory and creation. What unfolds is not simply the story of physical hunger, though that is always present, but the spiritual hunger of a man who longs to transform the chaos of his suffering into literature. This tension between torment and creativity drives the piece forward, and the audience is asked to endure the same turbulence of mind and body as the Writer himself.

Two performers on stage holding different handmade masks, with dramatic lighting highlighting their faces.

Roland Reynolds takes on the role of the Writer, and his performance is nothing short of magnetic. He begins with energy and confidence, full of the hopeful arrogance of youth, but as hunger and humiliation corrode his spirit, we see him unravel with painful precision. Reynolds gives us a man torn between lofty artistic dreams and the cruel demands of survival, and he makes the audience feel every pang of his descent. Around him, Zaza Bagley, Angel Lopez-Silva, and Anastasiya Zinovieva each step into multiple characters with fluid ease. At times comic, at others brutal, they shape the shifting landscape through which the Writer stumbles—landladies, sailors, strangers, and the enigmatic Ylajali all appear and vanish in their hands, adding to the hallucinatory feel of the piece.

Visually and physically, the production is relentless. Movement is choreographed to reflect the pulse of a restless city and the jolts of a nervous system under siege. At times the stage feels like a crowded street, full of noise and agitation, and at other moments it collapses into stark silence and stillness, a reflection of the Writer’s isolation. Lighting and sound deepen the hallucinatory quality, sometimes overwhelming in their intensity, at other times fading into shadow as the character drifts further from reality. The piece offers no easy relief or moments of sentimentality; instead, it insists on immersing the audience in the exhausting repetition of despair, humiliation, and fleeting hope that defines the Writer’s days.

What gives the production its force is its absolute refusal to soften the source material. This is not an easy watch, nor is it designed to be. It is as if the audience is being asked to inhabit hunger itself: the gnawing absence, the disorientation, the obsession with scraps of food or words or moments of connection that quickly turn sour. That relentlessness is both the production’s greatest strength and, at times, its weakness. Some might long for a pause, a breath, a moment of counterpoint that never comes. Yet to insert such relief might betray the integrity of Hamsun’s vision, which is about the endurance of suffering without escape.

There is, too, an unease that hangs over the work because of Hamsun himself. His later support for fascism and Nazism casts a long shadow, and the adaptation does not explicitly engage with that fact. For some, this absence may feel like a glaring omission. But perhaps the choice is deliberate: to focus solely on the psychological terrain of Hunger, rather than the politics of its author. The result is a piece that remains faithful to the original novel’s intensity while leaving the ethical questions hovering unspoken in the background.

In the end, Hunger is both a brutal endurance test and a strangely exhilarating work of theatre. It strips away comfort, forcing the audience to confront the raw edges of desperation and the dangerous allure of artistic obsession. Reynolds holds the stage with a performance of fragile brilliance, while Bagley, Lopez-Silva and Zinovieva conjure a city that both feeds on him and reflects his collapse. Watching it is not a pleasant experience, but it is a powerful one, and it lingers long after the lights fade. As if to underline that impact, Richard Demarco himself was in the audience, shouting “Bravo!” at the end—a fitting endorsement from a man who has championed challenging art for decades. It is a mirror held up to anyone who has ever felt unseen, unwanted, or consumed by the need to create, and it leaves you shaken by its honesty.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

More information and tickets here

Read an interview with Roland Reynolds here

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Exploring Madness in Paperlight Theatre’s Caligari

August 20, 2025 at 7:11 am · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Theatre ·Tagged , , , ,

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Paperlight Theatre’s Caligari takes the 1920 silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and reshapes it into something strange, witty, and unsettling. It keeps the expressionist spirit of the original but adds humour, modern touches, and a knowing edge. What might have been a simple retelling becomes a theatrical experiment that unsettles and amuses in equal measure.

The performers involve the audience from the beginning. They break the fourth wall, step out of character, and share the mechanics of the play. For many this gave the show a fresh spark, a sense of intimacy. For others it may have felt jarring. But it worked, for me, as a way of pulling us into the bizarre world being created. The police were played for laughs, bumbling, ineffective, figures of satire, which added to the sense of rebellion and increased the sense of helplessness and drift.

