★★★★ Philomena McGuiness arrives onstage as if stepping out of a half‑remembered photograph: a young nurse on the cusp of war, clutching her poetry like a talisman. Jasmin Gleeson gives her shape, breath, and a pulse that never falters. She moves with the brisk efficiency of someone trained to keep going even when the world is falling apart, yet she lets us see the cracks—those tiny fractures where fear, hope, and humour seep through.
Josh King’s script is quick on its feet, darting between memory and confession, and Gleeson matches it beat for beat. She has that rare ability to shift tempo without ever losing the thread. One moment she’s recounting the chaos of a London ward in 1939, the next she’s reciting a scrap of verse with a wry smile, letting poetry soften the edges of brutality. Her face does much of the heavy lifting: a tightening of the jaw, a flicker of doubt, the kind of weary half‑smile nurses wear when they’ve seen too much and still have to carry on.
The bleakness of wartime nursing is never overstated. Instead, it’s etched quietly into her posture, her pauses, the way she holds her breath before describing the wounded men she tended. Gleeson’s performance is grounded, unshowy, and deeply human. She gives Philomena dignity without sanding down her rougher corners.
If there’s a gap, it’s the absence of any real Irish cultural texture. Philomena leaves Dublin, yet Dublin never quite leaves her. The script doesn’t explore that heritage, nor the cultural weight of an Irish woman stepping into the machinery of Britain’s war effort. A few touches—a memory, a song, a phrase—would have enriched the character’s roots and sharpened her sense of displacement.
But even with that missing thread, the production holds fast. It’s intimate, tightly paced, and carried by a performer who understands how to make a solo show feel full. Gleeson keeps the audience close, never letting the energy sag, and by the end Philomena feels less like a character and more like someone you’ve genuinely met.
A quietly compelling piece of wartime storytelling, lifted by a strong central performance.
★★★★★ A sharply observed, meticulously researched and often darkly funny portrait of Peter Mandelson, delivered through a performance of such precision that it becomes less an impersonation and more an act of political possession. Richard Stirling doesn’t just play Mandelson — he inhabits him.
Mandy: Prince of Darkness is a one‑man political biography told from inside the mind of one of the most enigmatic figures in modern British politics. Stirling structures the piece around Mandelson’s own recollections, justifications and rhetorical flourishes, anchoring each chapter of his career with projected headlines and dates behind him. It’s a simple device, but an extremely effective one: the audience is never left drifting. Every scandal, every comeback, every resignation is pinned to a moment in time.
The effect is cumulative. You begin to realise just how many times Mandelson fell, rose, fell again, and rose again — until finally, as the show concludes, he meets the one scandal he cannot return from.
Performance: A Masterclass in Political Mannerism
Richard Stirling’s performance is the engine of the show, and it is extraordinary. He captures Mandelson’s mannerisms with forensic accuracy: the sly, fox‑like half‑smile; the careful modulation of tone; the way he leans into a phrase as if it were a tool he’s about to use.
But the real brilliance lies in the switches. When Mandelson quotes Tony Blair, Stirling shifts instantly — a recognisable Blair arm‑and‑hand gesture, the slight lift in vocal timbre, the earnestness that borders on sermonising. It’s subtle, funny, and deeply effective. He doesn’t break character; he folds Blair into Mandelson, showing how the two men lived inside each other’s political space.
This is mimicry at its highest level: not caricature, but observation.
Language, Manipulation & the Limits of Persuasion
One of the show’s most interesting threads — and one that came through strongly in your reflections — is the tension between Mandelson’s linguistic brilliance and the public’s instinctive scepticism.
Stirling presents Mandelson as a master manipulator of language: elegant phrasing, polished argument, the kind of rhetorical charm that can make nonsense sound like strategy. But even at his most persuasive, there’s a sense that ordinary people can smell when something isn’t quite right. The show captures that beautifully. You hear the justification, you admire the craft, but you don’t buy the conclusion.
It’s a portrait of a man whose intelligence was both his greatest asset and his greatest blind spot.
The Epstein Irony
The final act of the show deals with the Epstein scandal — the moment that ends Mandelson’s long cycle of comebacks. Stirling plays it with a deliberate irony: the arch‑strategist suddenly presenting himself as naïve, manipulated, unaware.
