One moment Joanna Weinberg could be self-mocking, and the next she could deliver a line that stopped the laughter and made you think about the cost of choices, the scars left by experience, and the compromises that shape a life. That balance between lightness and depth gave the performance its emotional weight. It was not simply entertainment but a sharing of hard-won wisdom dressed in humour and music.
Joanna Weinberg
The underwear metaphor, which I didn’t fully grasp at first, grew on me as the evening went on. At first glance it seemed a quirky frame, but it gradually revealed itself as a clever device. The underwear drawer is where we keep the most personal and often least glamorous aspects of ourselves, tucked away and rarely shown. By taking us through her drawer, Weinberg was offering us not a glossy public image but the hidden fabric of her life: the practical, the frayed, the intimate, and the cherished. It gave the piece both structure and honesty, a way of signalling that nothing here was going to be airbrushed.
By the end of Brief Tales I felt that I wanted to know more about her, not so much because she had left things unsaid but because she came across as someone who has lived deeply and reflected carefully. Although I am curious as to why her parent’s wouldn’t let her have Barbie dolls!
Joanna is not only a versatile performer but also a thinker, using her craft to make sense of life’s absurdities and challenges. I’ve already resolved to watch her film The Goddess and to keep an eye out for her future shows. Weinberg has that rare quality of leaving you curious for more, which is perhaps the best recommendation any performer can earn. Brief Tales was warm, frank, funny and moving—a small show with big resonance.
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.
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.
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.
The Elton John Story is another triumph from the Night Owl stable, a show that manages to combine top-class musicianship with warmth and fun. Angus Munro and the Night Owl Band don’t attempt to impersonate Elton (although I was pleased to see some sequins and glasses!) —what they do instead is far more effective. They let the songs speak for themselves, and in doing so, they remind us why Elton John is one of the greats.
From the opening number, the audience is swept along by a setlist that covers both the barnstorming anthems and the tender ballads. For me, there was a personal moment of joy when the band launched into Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. That album was my entry point into Elton’s world (though not on it’s release in 1973!), and the title track remains one of my favourite songs. Hearing it live here, handled with such respect and energy, felt like coming full circle.
The show doesn’t shy away from telling the story behind the songs either, and rightly gives space to Elton’s long-time songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin. Their partnership is one of the most remarkable in music. Bernie’s words and Elton’s melodies have been fused together for over half a century, producing classics like Rocket Man, Your Song, and Tiny Dancer. It’s a reminder that even the brightest star doesn’t shine alone—behind Elton’s showmanship has always been Bernie’s lyrical craft.
Angus Munro fronts the band with a mixture of power and charisma, his vocals soaring where they need to and softening at just the right moments. His piano playing gives the performance its heartbeat, and the Night Owl Band back him with energy and precision. There is plenty of humour in the delivery too—this is not a show weighed down with solemnity, but a celebration that often feels like a shared party.
One of the things I noticed as the show drew towards its finale was the atmosphere in the room. People were itching to dance—you could feel it. But British reserve, that old restraint, held most of us back. I’ll admit, I was tempted to start it off myself. Maybe next time I’ll be the one to break the ice, because I’m certain once one person gets up, the whole place will follow. A nudge from the stage might help too. After all, this is music meant to move us, body as well as soul.
The storytelling thread in the show also touches on Elton’s charity work, particularly the Elton John AIDS Foundation. It’s to the credit of the performers that this part is included. Elton’s legacy isn’t only measured in record sales and sold-out stadiums, but also in the lives he has touched and changed through his philanthropy. The Foundation has raised hundreds of millions to fight AIDS worldwide, a cause Elton has championed with tireless energy. That side of his story deserves just as much applause as his music, and I respect him greatly for it.
In the end, The Elton John Story works because it doesn’t treat the songs as relics of nostalgia but as living, breathing works that still connect. The audience laughed, sang along, and for a moment or two you could feel the whole room leaning forward, carried by the force of the music. It’s the kind of show that leaves you humming on the way out and smiling for hours afterwards.
Elton John once said that “music has healing power.” This show proves the point. It’s not an imitation—it’s a celebration. Next time, I’ll be ready to start the dancing.
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.
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
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
Ringing Out the Changes 334 words, 2 minutes read time.
Accompanied by Susannah, Eli and Geoffrey on handbells, the playwright Jo Clifford, (author of the controversial The Gospel according to Jesus, Queen of Heaven), reflects on the role of bells in the cycle of our lives. Each of the handbells has a name: Justice, Courage, Humility, Faithfulness, Continence, Patience, Reverence, Loyalty, Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. It’s all in the bells. Let’s live our lives in justice, have courage to make it happen, keep hoping, walk in peace, walk in joy, and live in love. To the sound of various sets played by the three bell ringers, Jo gives a fascinating account of the use of bells in history. Bells conjured up unhappy school memories for Jo. Some of her audience might have similar miserable recollections.
Bells often ring out to signify changes, good and bad. Church bells celebrated Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee and the bloody triumphs of Empire. Bells – specifically the bells of St Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh – tolled for the thousands of young men butchered in the trenches of the world wars. Bells rang out to celebrate victory in those wars. Bells rang to mourn Queen Elizabeth’s death and to celebrate the coronation of Charles III. Bells were controversial in the early conflicts between Christianity and Islam and later around the Reformation. John Knox wasn’t a fan, but things moved on. Bells eventually found a place in the Protestant churches. Jo tells the story of St Mary’s Cathedral, a testimony to two powerful women, Barbara and Mary Walker who led a quiet revolution. They inherited their father’s business and used the money to build the West End of the New Town. They set aside money to build a cathedral in their late mother’s name. They knew that there was more to life than just making money. They never lived to see the magnificent gothic revival cathedral take shape, but they had the vision to see it through. Who knew that bells could be so interesting?
