Articles by Frankie Goodway

In Our Hands

In one delightful scene of In Our Hands, miniature boats on sticks floating on a sea of netting are used to show us the ship-to-ship gossip of trawlermen, Cornish vowels lilting ov…

Jo Burke: iScream

By turns sparkly and scatalogical, Jo Burke brings a jack-of-all-trades approach to her show.

Theatre Uncut

Theatre Uncut commissions playwrights to respond to current events, then make the resulting plays available online so that anyone can perform them.

The HandleBards: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Review
★★★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh – West Gate
7th Sep, 2015

From the Royal Botanic Gardens you can see (when it isn’t raining) almost all of central Edinburgh, the Athens of the north.

Strawberries in January

Four people with a few more mutual friends than they might expect trip round one another in Strawberries in January, a play that mixes and matches the tropes of romantic comedies w…

1 Given Head

Tim Dingle is an extraordinarily clever man.

Scott Bennett: About a Roy (Stories About Me Dad)

Scott Bennett’s patter feels designed for a larger audience.

James Veitch: Genius Bar

James Veitch appears, at first, a bit like a protagonist in a young adult novel (probably one by John Green), in the way he combines a bildungsroman with popular culture, or sees m…

Rhys James: Remains

Rhys James does not make it easy for his audience to get a handle on him.

Calypso Nights: Juan, Two?

Barnie Duncan’s alter-ego Juan Vesuvius has returned to Edinburgh with a DJing set unlike any other.

zazU: A Fête Worse Than Death

zazU, a town (or possibly country) with fairly odd inhabitants, is gearing up to hold its fête.

The Letter: To be or to MBE

There’s an enlightening moment in Jonzi D’s dance-based piece where a disembodied voice interrogates him as he ponders whether or not to accept a New Year’s honour.

Dead Fresh

The promotional blurb for Dead Fresh warns you that missing the secret of this dark comedy (or perhaps missing the comedy itself – there’s some pronoun confusion in there) ‘c…

The Room

The Room is the worst film ever made.

Pint Size

This taster session of theatre portrays a trio of dark, comic plays presented with malevolent glee by actors Lexy Howe, Ffion Jones and May Phillips.

GhostCop

Last year Vampire Hospital Waiting Room became a stealth hit of the Fringe, a caped cult classic that captured hearts and minds.

The Bunker Trilogy: Morgana

The Morgana of legend: sometimes kind, sometimes violent, always bewitching.

Katie Mulgrew: Happily Ever After

Katie Mulgrew’s show about Disney Princesses is exceedingly well suited to her venue, The Turret at Gilded Balloon.

Austentatious: An Improvised Jane Austen Novel

It is a truth universally acknowledged that starting a review of Austentatious with ‘it is a truth universally acknowledged’ is so cliché that the author should be beaten.

Lucy Beaumont: We Can Twerk It Out

A sign for the Walton Street Working Men’s Club hangs on one wall, on the other a set of gold and pink lametta streamers.

The Seven Deadly Sins

This production of The Seven Deadly Sins, a collaboration between A Compay Chordelia and Scottish Opera, adds further levels of distancing meta-theatricality to Kurt Weill’s sati…

Forever

Review
★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
20th Aug, 2013

Forever, a new play by Clare Sheppard and Kenny Boyle who also star in the piece, is clearly a labour of love.

¡Bocón!

In a village in Central America, Miguel’s big mouth only gets him into trouble with his parents and aunt Cecilia but when soldiers come to enforce the regime and take his parents…

Adam Hills: Happyism

Adam Hills jogged onto stage and brought an immediate, exuberant atmosphere to Assembly Hall.

Black Rubix Theatre Presents: Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster

Review
★★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
15th Aug, 2013

In the style of Noises Off, the fictional Black Rubix Theatre (actually some of the students in the Queen Mary Theatre Company) attempts to put on what they think is a biting satir…

A Womb With a View

Review
★★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
17th Aug, 2013

This new comedy represents the first step on Pinkanoe Theatre’s mission to bring more ladies into comedy and they’ve certainly gone for that with gusto in bringing the story of…

Amused Moose Laugh Off Final

Review
★★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
14th Aug, 2013

The Amused Moose Laugh Off Final, as one might expect, was a one-off chance to see some of the comedians of tomorrow battle it out for the prestigious prize of £1500 and a moose s…

Just the Tonic Comedy Club's Midnight Show

Review
★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
6th Aug, 2012

Just the Tonic clearly understand the demands of their audience: the only way into the Midnight Show venue is through a bar and past the toilets.

Spank!

Spank! is a show that fully deserves its exclamation point.

Titus Andronicus: An All-female Production

Smooth Faced Gentlemen have put together a production of Titus Andronicus that rather beautifully captures the double-edged nature of George Peele and William Shakespeare’s play …

Fanfiction Comedy

Review
★★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
5th Aug, 2013

In Fanfiction Comedy, a group of Kiwis have taken it upon themselves to take the biggest guilty pleasure of geekdom, fanfiction, and offer it up onstage for your delight.

Ian Fox - Shutter Monkey - Free

Review
★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
10th Aug, 2013

Ian Fox has come up with a fairly novel twist on observational comedy: his show centres on a series of photographs shown on television screens around the room so that the audience …

Champ

The style conventions of Broadway Baby specify that we are a family publication and that profanity should be used in reviews only where strictly necessary.

Lights! Camera! Improvise!