The email exchanges shown on screen undermine that claim. They hint at a man who knew exactly what he was doing, or at least knew enough not to pretend innocence convincingly. It’s a quietly devastating moment, and Stirling lets the audience draw its own conclusions.
Private Life, Public Persona
Stirling also touches on Mandelson’s approach to his private life. He didn’t hide being gay, but he didn’t foreground it either. It was simply part of who he was, not a political tool nor a public performance. The show treats this with sensitivity, acknowledging the complexity without sensationalising it.
Verdict
Mandy: Prince of Darkness is a superb piece of political theatre: sharp, intelligent, and anchored by a performance of remarkable skill. Richard Stirling gives us a Mandelson who is manipulative, charming, brilliant, flawed, hardworking, private, and ultimately undone by the one scandal he could not outmanoeuvre.
It’s a portrait of a complicated man, delivered by an actor who understands that complexity down to the smallest gesture.
A compelling, thoughtful and thoroughly engaging show.
★★★★ Momme Domme is one of those Fringe experiences that doesn’t politely knock — it kicks the door in, drags you inside, and dares you to keep up. It’s chaotic, surreal, occasionally baffling, and absolutely determined to make you part of the spectacle whether you’re ready or not.
The show’s creator, Peggy Mitchell (Blemme Fatale), stalks the space in a white‑blonde wig, setting the tone as the unhinged architect of this strange universe . Around her, a rotating cast of characters orbit like planets in a system held together by sheer audacity. There’s SUB (Sam Hackney‑Ring), the man in the dog mask gleefully distributing tasks to unsuspecting audience members . CURATOR (Abby Witchalls) oversees the voting rituals with the calm menace of someone who knows exactly how much power she has in the room .
The ensemble is a Fringe microcosm of oddballs and archetypes:
NELLY (Rachel Jackson), the football‑mad romantic who seems one bad decision away from disaster .
EVE (Fern Russell), the posh blonde with lip‑sync skills sharp enough to cut glass .
YARA (Natalie Punter), who snatches a wig, storms out, and returns like she’s in her own personal soap‑opera arc .
XENA (Revathi Eswaran), the masked entrepreneur plotting her own party empire from behind a sparkly disguise .
Left: Revathi Eswaran. Right: Fern Russell
It’s a lot — intentionally. The show thrives on overstimulation, on the feeling that you’re watching a Fringe fever dream unfold in real time. But that ambition comes with rough edges. The script is dense, sometimes too clever for its own good, and could use tightening to help the audience follow the emotional through‑line. The sound system struggles under the weight of the chaos, and clarity occasionally gets sacrificed in favour of volume.
I also think the performance would have benefited from a clearer overall structure. With so many characters, tasks, and shifting dynamics happening at once, the show often felt like it was relying on chaos rather than guiding the audience through a deliberate arc. Even a loose framework built around recognisable categories — for example power‑exchange moments, sensation‑based segments, psychological or emotional beats, or audience‑driven decision phases — would have helped anchor the experience. These aren’t about making the show safer or tamer; they’re simply organisational tools that would let the audience understand what mode the performance is in at any given moment. A few defined transitions or thematic “chapters” would give the more experimental elements room to land with greater impact.
One thing that does shine is the backstage graft. Annabel Pearson, the sole stagehand, stage manager, and tech operator, is effectively holding the entire production together with grit and tape . You can feel the live‑wire energy of a show that’s still evolving — and that’s part of the Fringe charm. They’re clearly listening, adjusting, and shaping the piece night by night.
Momme Domme isn’t polished. It isn’t tidy. It isn’t trying to be. It’s a messy, loud, participatory experiment that will either delight you or leave you blinking in confusion — but you won’t forget it. If you’re up for something bold, bizarre, and proudly unrefined, step inside and let the madness wash over you.
★★★★★ History has never been kind to Constance Lloyd. She appears in the margins of Oscar Wilde’s story — a footnote, a casualty, a name occasionally invoked but rarely explored. A Forgotten Woman: Mrs Oscar Wilde sets out to correct that imbalance, and in Lexi Wolfe’s hands, Constance finally steps out of the shadows with a voice that feels fully, fiercely her own. As the press release puts it, Wolfe “brings Constance Lloyd vividly to life in a powerful solo performance told through her letters” .
