Articles by Carla van der Sluijs

Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons by Sam Steiner

Unspoken thoughts and heavy silences become deafening in this gripping production of Sam Steiner’s Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons by First Floor Productions. Against the background of a new ‘hush law’ whereby citizens may only say 140 words a day, Bernadette and Oliver are a young couple trying to nurse their brittle relationship…

See-Through

Last year, 34% of young people voted YouTuber as their number one career of choice. Intrigued by this statistic, Claire Gaydon launched her own YouTube channel to find out whether online fame really lived up to its hype…

It Is a Truth...

When it comes to empowerment, Jaleelah Galbraith believes today’s feminists should look to Sense and Sensibility instead of Single Ladies. In her debut stand-up show It Is A Truth, Galbraith covers speed dating, school girl crushes and Bridget Jones to explain how Austen’s comments on life for women still ring true today...

Losing My Mindfulness

Losing My Mindfulness offers an amusing and uncomfortable send-up of the self-help nation we have become. Alongside an array of ‘Improve Your Life’ books, Katie McLeod plays an HR representative running a workshop for her colleagues on staying positive under stress...

Lines

With damning questions on moral and personal boundaries, Lines is a stunning and complex portrayal of sexual assault. Rora is violently raped after a night out with friends and two weeks pass before she can bear to discuss the crime with her family...

Job-Cher

Two struggling Cher impersonators are disrobed and disheartened in Job-Cher. Waiting in their dressing room between costume changes, Sandra and Donna stare at the empty diary and wonder how on earth to revitalise their tired double act...

Hello Georgie, Goodbye Best

Manchester United fans old enough to remember 1971 may recall the strange weekend George Best went missing. Three quarters of the Metropolitan Police were ordered to stand guard at Sinead Cusack’s flat in Islington as word spread like wildfire that Best was hiding there, overcome with the pressures of fame and skiving a match against Chelsea...

The Squirrel Plays

Many productions at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year discuss female freedom of choice, but few do so as creatively as The Squirrel Plays. In this show from Part of the Main, Tom and Sarah are young professionals thrilled to be buying a new home...

Doom’s Day

Doomsday preppers: people who ready themselves and their homes for survival in the event of an apocalypse. Who are they? What prompts their strange behaviour? These are the questions posed by The Wax House in their compelling production of Doom’s Day...

Cepacia – Love Takes His Breath Away

The story of Romeo and Juliet receives medical treatment in Cepacia from Durham School and Shadow Dreams. A boarding school and a foster home constitute the houses of Montague and Capulet, though in this case they are hardly ‘alike in dignity...

BARK! The Musical... How the Little Dog Found His Voice

The secret life of man’s best friend is pondered in BARK: The Musical. This quirky show from Swansong Productions tracks a day in the life of a group of dogs who congregate in a local park...

Ailsa Benson Is Missing

The synopsis of this intriguing one-woman drama can more or less be summed up by its title: Ailsa Benson Is Missing. Schoolgirl Nina, played by Samara MacLaren, is fascinated as the police arrive at school and she appears on local news...

Skin a Cat

Rive Productions are shining the light on a condition more common than many realise: vaginismus. In this performance written by Isley Lynn and directed by Blythe Stewart, teenager Alana has a feeling she might be different...

Fallen Fruit

Two Destination Language are encouraging audiences to see the personal narrative behind history with their performance Fallen Fruit. Set in 1989 at the fall of the Berlin Wall, Katherina Radeva presents two perspectives on this life-changing moment...

Care Not, Fear Naught

Piracy is not just a man’s trade in this thrilling piece Care Not, Fear Naught from Temporarily Misplaced Productions. With outstanding flair, writer and director Emily Hutt illustrates the little-known life of Anne Bonny...

Eat Your Heart Out

Anorexia takes centre stage in this emotional piece devised by eating disorder sufferers and survivors. Bel is a typical teenage girl studying in the lower sixth. She excels at school and loves to gossip with her close group of gal pals...

Our Boys

Our Boys exquisitely showcases life on the battlefield from the setting of an army hospital. Five rowdy soldiers are recovering from injuries on a ward when they find, to much dismay, that an officer is due to occupy the empty bed...

I'll Have What She's Having

Millennial anxieties are unpacked and explored in devised comedy I’ll Have What She’s Having. Written and performed by Jess Brodie and Victoria Bianchi, two women who live completely different lives and fake their own happiness around each other...

89 Nights: An Original Musical

The magic of New York is effectively captured in 89 Nights, a new musical from Troubadour Stageworks. Alice, a Brit on her gap year, arrives with excitement in New York. She is ready to explore the city of her dreams...

Girl World

Frisky are transporting audiences to a fantasy land created by two pre-pubescent girls, Tilly and Inga (played by Camille Dawson and Serena Ramsey). This is Girl World, a kingdom (or should I say queendom) ruled by the all-powerful goddess Fatnaboona...