A stylized puppet figure stands in front of the title 'CALIGARI', evoking themes of manipulation and expressionism.

The piece did not lose sight of its darker roots. The theme of circularity ran through it, with characters repeating themselves as though trapped in a nightmare loop. This echoed the unease of the original film and gave the show a dreamlike, haunting quality. Yet one weakness was the depiction of Caligari himself. In the film his obsession was clear, half-academic curiosity, half madness. Here his motivation was less sharp, leaving a gap at the centre. Nonetheless, Tyler Raines delivers a chilling glimpse of a manipulative mad man.

Even with that flaw, the staging was inventive, the play of light and shadow effective, and the cast strong. The whole thing had a surreal atmosphere, laced with comedy and unease. You leave amused and unsettled, with the sense that the madness and manipulation of Caligari is not so far from our own time. It is more than homage—it is a clever, memorable reinvention of a classic story, well suited to the spirit of the Fringe.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

More information and tickets here

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Achilles, Death of the Gods – Edinburgh Fringe 2025

August 18, 2025 at 10:14 pm · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Theatre ·Tagged , , ,

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Jo Kelen’s Achilles, Death of the Gods is a work of stripped-back theatre that puts one performer centre stage and demands our full attention. She commands it from the first moment. Through voice and gesture alone she conjures a whole world of war, love and grief. It is difficult to take your eyes off her. Each shift in tone or movement brings a new character into the space, whether Achilles raging in battle, Patroclus offering tenderness, or Briseis speaking of the horrors endured by women in war. Without props or spectacle, Kelen holds the audience in the palm of her hand.

The story is well known, but here it becomes something more than myth. At its heart lies the question of choice. Achilles chooses to seek vengeance and it leads to desecration and destruction. Later he chooses to relent, and that moment too has consequences. Every action reverberates, reshaping lives and altering destinies. Kelen makes this theme clear without ever lecturing us. Instead, it emerges naturally in the flow of storytelling, as we watch each decision tighten the knot of tragedy.

This is not an easy piece, nor is it meant to be. The language is lyrical and often brutal, with images of violence and violation that are hard to hear. Yet within this darkness lies a kind of honesty, a reminder that actions carry weight and that power unchecked corrodes the soul. By the end, we are left with more than a retelling of Homer. We are left reflecting on our own lives, our own choices, and the shadows they cast. It is powerful spoken-word theatre, delivered with an intensity that lingers long after you leave the snug confines of Paradise in Augustines.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

Tickets and more information here

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Review: Fun at Parties – Berlin Open Theatre at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025

August 17, 2025 at 9:19 pm · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Theatre ·Tagged , , ,

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Graphic text that reads 'FUN AT PARTIES' in a translucent, bubble-like style, set against a black background.

Performed by a diverse, Berlin-based ensemble, the production uses costume changes to signal character shifts, with four actors portraying a wide range of roles. This fluidity reflects the transient nature of club culture, though it occasionally leaves the audience grasping for narrative clarity. Breakout monologues punctuate the action, offering glimpses into personal histories and emotional stakes, but the lack of a strong throughline can make the piece feel fragmented. Still, the staging and lighting are evocative, capturing the neon-soaked intensity of Berlin’s nightlife with flair.

Berlin Open Theatre’s Fun at Parties is a kinetic, emotionally charged exploration of the city’s legendary club scene, where the pursuit of euphoria collides with the realities of burnout, legacy, and cultural preservation. Set in the underbelly of Berlin nightlife, the play follows a rotating cast of organisers and partygoers—some chasing transcendence on the dancefloor, others fighting to keep the dream alive for future generations. The show’s premise is clear: while the music thunders and bodies move, the real drama unfolds behind the scenes, where community, identity, and exhaustion intertwine.

What makes Fun at Parties compelling is its refusal to romanticise the scene. Instead, it interrogates the emotional labour of those who build and sustain spaces of joy. The all-female cast brings depth and nuance to a world often flattened into cliché, portraying friendship, vulnerability, and resilience with raw honesty. This is not just a celebration of club culture—it’s a reckoning with its costs and its legacy.

