Windblown
The Guardian 10 August 2025 If you thought there could not be a more Edinburgh-centric show than James Graham’s Make It Happen, with its appearances from Adam Smith and figures…
When Billy Met Alasdair
The Guardian 9 August 2025 There is a scene in Alasdair Gray’s landmark novel Lanark in which the author himself makes an appearance. He startles the eponymous hero, one of…
She’s Behind You
The Guardian 5 August 2025 She stands before us in a blue gingham frock, towering wig and a “hideous yet age-appropriate leisure shoe”. She is Dorothy Blawna-Gale and she is…
Kanpur: 1857
The Guardian 1 August 2025 When it comes to cruel and unusual punishment, it is hard to think of anything more grizzly than that meted out by the British army…
Edinburgh festival 2025: 20 theatre shows to see this summer
The Guardian 20 June 2025 Peter Pan has a pop fantasy, Faustus is in Africa, Brian Cox leads a banking satire and Billy Connolly meets the late Alasdair Gray. Elsewhere,…
Chemo Savvy
The Guardian 19 August 2024 What a lovely thing to have done. When the great actor Andy Gray was being treated for leukaemia before his Covid-related death in 2020, his…
Precious Cargo
The Guardian 11 August 2024 The accents on the voiceovers say it all. We hear southern English, Australian, American and Hebridean. One thing links them: these are the grownup voices…
So Young
The Guardian 8 August 2024 Instead of Chekhov’s gun, we have Maxwell’s whisky. The bottle of Japanese spirits shows up early in Douglas Maxwell’s comedy of social awkwardness and at…
Yurts, a cruise ship, my flat
The Guardian 10 August 2024 Of all the extraordinary things about the Edinburgh fringe, the easiest to take for granted is that performances in the world’s biggest arts festival take…
June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music and Me
The Guardian 7 August 2024 The most powerful country songs are those written from the heart. In the words of Harlan Howard, it is about “three chords and the truth”.…