Departure Date

Departure Date is a comedy about death that sadly lacks life. Set, script and performance all contribute to a limp forty five minutes, written by Paul Vitty and presented by Venture Wolf...

Framed!

Art and crime collide in a ‘brush with the law’ from Laughing Mirror. In this lively comedy, Ashley Lancaster, a foolish and inept criminal, longs to become a wanted man. Unfortunately, he lacks the skill to catch the attention of the police or the papers...

menoPAUSE

Harriet Beveridge’s show menoPAUSE could be considered uncomfortable by many. She opens with the reaction received by mums at the school gate on revealing the theme. However, Beveridge creates a space where the subject of periods (or lack of) does not feel awkward...

Everything Is Going to Be KO

Everything’s Going to be KO begins with an educational psychologist. Shapes, numbers and letters are shown in an increasingly confusing series of exercises. They seem daunting and impossible to get right...

Freeman

Theatre is often defined as a means of offering a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves. With a powerful narrative and dynamic performance, Freeman by Strictly Arts Theatre does exactly that...

Elise

Elise Cowen. The poet who disappeared from history, leaving little more than an envelope of burnt verses as her legacy. In these dramatised interviews which were recorded after her suicide, various figures from Elise’s life struggle to put the writer into words...

City Love

Both lovely and devastating in equal measure, City Love by Illuminate Theatre Company documents a romance that lives and dies in the bustle of London town. After a humorous exchange on a night bus, a couple’s relationship blossoms as they find themselves transformed by each other’s company...

Million Dollar Quartet

Through lively renditions of Rock and Roll hits, Million Dollar Quartet captures a snapshot in musical history: a jamming session between Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins at the recording studio that launched them into stardom, Sun Records...

The Ballad of Paragon Station

Theatre is always at its most powerful when you feel truly transported into someone else’s reality. This is exactly what The Ballad of Paragon Station achieves through its profound story and captivating performance...

The Marriage of Kim K

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
C venues – C
23rd Aug, 2017

Sugary pop meets classical opera in Leoe and Hyde’s The Marriage of Kim K. Fortunately, the merging of two such contrasting genres feels less like a collision and more like an unconventional blend...

iDENTiTY

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Sweet Holyrood
22nd Aug, 2017

While most sketch shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe play up to their comic roots, Anomaly Theatre Company are adding a touch of the macabre with their dystopian show iDENTiTY. From a salesman using search histories as blackmail to a laboratory for foetus production, these sketches present our world as we know it, but with grim exaggeration that feels as much like a warning as entertainment...

We Need to Talk About Bobby (Off EastEnders)

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Zoo Southside
22nd Aug, 2017

EastEnders fans will remember experiencing shock and upheaval at the revelation that the culprit of a long-running murder whodunnit was 10 year old Bobby Beale. Prepare to relive those feelings again in Paperback Theatre’s We Need To Talk About Bobby (Off EastEnders), written by George Attwell Gerhards and directed by Lucy Bird...

Alex in Shadow

Alex In Shadow from UCLU Runaground proves that puppetry is not just for children. Even adults can enjoy the strange adventure of pretentious and self-serving Alex (played by one male and three female actors), who wakes up in a mysterious woodland full of talking animals...

Tumble Tuck

Though not the most affecting one-woman show of the festival, Tumble Tuck, written and performed by Sarah Milton, still definitely manages to make a splash. Daisy is a seemingly ordinary teenager with a passion for one thing: swimming...

Walls and Bridges

In their new drama, Walls and Bridges, Acting Coach Scotland delves into the themes of home and belonging through a dystopian Scotland in 2035. This damaged society suffers constant deportations, arrests and total alienation from the outside world...

Chamberlain: Peace in Our Time

Chamberlain has been relegated to history as one of life’s wishful thinkers. The famous photo of him proudly waving the Munich Agreement live on as a symbol of failed negotiation and blistering naivety towards Hitler’s evil...

The Loneliest Girl in the World

Smashing Mirrors Theatre are shining a spotlight on those usually left in the shadows through their heart-breaking play The Loneliest Girl in the World, written and directed by Elizabeth Godber...

Breakfast Plays: B!rth

Review
★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Traverse Theatre
16th Aug, 2017

The Traverse Theatre sadly need to offer more than a bacon roll to make Breakfast Plays: B!rth worth getting up for. Whilst the addition of breakfast and a hot drink is a nice touch, they aren't enough to compensate for a dull performance...

Danyah Miller’s Inspection of Perfection

Feature
Carla van der Sluijs
Edinburgh Fringe
15th Aug, 2017

As a course leader at The International School of Storytelling, Danyah Miller can certainly spin a good yarn. Here at the Fringe, she is turning her talents to the baffling question of why we strive so desperately for perfection, often at high costs...