The conceit of Lights! Camera! Improvise! is deceptively simple: Oscar, owner of the only infinite film collection in the world, invites the audience to choose a movie to watch wit…

The Only Way Is Downton

Review
★★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
11th Aug, 2013

Luke Kempner’s one man mockery of Downton Abbey, TOWIE and a host of other Friday night telly fare sees him adopt 32 different characters in pursuit of the ultimate Downton paro…

Mary Bourke: Muffragette

Review
★★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
12th Aug, 2013

A muffragette is, according to Mary Bourke, a feminist, just without the toxic baggage of that word.

Nadia Kamil in: Wide Open Beavers!

Nadia Kamil’s show Wide Open Beavers is unashamedly and unapologetically feminist and deserves a feminist review.

Croft & Pearce

Croft and Pearce call themselves two very similar friends who also ‘look very similar’, but you could have fooled me after I watched their show.

Making News

Review
★★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
5th Aug, 2013

‘He has my fullest support’ is the death knell that echoes around BBC Broadcasting House in the wake of the departure of the Acting Head of News.

NewsRevue 2013

NewsRevue always set themselves a difficult task- that is, summing up a year’s worth of news and satire without re-treading the well-plowed mulch of Mock the Week, Have I Got New…

Helen Keen: Robot Woman of Tomorrow

Review
★★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
10th Aug, 2012

Helen Keen is an endearing comic; her relationship with her audience is something like that between a kooky favourite teacher and an indulged sixth form group.

Tea is an Evening Meal

Review
★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
8th Aug, 2012

It is perhaps a mistake for Faye Draper to have a clock mounted on the wall during her one woman show Tea is an Evening Meal.

Funny's Funny: Fantastic Fringe Finale - Free

Review
★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
4th Aug, 2012

‘Funny’s funny, except when it’s not’ seems to be the general message of this compilation show.

Dirty Thirties

Review
★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
27th Aug, 2012

The ladies behind Dirty Thirties are called Lady Melville and Roxie Rebel, though unfortunately the evening I attended the latter had absconded.

Daniel Sloss - Extra Shows!

Daniel Sloss delivers a supposedly darker, meaner show in his later slot but most of his material is relatively clean, geared towards an audience who can laugh at him as well as wi…

Phill Jupitus is Porky the Poet in 27 Years On

Phill Jupitus in association with Free Fringe is a coup.

The Fastest Train to Anywhere

Review
★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
3rd Aug, 2012

The Fastest Train to Anywhere by Alexander Wright demonstrates perfectly why great fantasy writing has captured the childhood imagination of the nation, and why those novels are fe…

A Good Catholic Boy

Review
★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
7th Aug, 2012

As a recent ex-Catholic, I know there’s a lot of material to be got from the Catholic Church, whether you’re a member or not.

Lucy Porter - People Person

Review
★★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
3rd Aug, 2012

Despite announcing that she wanted to kill a journalist who referred to her as a ‘mumedian’ in a pre-Fringe interview, Lucy Porter puts on a decidedly maternal show.

BBC: Radio 1's Fun and Filth Cabaret - Night 3

To get through the third night of BBC Radio 1’s Fun and Filth Cabaret you needed a strong stomach or a repressed gag reflex as the show went truly dirty in pursuit of the utterly…

Strong Arm

The set of Strong Arm clearly demonstrates that the production has been thought through, all flabby excess stripped away to leave a lean, hard show.

Laurence Clark: Inspired

Laurence Clark is keen to point out that neither he, nor his show, are inspiring.

Platero Y Yo

Review
★★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
8th Aug, 2012

Platero y Yo is an adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning poet Juan Ramon Jimenez’s book of the same name, performed entirely in Spanish by students from the University of Puerto Rico…

The Hand-Me-Down People

Review
★★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
11th Aug, 2012

The story of toys coming to life and conducting their own lives in the absence of children may sound familiar but The Hand-Me-Down People takes a far bleaker look at these discarde…

The Good, the Bad and the Extraterrestrials

Review
★★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
9th Aug, 2012

There are no tickets for The Good, The Bad and The Extra-terrestrials but every audience member is presented with a cowboy hat and a toy revolver to get into the spirit of things.

Phil Nichol Rants!

Phil Nichol seems unsure what he wants from his audience.

Live At The Electric: Live At The Fringe

Review
★★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
20th Aug, 2012

Live at The Electric promised some of the best sketch comedy of the Fringe hosted by the extremely likable and endearing Russell Kane.

Darkness Rising

The inspiration Darkness Rising owes to Hot Fuzz is clear from the first scene, as policemen of varying levels of incompetency gather round a corpse found in a pentagram.

BOBBY WINNER

Basic Training

Basic Training is a one man show, but you’d be forgiven if when it comes to the curtain call you expect bows from a cast of the full 23 different personalities.

The Bloody Chamber

Review
★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
7th Aug, 2012

A young girl marries the richest man in France, despite not loving him, but soon finds that the extent of his cruelty is far greater than her wildest expectations.

Normal

Review
★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
10th Aug, 2012

Normal begins as it means to go on by alienating everyone sitting beyond the first two rows.

Lie. Cheat. Steal. Confessions of a Real Hustler

Review
★★★
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
9th Aug, 2012

Paul Wilson presents possibly the most low-key magic show at the Fringe this year, but his successes on BBC3’s The Real Hustle practically guarantee him an audience of fans.

More Light

In Ancient China the Emperor places his hand upon death’s door.

7 Ways to Escape the Fringe

Feature
Frankie Goodway
Edinburgh Fringe
17th Aug, 2017

With the second and most exhausting weekend of the Fringe nearly in the rearview mirror, it’s time to have a rest day.

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