This is a one‑woman show, but it never feels small. Through Constance’s letters — intimate, witty, and edged with quiet defiance — Wolfe constructs a portrait of a woman navigating love, intellect, motherhood, and public scandal. The production’s description notes that her voice “emerges from the margins of history to reclaim her place in a story that has long overlooked her” , and that is precisely what the performance achieves. It is not an act of historical correction; it is an act of reclamation.
Wolfe’s performance is the anchor. She plays Constance not as a tragic adjunct to Wilde but as a woman of her own convictions — politically engaged, artistically curious, and emotionally complex. The show traces her life with clarity: the early promise, the marriage, the children, the intellectual pursuits, and the devastating public fallout of Wilde’s trial. What could have been a familiar narrative of suffering becomes instead a study in resilience. Constance’s wit is sharp, her warmth genuine, and her refusal to disappear quietly is rendered with understated power.
The production’s history adds weight. First developed at the Buxton Fringe, Wolfe earned Best Actor nominations in 2016 and 2017, and the show now arrives in Edinburgh “in a newly reimagined form” . Her track record — including Best Actress wins for After Shakespeare (2021) and Baker Street Ladies (2025) — shows an artist who thrives in character‑driven work. This piece feels like the conrinuation of that trajectory.
The staging is simple but effective. A solo show about letters demands intimacy, and theSpace @ Symposium Hall provides it. The 17:05 slot suits the tone: a reflective hour at the end of the afternoon, where audiences can sink into the quiet emotional resonance of the piece. The show is bold not in spectacle but in its insistence on centring a woman history tried to erase.
Even more affecting is the quiet sadness that runs through Constance’s recollections. When she speaks of her love for Oscar, there’s a sincerity and gentleness that makes the tragedy sharper; she talks about him with hope, with loyalty, with the assumption that their shared life will endure. We, of course, know it won’t. That inevitability hangs over the hour, turning even her happiest memories into something fragile. And in the final moments, when she wonders how she will be remembered — or whether she will be remembered at all — the piece lands with unexpected force. It becomes not just a story of a woman overshadowed by scandal, but a meditation on legacy itself: what survives, what is lost, and who history chooses to forget.
Wolfe never overplays the tragedy; she lets the audience feel its weight through the words themselves. The result is quietly devastating.
A Forgotten Woman is not just a biographical monologue. It is a reclamation. It reminds us that history is often written by those who survive scandal, not those who endure it. Constance Lloyd deserves better than the footnote she was given. Wolfe gives her the dignity of a full story.
A moving, intelligent, and quietly powerful hour — one of the most humane solo performances at this year’s Fringe.
★★★★★ Set in East Belfast, The Pitch centres on three teenagers whose lives intersect on a contested local football field. Robbie, a soccer‑mad loyalist kid, has spent his whole life practising on the same patch of grass. His sister Melissa is curious, open‑minded, and still figuring out where she fits. Deren, a GAA player raised in the same streets, has never had a home pitch of his own. When plans emerge to convert Robbie’s football field into a Gaelic pitch, the trio collide over sport, culture, identity, and the shifting political landscape around them — all against the backdrop of a looming United Ireland referendum.
Northern Irish theatre has always excelled at interrogating identity through the everyday, but The Pitch arrives at the Edinburgh Fringe with a particular urgency. As one of only five productions selected nationwide for the Pleasance Edinburgh National Partnerships programme, it stands as a flagship example of regional work that speaks directly to the realities of young people in a changing Belfast. This is not a play about “the past”; it is about the present — and the future that is rapidly approaching.
Philip Catherwood’s writing is sharp, funny, and politically literate without ever becoming didactic. The central dispute — whether the pitch should remain a soccer field or become a GAA ground — is not a contrivance. It is a precise metaphor for the cultural shifts happening in East Belfast today. The expansion of Gaelic games into traditionally Protestant areas has become a genuine flashpoint, and the play captures that tension with clarity and nuance.