For anyone who’s ever danced till dawn or wondered what it takes to keep the music playing, Fun at Parties is a must-see. It’s a love letter to the scene, written in sweat, light, and longing.

Reviewed by Maria Camara

More information and tickets here

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Fringe Review: Iago Speaks

August 17, 2025 at 4:36 pm · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , , , , ,

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Iago Speaks is a riotous, resonant post-Othello two-hander that gives voice to one of Shakespeare’s perpetual shadows: the jailer. A stock figure who lingers at the edges of tragedy—arriving too late, speaking too little—he’s reimagined here as a philosophical clown, a reluctant midwife to Iago’s final confession. Daniel Macdonald’s script is both homage and critique: it honours the Bard’s architecture while gleefully dismantling its hierarchies.

Promotional image for the play 'Iago Speaks,' featuring two male actors in vibrant costumes, with bold text overlay displaying the title and a review highlight.

Joshua Beaudry’s Jailer is the soul of the piece. He stumbles, cajoles, philosophizes, and—at one point—professes love to a bewildered audience member, a moment that had me laughing out loud. His register shifts are dazzling: Shakespearean gravitas one moment, crude vernacular the next, always with a glint of mischief. He’s one of “the others” in Shakespeare—the unnamed, the unacknowledged—and his growing awareness of this status gives the play its emotional charge. He’s not just comic relief; he’s a someone developing an understanding of power in society.

Skye Brandon’s Iago is true to form: a master manipulator whose weapon is language. In Othello, he engineers tragedy through insinuation and rhetorical sleight of hand—planting the handkerchief, whispering doubts, and coaxing Othello into murderous certainty. Here, he remains coiled and calculating, his silence broken not by remorse but by provocation. Brandon plays him with snake-like charm—amiable on the surface, but always circling the truth with menace.

The language play is exquisite. Macdonald’s script gallops through slapstick, existential dread, and dramatic irony, never losing its rhythm. It’s a world where words are weapons, lifelines, and punchlines—and the audience is invited to wield them too.

Whether you’re a Shakespeare devotee or a Fringe wanderer, Iago Speaks is a must-see. It’s funny, philosophical, and fiercely original—a celebration of the overlooked, the absurd, and the power of words and their danger.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

More information and tickets here

Read our interview with Daniel Macdonald here

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Supermarket 86: A Raw Exploration of Female Friendships

August 15, 2025 at 5:57 pm · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , ,

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Supermarket 86 – Dream House | theSpace @ Surgeons Hall

In the flickering fluorescence of a small-town convenience store, Supermarket 86 unfolds like a memory half-recalled—warm, awkward, and tinged with regret. It’s 2007, and a blizzard has swept through Ithaca, New York, closing the roads and trapping five young women overnight in a supermarket that feels more like a liminal space than a retail outlet. What begins as a weather-induced inconvenience becomes a crucible for confession, confrontation, and quiet catharsis.

Mia Pelosi’s script is deceptively gentle. It doesn’t shout its themes—it lets them seep in slowly, like the chill through the automatic doors that never quite close. As Rose, the weary cashier with a voice like gravel softened by honey, Pelosi anchors the piece with a performance that’s all restraint and resonance. Her ex walks in just before the power cuts, and the emotional voltage spikes. What follows is a series of revelations—some whispered, some shouted—that feel earned, even when the plot leans on coincidence.

The ensemble cast includes four other women—Jules, Tasha, Lena, and Morgan—each drawn with care and played with conviction. They blow in with the storm, bringing unresolved histories, half-healed wounds, and the kind of emotional shorthand that only comes from years of shared summers and broken promises. The chemistry between them is electric—so natural, so unforced, it feels less like theatre and more like eavesdropping. Their dialogue crackles with authenticity: half-finished sentences, private jokes, and moments of silence that speak louder than words.

A young woman sitting at a supermarket counter, looking contemplative, with shelves of products in the background and a snowy effect overlay, promoting the play 'Supermarket 86'.

