Articles by Jack Powell

Darius Davies' HBÖ Special Uncensored

Davies is a dynamo and a wonder to behold on stage.

John Robertson: The Dark Room

Returning to the Fringe for the third year running, this text adventure game-gone-big seems to have more lives than it gives its players.

Bulletproof

“What happens when you think you’re being hilarious and other people just think you are causing anarchy?” Despite beginning with a gripping premise about censors, sensitivity a…

FanFiction Comedy

Big-time book nerd Lev Grossman once told Time magazine that “fan fiction is what literature might look like if it were reinvented from scratch after a nuclear apocalypse by a band…

Sparks

It is either apt or ironic that a show whose set recreates a building site feels a little messy.

Beth Vyse: Get Up With Hands!

Hands down, Get Up With Hands! is the funniest thing I’ve seen at the Fringe this year.

Thünderbards: Seconds

With a show based around time travel, Thunderbards make a whole hour zip merrily by.

Lee Griffiths: Post Traumatic Sketch Disorder

Lee Griffiths: Post-Traumatic Sketch Disorder lays out the comic’s psyche by following Freud (just about) through funny family hang-ups by way of kid’s books, cock lengths and cr…

Lords of Strut: Chaos

If you were the kind of kid that rocked out in your room with hairbrush in hand (or if you do it to this day), you’ll like Lords of Strut: Chaos.

Will Seaward's Spooky Midnight Ghost Stories!

On a dark and stormy night at the Fringe, Will Seaward’s Spooky Midnight Ghost Stories will warm your cockles rather than chill you to the bone.

Knightmare Live - Level 2

For fans of the original kids’ show, Knightmare Live - Level 2 is a dream come true.

CineFringe Film Festival 2013

Review
★★★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
19th Aug, 2013

CineFringe is a small affair, yet its efforts to fly the filmic flag at the Fringe are admirable.

A Career in Theatre Management

Review
★★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
21st Aug, 2013

To present such a talk upon the ins and outs of theatre at its bare business-driven bones is both innovative and opportune during the fracas of the Fringe, when an attentive audien…

Get Conceptual

Review
★★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
16th Aug, 2013

The concept of a conceptual art discussion, held in a faux-Victorian salon-style parlour is the epitome of metaphorical marmite: some people would love a chance to languidly wax ly…

Foodies Festival

Review
★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
19th Aug, 2013

The Foodies Festival largely delivers what it promises: ‘Artisan producers’ - check; ‘Michelin-starred chefs cooking live’ - check; ‘the best in fine food and drink’ �…

Edinburgh: A Literary City

Review
★★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
10th Aug, 2013

It is difficult to discuss Allan Foster’s talk, Edinburgh: A Literary City, in division from its glorious venue: the ostentatiously oddball Hendrick’s Carnival of Knowledge.

The Hour

Review
★★★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
14th Aug, 2013

Littered with pickled brains and collectible little curios, Hendrick’s Carnival of Knowledge feels as much an absinthe-addled emporium of wonders as it does a gin-slinging sales …

Nitekirk - Free

Review
★★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
9th Aug, 2013

Setting up within the whitewashed walls of Greyfriars Church, Nitekirk is a gentle affair.

Uncle Henry's Happy Hour

Review
★★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
14th Aug, 2013

Claiming to have made millions with an 80s boomtime business in the corrugated iron industry (before subsequently nose-diving into bankruptcy), Uncle Henry is certainly rather rich…

The Full Bronte! Literary Cabaret

Review
★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
22nd Aug, 2013

“Faster than pen can set it down, came panic, rushing, crushing—a blind, selfish, cruel chaos.

For the Trumpets Shall Sound

Review
★★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
7th Aug, 2013

If Siegfried Sassoon had written Brideshead Revisited, the result would likely resemble Another Company’s original piece, For The Trumpets Shall Sound.

The Bob Blackman Appreciation Society Bonanza / Free Festival

Review
★★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
17th Aug, 2013

A mad mish-mash of absurdism and warped nostalgia, encountering the Bob Blackman Appreciation Society felt more akin to my psyche bleeding out into the back room of an old boozer t…

The Epicene Butcher and Other Stories for Consenting Adults

Review
★★★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
19th Aug, 2013

The art of kamishibai - a Japanese form of ‘paper play’ in which tales are told with illustrated slides drawn one by one through a central frame both physical and fictional - i…

Art of Alison Kinnaird - Luminesce

Review
★★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
16th Aug, 2013

Aptly for an exhibition of graphite and glasswork, Alison Kinnaird’s Luminesce is a gentle and delicate affair.

City of the Dead Haunted Graveyard Tour

Review
★★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
16th Aug, 2013

It could be deemed ironic that our group was thrice threatened with murder before our tour had kicked off.

Terror Tour

Review
★★★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
9th Aug, 2013

The name Auld Reekie Tours, our intrepid tour guide informs us, is taken from an old affectionate nickname for Edinburgh herself; it refers to the stench and smoke of olden-day roa…

Mary, Queen of Scots

Review
★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
7th Aug, 2013

In precisely the same manner as is the sumptuously propagandist portrait that opens it, this exhibition is one transparently motivated by an effort at pure populism.

From Death to Death and Other Small Tales

Review
★★★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
8th Aug, 2013

A few hours spent interrogating From Death to Death and Other Small Tales - the Scottish National Gallery’s brilliant new exhibition - feels as much like a psychic regression ses…

Coming into Fashion: A Century of Photography at Condé Nast

Review
★★★
Jack Powell
Edinburgh Fringe
17th Aug, 2013

The title ‘Coming into Fashion’ proves incredibly appropriate for this exhibition.

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