Robbie’s fear of cultural displacement is rooted in lived experience. He is not a caricature of unionist defensiveness; he is a teenager terrified of losing the one place that feels like his. Deren’s frustration at being treated as an outsider in the community he grew up in is equally grounded. Melissa, caught between the two, embodies the emerging generation — less doctrinaire, more fluid, but still shaped by the legacies around her. The play avoids the tired “two tribes” framing and instead shows how identity is negotiated in mixed communities where lines blur and loyalties shift.
The humour is quintessentially Northern Irish: dry, sharp, and often deployed at moments of tension. Jokes about Tayto crisp packets, Irish street signs, and the semantics of “soccer” are not throwaway gags; they are cultural markers, reminders of how the smallest details become battlegrounds in contested spaces. The comedy never undermines the seriousness of the themes — it humanises them.
The emotional arc is clean and convincing. The characters begin in conflict, move through misunderstanding, and arrive at a fragile but genuine recognition of each other’s fears. The subplot involving Deren’s feelings for Robbie could easily have felt tacked on, but instead it deepens the stakes. It shows how personal vulnerability sits alongside political anxiety, and how the two often inform each other.
The production craft is strong across the board. Director Thea Mayeux keeps the 70‑minute running time tight, with pacing that mirrors the shifting emotional terrain. The staging makes clever use of the pitch as both literal and symbolic space — a place where lines are drawn, erased, and redrawn. Danae Crawford’s technical design supports the transitions without overwhelming them, and Rebekah Fitch’s sound work adds texture, particularly in moments where humour gives way to tension. The ensemble chemistry is exceptional; the three actors feel like real teenagers negotiating real stakes.
James Grimm’s Robbie is all brittle loyalty and jittery defensiveness. Jake Douglas brings warmth and quiet resilience to Deren, grounding the character’s frustrations in something deeply human. Dión Di Maio’s Melissa is a standout — perceptive, funny, and entirely believable as someone navigating mixed loyalties with more maturity than the boys around her. Their dynamic is lived‑in, messy, and convincing.
What ultimately makes The Pitch so effective is its understanding that constitutional debates are not abstract. They filter down into friendships, families, and the small patches of grass where young people define themselves. The play recognises that fear is not irrational when it has precedent, and that hope is not naïve when it is grounded in shared humanity. It offers a vision of common ground that feels earned rather than sentimental.
A witty, moving, and politically intelligent piece of theatre — one of the most thoughtful Northern Irish productions at this year’s Fringe, and a deserved flagship for the Pleasance National Partnerships.
★★★★★ Burlesque nights at the Fringe can be hit‑and‑miss, but the Liquid Rooms delivered one of those gloriously chaotic evenings that reminds you why cabaret survives every cultural cycle. Hosted by Fringe stalwart Dusty Limits, whose sly crowd work and razor‑edged asides are well‑documented in his cabaret appearances at The Voodoo Rooms , the night had that unmistakable mix of glamour, grit and mischief that marks out proper burlesque from the pretenders.
Limits is a natural ringmaster — sardonic, warm, and just dangerous enough to keep the room alert. His genuine love of performance, noted in reviews of his Bowie‑themed cabaret work , carries over effortlessly here. He knows how to hold a crowd, tease it, and then hand it over to the performers at exactly the right moment.
The acts themselves were a lively blend of classic strip‑tease, comic burlesque, and magic. The Liquid Rooms — usually a nightclub and live‑music venue — proved surprisingly intimate for burlesque, helped by tight lighting and a crowd that arrived ready to play along.
What made the night work wasn’t polish but personality. The performers were bold, funny, and gloriously unafraid of leaning into the absurd. One moment you’re watching a sultry slow‑burn strip, the next you’re hit with a comic number that breaks the room open. It’s the kind of cabaret chaos that feels alive — messy in the right ways, sharp in the right moments, and carried by performers who know exactly what they’re doing.
If you wandered in expecting a tidy, packaged Fringe show, you’d be in the wrong place. But if you wanted a late‑night hit of queer joy, camp theatricality, great dance performances and a host who knows how to work a room, this burlesque night more than earned its applause.
★★★★★ Some Fringe shows come armed with spectacle; Monster Made arrives with something far more dangerous — an actor who has spent more than a decade sharpening his craft under some of the most demanding teachers in modern performance training. Alex van Ric’s debut is not simply a play. It’s a confrontation. A study. A descent. And, at times, a reckoning.