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.
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.
Sauna Boy at the Edinburgh Fringe 2025: 391 words, 2 minutes read time.
Dan Ireland-Reeves’s Sauna Boy plunges us into a world most audiences will never see – the UK’s most successful (and infamous) gay sauna – and does so with a blend of humour, tenderness, and hard truths. The setting isn’t just a backdrop for risqué laughs; it’s a place of work, a community hub, and a stage for both human warmth and ruthless exploitation. Ireland-Reeves, a multi-award-winning writer and performer, draws on his own experience to guide us through this hidden world. The result is a semi-autobiographical 70-minute show that pulses with the same frenetic energy as its soundtrack, while never losing sight of the characters’ humanity.
As “Danny Boy,” he begins in the lowest-paid roles – cleaner, receptionist – before rising to manager. Along the way, we meet the staff and regulars, each rendered with quick, knowing sketches and pitch-perfect impressions. There’s “Mother,” the manipulative and somewhat callous sauna owner, ruling with a mix of faux-care and quiet menace. There’s Chase, a colleague and friend, whose fate provides one of the show’s most painful moments when Danny is told to fire him. And there’s a cast of clients, from the likeable and desireable to the obnoxious, each forming part of the sauna’s shared history and strange camaraderie. Ireland-Reeves’s knack for switching between voices and physicalities is so deft that you feel you’ve met these people yourself.
For all the comedy – and there’s plenty, from awkward encounters to laugh-out-loud “behind-the-scenes” stories – Sauna Boy has a political undercurrent. Low pay, long hours, and emotional manipulation are never far from the surface. The sauna is a place of desire and escape, but also a workplace where staff are under pressure, often exploited, and where intimacy coexists with power imbalances. The eight-question FAQ section, rattled off at speed, is a highlight, packing in wry humour with unexpected education. If anything, the piece could benefit from sharper editing – trimming ten minutes would keep the energy at full steam – but as it stands, this is an engaging and sometimes sobering hour. Sponsored by Steamworks, Edinburgh’s own gay sauna, it played to an audience that seemed to be largely gay couples, who responded warmly. Sauna Boy is more than titillation – it’s an affectionate but unflinching portrait of a scene rarely shown so honestly on stage.
Ask A Stripper: Pulling Back the G-String: 646 words, 3 minutes read time.
Some shows at the Edinburgh Fringe are one-off thrills. You see them, you laugh, you go home. Ask A Stripper isn’t like that. I first saw it on a converted bus—an intimate, cheeky, slightly chaotic setting that suited it perfectly. Now it’s in Dragonfly, an atmospheric cocktail bar just a short walk from the so-called “pubic triangle,” home to three of Edinburgh’s strip clubs, including the iconic Western and the Burke and Hare. That proximity isn’t just geographical—it’s thematic. You’re in the heart of the conversation before the show even begins.
This time the hosts were Stacey Clare, author of The Ethical Stripper, and Savannah DuVall, who brought her own sharp wit and warm presence to the mix. The format remains disarmingly simple: two strippers on stage, an audience with questions, and absolutely nothing off the table. I’ve seen this show multiple times over its five-Fringe run, and that’s the beauty—you can go again and again because the audience shapes it. No two nights are alike. This time, the questions centred on boundaries—where they’re set, how they’re enforced (and by whom)—and what makes a venue truly good to work at. That led to revealing stories about respect, safety, pay, and the fine line between “fun” and “exploitative.”
What Ask A Stripper does especially well is expose the transactional nature of sex work. Yes, there’s the obvious exchange of performance for money, but there’s a deeper layer—a psychological transaction. Customers often come seeking validation, fantasy, or even a kind of therapy disguised as entertainment. The labour is emotional as much as it is physical. It’s about creating an atmosphere, playing a role, and knowing exactly how to negotiate those unspoken contracts while keeping control of the interaction. Stacey’s insights into the psychology of how to control a group of potentially rowdy males was gold. That emotional labour is invisible to many outside the industry, yet it’s central to the job. Given that the job is transactional it’s no surprise that some strippers start to think about broader power relations in society.
And that’s why strippers need unions as Stacey Clare made clear. This is a job like any other in the sense that it involves management, workplace rules, payment systems, and power dynamics. It’s also a job like no other in the level of stigma, legal ambiguity, and exploitation it can attract if workers aren’t organised. The Sex Workers’ Union here in the UK has done sterling work in pushing for basic rights—safe working conditions, fair pay, protection from harassment—but they are up against deeply entrenched prejudice and politicians eager to regulate without listening. As a union man through and through, I recognise the same patterns I’ve seen in countless other industries: bosses maximising profit by keeping workers divided, insecure, and afraid to speak out. Organising is the antidote.
The mood in Dragonfly suited this conversation perfectly. Intimate with the hosts close, and £10 cocktails worth every penny helped create the sense that we weren’t just at a performance, but in an unfiltered, wide-ranging dialogue. The humour was sharp and plentiful—these strong, intelligent women can puncture awkwardness in a heartbeat—but the political undercurrent was unmistakable. This is about the realities of sex work: the rights, the risks, the compromises, and the pride. It’s also about the human side of an industry that too many only see in terms of titillation or scandal.
And yes, there’s nudity. This is Ask A Stripper, after all. If that, or frank sexual talk, makes you squeamish, then it’s not for you. But if you can handle honesty in its rawest form, you’ll leave with more than you came for—new perspectives, a few laughs, maybe a cocktail buzz and perhaps even a renewed sense of why empathy and solidarity matter.