For some audience members—particularly men—there’s a voyeuristic thrill to this intimacy. All five characters are female, and the show offers a rare window into the emotional terrain of young women navigating identity, legacy, and longing. It’s not exploitative, but it does evoke the same curiosity that once made Cosmopolitan a guilty pleasure for male readers: a sense of listening in on conversations not meant for them, and being moved by what they hear.

Director Ellie Aslanian keeps the staging tight and intimate, using the confines of the Stephenson Theatre to evoke both claustrophobia and closeness. The set—a lovingly cluttered supermarket aisle—becomes a metaphor for emotional detritus: the things we carry, the things we discard, and the things we pretend not to see.

What elevates Supermarket 86 beyond its premise is its emotional honesty. It’s a play about young women navigating the messy terrain of friendship, grief, and self-definition. It’s about the stories we tell ourselves to survive, and the ones we finally dare to share when the night is long and the exits are blocked.

The show never overreaches. It stays grounded in the human, the awkward, the tender. And in doing so, it reminds us that even the most ordinary places—a supermarket, a snowstorm, a game of “Truth or Dare”—can become sacred when we choose to show up fully.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

Tickets and more information here We interviewed Mia Pelosi here

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Abhorrent Little Scrotum – Edinburgh Fringe Review

August 15, 2025 at 7:59 am · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Theatre ·Tagged , , , , , ,

Fragen Network’s Abhorrent Little Scrotum is a surreal, darkly comic cyber-thriller that slips between physical theatre, psychological depth, and the destabilising hum of digital disorientation. It’s a tight, intense piece that asks what happens when technology not only rewrites reality, but rewires the self.

We meet Jack, a hacker in freefall after a personal collapse, who dives into “The Experience”—a shifting, hallucinatory mindscape—to save her friend Dari (Angel Lopez-Silva) from a mental virus. The rescue mission is part friendship, part obsession. Dari’s grip on reality is slipping, but so is Jack’s. As the hunt deepens, what’s real, what’s virtual, and what’s imagined blur until they’re indistinguishable. The piece thrives on this instability, using movement, sound, and fractured dialogue to immerse the audience in a space where betrayal feels inevitable and identity is never fixed. Some of the physicality is deliberately unsettling—stabbing, strangulation, and sudden bursts of violence punctuate the action, reinforcing the sense of threat and instability.

The tone is part neo-noir cyberpunk fever dream, part intimate character study. Fragen Network’s trademark high-energy movement and razor wit—seen in Blush of Dogs and Hell Yes I’m Tough Enough—is sharpened here into something more personal. It’s a complex, demanding show that requires the audience to think hard about what it’s depicting. At times it’s more thought-provoking than entertaining, and its ambiguity will frustrate some while fascinating others. The performers are an ensemble cast, the role of Dari is performed by Anastasiya Zinovieva. ,Angel Lopez-Silva plays Brittl Hardware, who is working with Jack (whose alter-ego Herbert is helping him get into the Experience, played by Zaza Bagley. They deliver layered, committed performances that ground the surreal visuals and shifting realities in raw, emotional truth. This is theatre that keeps you guessing—sometimes uncomfortably so—long after you’ve left the theatre

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

More information and tickets here

Read our interview with the Director, Roland Reynolds here

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Exploring the Spiritual Depth of Mayuri Bhandari’s Performance

August 15, 2025 at 6:48 am · Filed under Dance, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Music, Spirituality/Philosophy, Theatre, Yoga ·Tagged , , , , ,

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The Anti-Yogi reviewed 510 words, 3 minutes read time.

Mayuri Bhandari’s latest performance is part rallying cry, part spiritual challenge, and wholly engaging theatre. It does far more than showcase yoga as a physical practice—it digs deep into its philosophical roots, confronting the audience with uncomfortable but necessary questions. Bhandari places the principles of truthfulness and non-violence at the centre, not as abstract ideals but as urgent, living demands. She challenges us to consider whether these tenets survive intact in their Western incarnations, or whether they have been compromised, commodified, and stripped of their original depth. Her presence on stage radiates conviction, making it impossible to leave without questioning our own relationship to authenticity.