Van Ric writes, directs and performs the piece, stepping into the skin of Thomas Duncan — a mass murderer whose crimes echo the worst realities of contemporary violence. Opposite him is Astrid Gutscher pres as Amanda Crowley, a lawyer determined to understand the “why” behind the horror. The production is stripped back to its bones: a table, two chairs, two cameras, and the relentless clank of cell doors. It’s all deliberate. Nothing distracts from the acting — because the acting is the point.
A lineage of training that shows in every moment
Van Ric’s performance is steeped in the traditions he’s trained in. You can see the Drama Centre London lineage — the psychological rigour of Christopher Fettes, the movement‑rooted character analysis of Yat Malmgren, the emotional truth‑seeking of Stanislavski as taught by Harold Lang. His body carries the imprint of Laban’s movement psychology; his emotional shifts feel like they’ve been excavated rather than performed.
This is not academic trivia — it’s visible on stage. The way he holds tension in his shoulders when Thomas resists memory. The sudden, violent propulsion when he pushes the table. The collapse into stillness when a buried truth surfaces. It’s all technique, but never mechanical. Giles Foreman’s method‑based coaching is evident in the depth of internalisation, and Roberta Wallach’s influence — that insistence on human truth — pulses through the quieter moments.
A performance that feels like a masterclass
There are scenes where the audience barely breathes. Van Ric moves through rage, denial, cruelty, panic, and — eventually — something resembling remorse. The emotional whiplash is intentional; the script demands it, and he meets it with precision. When Thomas revisits his childhood abuse, the shift is so visceral it feels unsafe to watch — not because it’s graphic, but because it’s honest.
Gutscher pres matches him with a performance that refuses to be overshadowed. Her Amanda Crowley is controlled, furious, compassionate, and exhausted all at once. She pushes him, challenges him, and refuses to let him hide behind ideology. Their scenes together are electric — two people circling the question the play keeps returning to: Is a monster born, or made?
The script: simple, sharp, and devastating
Van Ric’s writing is lean. No ornamentation, no melodrama. The 911 call that opens the show is chilling in its simplicity — a plumber, a machine gun, 416 shots, 12 women and 9 children dead. It sets the tone: this is not a play about spectacle, but about consequence.
The dialogue between Thomas and Amanda is where the piece truly sings. Their exchanges are jagged, painful, and often uncomfortable. Thomas declares himself a fascist; Amanda fires back that fascism is not an opinion but a crime. He insists he would kill again; she insists he was raised to be a monster. The play never excuses him — but it does interrogate him.
A rare Fringe production that aims beyond the festival
By the final scenes, Thomas begins to crack. Not in a sentimental way — van Ric avoids that trap — but in a way that suggests the possibility of self‑awareness. His request for books after the trial is a small moment, but it lands with weight. It’s the first time he asks for something that isn’t rooted in hate.
This is a production that should not end at the Fringe. It belongs in prisons, rehabilitation centres, community programmes — anywhere the question of violence, trauma, and radicalisation needs to be confronted. It’s not comfortable theatre. It’s necessary theatre.
Verdict
Monster Made is one of the standout productions of this year’s Fringe. Not because it is loud, or shocking, or provocative — but because it is precise, disciplined, and anchored in a profound understanding of acting craft. Van Ric delivers a performance shaped by the giants who trained him, and Gutscher pres meets him beat for beat.
A brutal, intelligent, unforgettable piece of work.
Pip: Counter Culture has been sending dispatches from the Edinburgh Fringe, and the dispatches all point in the same direction: toward stages where pop mythology gets a second life.
Mara: Patrick Harrington covers a run of Night Owl Shows productions this week — icons under the spotlight, trailblazing women of rock, and the question of what it actually means to honour a musical legend rather than just impersonate one. Let’s start with reinvention, and the artists who made it an art form.
Pop Legends And Reinvention
Mara: The thread running through these Fringe productions is a single question: how do you tell a story that’s already been told a thousand times without flattening it into a greatest-hits playlist?
Pip: The Bowie Story review puts its cards on the table early, describing a show that “chooses interpretation over imitation, and is all the better for it.”
Mara: That distinction carries real weight. Imitation gives you the surface — the accent, the costume. Interpretation gives you a reason to be in the room.
Pip: And the review is honest about where the show stops short. There’s a wish for more on Bowie’s challenge to gender norms — communities for whom he wasn’t decoration but a lifeline. That’s a meaningful gap in sixty minutes.
Mara: The interview with Peter Marchant fills some of that in. He talks about Ziggy’s androgyny directly, and describes what those lyrics must have meant: “Hearing lyrics like ‘you got your mother in a whirl, she can’t tell if you’re a boy or a girl’ must have been very liberating and validating for queer people to hear for the first time.”
Pip: A sequin lightning bolt jacket and a lot of, quote, ass shaking are apparently also part of the methodology.
Mara: He’s clear that embodying Bowie’s queerness isn’t just costuming — it’s in how he moves, how he shapes each persona’s vocal register, how the band reflects the production shifts across albums.
Mara: The Madonna review, Material Girl: Madonna The Icon, picks up the same thread from a different angle. There’s a moment where a quote appears on screen — Madonna rejecting the word “reinvention,” insisting she reveals layers rather than constructs new selves.
Pip: Which quietly reframes the Bowie conversation too. Maybe every persona was an excavation, not a costume change.
Mara: And then Dancing Queen: An ABBA Tribute lands as the third piece of this argument. The review notes ABBA’s real genius was “their ability to smuggle heartbreak into songs that sounded like celebrations” — outsiders who rewired pop from the inside.
Pip: Three productions, one through-line: the artists who lasted weren’t shapeshifters. They were just unusually honest about having more than one shape.
Mara: That honesty is what these shows are trying to transmit — and it’s also what separates them from a standard tribute night. Speaking of artists with more than one shape, the Fringe also had a stage full of women who built rock from the ground up.
Soulful Voices And Trailblazers
Pip: Women of Rock opens with Sister Rosetta Tharpe, which is exactly the right place to start if you want to make a point about who actually invented what.
Mara: Tharpe said it herself: “Oh, these kids and rock and roll, it’s just sped up rhythm and blues. I’ve been doing that forever.” Chuck Berry and Elvis learned from her. The show knows that, and leads with it.
Pip: Crediting the source material — genuinely radical for a genre that spent decades pretending it had no mothers.
Mara: Back to Black: The Story of Amy Winehouse runs alongside Women of Rock as a companion piece, with Reine Beau performing both. The review makes the case that what she gets right is phrasing — “that slightly behind-the-beat looseness that Amy borrowed from Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington.” It’s the detail that separates understanding from copying.
Pip: Two shows a night, emotionally heavy material, and the review says her energy never dips. That’s the real tribute.
Mara: Both productions sit inside the same argument: these voices deserve more than nostalgia. They deserve the full story.
Pip: Interpretation over imitation, layers over reinvention, heartbreak inside the celebration — the Fringe keeps asking what it means to honour someone, and these shows keep finding different answers.
Mara: Next time, we’ll see what other territory Counter Culture has been mapping. There’s always more ground.
★★★★★ Some Fringe venues feel like they’re trying to be something they’re not. The Ukrainian Community Centre isn’t one of them. Its main room — cosy, lived‑in, almost like stepping into someone’s front room — turns out to be the perfect setting for Celtic folk. The atmosphere wraps around you before the music even begins, and when Skyrie take the stage, the space feels made for them.
Formed in 2015 by Lesley Thompson Smith and Christopher Martin Smith, with James “Jimmy” Anderson joining in 2020, Skyrie have built a reputation for blending Scottish and Irish traditional tunes with their own original compositions. Their albums Ceilidh – Celi (2023) and Hunger Road (2024) show a band rooted in tradition but unafraid to push into new territory.
What stands out immediately is how accomplished they are as instrumentalists. Lesley, a multi‑instrumentalist and composer, moves between fiddle, whistle, pipes and mandolin with ease. She’s competed three times in the Glenfiddich fiddle competitions — a detail that tells you everything about her calibre — yet she speaks to the audience with warmth and humour, introducing her fiddle “Smillie” as though it were an old friend. Hearing her play her own “Smillie” composition is a highlight: tender, expressive, and full of character.