A digital artwork depicting a half-human, half-deity figure that merges elements of a woman and the goddess Kali, showcasing the duality of beauty and power. The left side features a human face with Indian jewelry, while the right side represents Kali with a blue skin tone and traditional adornments against a fiery background.

From the opening moments, it is clear that physicality is at the heart of this work. Bhandari moves with an astonishing blend of grace and power—one moment her gestures are fluid, almost meditative; the next, they are sharp, deliberate, and charged with the energy of Kali herself. Her dance is not simply a visual accompaniment to her words but an extension of them, embodying themes of resistance, destruction, and renewal. She engages the audience not just with what she says but with what she shows us through her body—every pose, turn, and gaze is deliberate, rooted in centuries-old traditions yet alive with contemporary urgency.

The live percussion from Neel Agrawal gives the performance an additional pulse—sometimes steady and grounding, sometimes urgent and insistent. His drumming doesn’t dominate; it listens and responds. There’s a visible and unspoken rapport between him and Bhandari, each reading the other’s energy in real time. This connection creates a sense of ritual unfolding before our eyes, where sound and movement merge into a single, living language. The rhythms carry the audience through the performance’s shifting emotional landscapes, from moments of fierce defiance to quiet, reflective stillness.

Traditional Indian elements are woven throughout, not as decorative tokens but as integral to the narrative. Reflections on Kali’s role in social justice give the work both gravitas and edge, allowing Bhandari to explore the goddess’s dual nature as destroyer and liberator. She uses this to confront the contradictions in how yoga is practised and sold in the West—how a tradition that calls for selflessness can become a lifestyle brand; how a path to liberation can be packaged in Lululemon bags. Humour cuts through the intensity at just the right moments, never diluting the message but reminding us that joy and resistance can coexist.

By the final moments, the audience has not only been entertained but invited into a process of reflection—about cultural appropriation, decolonisation, and the kinds of communities we wish to build. Bhandari’s performance is both a call to action and an act of preservation, reclaiming yoga’s ethos from the grip of commercialism and returning it to a place of depth, integrity, and connection. It’s a reminder that yoga’s truest form is less about the mat beneath your feet and more about how you move through the world once you step away from it.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

You can find more information and buy tickets here

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‘What If We Did?’ A Satirical Take on Modern Politics

August 14, 2025 at 5:41 pm · Filed under Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2025, Theatre ·Tagged ,

Five black stars on a white background, representing a five-star rating.

Minotaur Theatre Company’s I’m Not Saying We Should, But What If We Did? grabs its audience by the lapels from the opening moments and doesn’t let go for its brisk 50-minute run. On the surface, it’s a playful absurdist comedy about two aspiring leaders, Maud and Agnes, who appear on a Saturday night chat show to announce a radical proposal: banning men. But beneath the smeared lipstick, slapstick chaos, and clownish costumes lies a sharply observed critique of modern politics, the cult of personality, and the media’s role in amplifying both.

Two women in white dresses performing energetically on chairs in a theatrical setting, symbolizing a playful and chaotic atmosphere.

The dialogue is fast, layered, and deliberately overlapping – a rhythm that mimics real television panel shows and talk radio debates, where wit and dominance are measured in how quickly you can jump in before someone else. This choice, far from being a gimmick, intensifies the realism and keeps the pace electric. It’s a device that works hand-in-hand with the satire: in a world where soundbites and spectacle win over reasoned argument, Maud and Agnes thrive, escalating their proposals into a carnival of half-serious policies and performative outrage. The absurdist flashbacks punctuate the action, deepening the comedy while underlining the dangerous slipperiness of populist rhetoric.

By the time the show descends into drenched mayhem – the physical embodiment of their spiralling ideas – the audience has been taken on a journey that’s as unsettling as it is entertaining. The parallels to contemporary politics are impossible to miss: when celebrity leaders can be voted into power on a mix of bravado, charm, and absurd promises, how far-fetched is the notion that a pair of clown-painted activists could capture the public imagination? It’s satire with bite, performed with fearless energy. For anyone interested in how spectacle can distort democracy, this is a smart, funny, and uncomfortably relevant watch.

Reviewed by Pat Harrington

More information and tickets here

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