Her stories add a lovely intimacy to the evening. She talks about fiddle retreats in Inverness, all‑day sessions, late‑night concerts, and how those experiences inspired her composition “Beauty Sleep.” Another touching moment comes when she introduces “Come Back Home,” written when her children left home. These personal threads give the performance emotional depth without ever feeling sentimental.
Jimmy Anderson brings a steady, confident presence on guitar, and the fact he has toured with Shirley Manson adds a quiet prestige to the trio. Christopher Martin Smith, meanwhile, anchors the rhythm on bodhran and percussion. His background as a session drummer with Big Country shows in his precision, but it’s his storytelling that wins the room. The audience love hearing that his bodhran is made of goat skin, and his tale of writing “Take Me Home With You” — a song about two middle‑aged people meeting as the bar closes — is delivered with a charming self‑deprecating grin.
One of the most memorable moments of the night comes when the band talk about performing in Colorado in 2024. Their story of a four‑wheeler ending up in a ditch at Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park is told with such good humour that the audience is already laughing before the song begins. “Jimmy’s Ditch,” performed with Lesley on fiddle, Jimmy on guitar and Christopher on bodhran, is beautiful — lively, melodic, and clearly a favourite with the crowd.
Skyrie are one of those rare Fringe acts that feel both polished and deeply personal. Their musicianship is exceptional, their rapport with the audience effortless, and their storytelling adds richness to every tune. This is Celtic folk at its most heartfelt: rooted in tradition, shaped by lived experience, and delivered with genuine joy.
It’s one of the most uplifting music events of the Fringe, and absolutely not to be missed. Listen to their music, buy their albums, and if you’re in North Carolina later this year, catch them at the Raleigh Wide Open Festival on 3rd October or at the Scottish Society of Wilmington on 4th October.
★★★★ Divas of Soul arrives at the Fringe with a strong pedigree. Last year, this young band earned four‑star reviews for Divas of Jazz, praised for “mesmerising vocals” and a late‑night atmosphere that clearly resonated with audiences. Their new show is more ambitious: a journey through six decades of soul, tracing the genre’s evolution through its greatest voices — Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Roberta Flack, Randy Crawford, Stevie Wonder, Amy Winehouse, Olivia Dean and more.
From the first groove, Theatre 1 fills with warm, confident musicianship. The band are tight, stylish, and clearly in love with this music. Pianist Angus Alphonse and drummer Vic Palmer lock into rhythms with ease, while Joey Read’s bass gives the set its pocket and pulse. They’re a well‑matched ensemble, and when they settle into a rhythm, the room lifts.
A real strength of the show lies in its storytelling. Vocalist Hannah Hay guides the audience through the history of soul — its origins, its cultural weight, the artists who shaped it — and these spoken passages are engaging and well delivered. The show promises that each song arrives with the story behind it, and that intention comes through clearly. Her enthusiasm for the genre is unmistakable, and the educational thread gives the evening a welcome sense of shape and purpose.
Vocally, the performance sits in a different space. Hay’s jazz‑trained voice, the same one that earned praise last year, leans toward a cleaner, more polished tone rather than the raw, gritty texture soul typically demands. When covering Amy Winehouse and other artists she cites as inspirations, the hallmarks of soul — note bending, micro‑tonal shifts, that lived‑in rasp — don’t fully appear. Her voice is pleasant and capable, but stylistically it doesn’t always land where the material needs it to.
This creates a slight mismatch: the band deliver authentic soul grooves, while the vocals steer toward a more polished, event‑band sound. It doesn’t make the performance bad — far from it — but it does mean the show feels more like a lively, well‑played late‑night Fringe wind‑down than a fully realised soul tribute.
Still, there is plenty to enjoy: excellent musicians, a singer who genuinely loves the genre, and a thoughtful narrative thread that enriches the experience. The ambition behind Divas of Soul is clear, and with deeper stylistic commitment on the vocal side, it could evolve into something far more powerful.
★★★★ Philomena McGuiness arrives onstage as if stepping out of a half‑remembered photograph: a young nurse on the cusp of war, clutching her poetry like a talisman. Jasmin Gleeson gives her shape, breath, and a pulse that never falters. She moves with the brisk efficiency of someone trained to keep going even when the world is falling apart, yet she lets us see the cracks—those tiny fractures where fear, hope, and humour seep through.