Bump

If you’re in search of the next big thing this Fringe, look no further. In Bump, 22-year-old Lily is horrified to discover she is pregnant after a one-night stand. With no-one to turn to, we meet her in the waiting room of an abortion clinic as she tentatively recounts the events that led her here...

Confessions of a Personal Trainer

Have you ever wondered how the rich and shameless work out? Katie Kopajtic invites us through the closed golden doors of a luxury New York gym club in Confessions of a Personal Trainer...

Ballot Box

Ballot Box from Tea and Tonic productions may be categorised under ‘New Writing,’ but it fails to provide an original scope on Brexit. This comedy satire follows the impact of the EU referendum on two out-of- work actresses, Molly and Lydia (played by Keri Bastiman and Emily Parker-Barratt, who also wrote the play)...

Moonlight After Midnight

If Moonlight After Midnight were easier to follow, I’m sure it would make for an incredible piece from Concrete Drops Theatre. However, as it stands, I felt very much like a ‘lay person’ in the audience, witnessing something that was way above my comprehension, even as a regular theatre-goer...

Mental

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Assembly Roxy
9th Aug, 2017

Kane Power makes many admissions at the start of Mental. He admits he is uncertain of how to portray bipolar disorder on stage, or even if he should. He is also not sure whether it’s right to use his mum’s illness as the basis of his performance...

Heartwood

Review
★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Venue 13
9th Aug, 2017

Pinecone Penguin Theatrical’s Heartwood has all the makings of an enchanting production, but the slow and insipid script just does not deliver. Through music and puppetry, this family musical follows young Eleanor, a nine year old girl with a serious illness, who wakes from her hospital bed to find herself in a strange woodland full of odd creatures...

Dust

Dust is not for the faint-hearted. With a powerful combination of spine-chilling performance and unflinching writing, Milly Thomas traps audiences in the disturbed mind of Alice, who has returned from the dead to witness the aftershock of her suicide...

Cow

One Devonshire lass and her cow in search for a tractor may not sound the most captivating plot premise you’ve ever heard, but Cow delivers brilliantly on it. Directed by Lucy Wray, this one-woman show focuses around Bethan, a quirky and off-beat farmers daughter played by Jessica Barker-Wren (who also wrote the play)...

The Poltergeist of Cock Lane

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
C venues – C
4th Aug, 2017

Putney Light Operatic Society are bringing a famous English haunting back from the dead with their new musical The Poltergeist of Cock Lane, composed by Steven Geraghty and written by Tim Connery...

The Steampunk Tempest

Review
★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Sportsters Bar
15th Aug, 2016

The Steampunk Tempest from Some Kind Of Theatre offers exactly what is says on the tin: Shakespeare's The Tempest accompanied with steampunk themed costumes and props. This bold stylistic choice from director Emily Ingram richly enhances the mystic atmosphere of the faraway island, but the performances needed to match this originality to raise the standard of the production as a whole...

A Good Clean Heart

It may be difficult to believe that something as uncommon as bilingual theatre could work. However, A Good Clean Heart from Neontopia proves that you can mix two languages on one stage to great effect...

We Are Not Criminals

If you’re in the mood for chilling, hard-hitting drama, look no further than We Are Not Criminals. This short play from Forty Elephants Theatre Company details the difficult and tense reunion of five women...

Sheets

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Silk
11th Aug, 2016

Clowning is largely known a children’s form of entertainment. However Sheets, the one-man free show from Kiki Lovechild, aims to bring the art to a new, adult audience. The somewhat loose plot of the piece follows a clown suffering from insomnia one night as he can’t escape longing thoughts of his far away wife and child...

Scenes from an Urban Gothic

Scenes from an Urban Gothic by Theatre Imaginers will certainly appeal to those who have come to the Fringe in search of something different. Through no words or props, James Cross (with direction from Des Truscott) vividly depicts a man’s arrival in London from his countryside paradise...

Generation Zero

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Zoo Southside
10th Aug, 2016

The difficult relationship between political and personal affairs are addressed in the devastating drama Generation Zero. Through an interesting balance between dialogue and narration, Becky Owen Fisher’s play tells the story of an unnamed man and woman living happily until her involvement in an environmental activist group puts an unbearable strain on their relationship...

The Murderer

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Zoo Southside
9th Aug, 2016

Through innovative movement and a thought-provoking script, Clown Funeral’s dark yet comedic The Murderer comments intelligently on society's inability to forgive and forget, by documenting the ‘progress’ of a murderer undergoing a rehabilitation programme...

And the Rope Still Tugging Her Feet

If you’re hoping to see one performance completely stripped bare this festival, make it this one. And the Rope Still Tugging Her Feet is a one-woman show detailing the shocking Kerry Babies’ Scandal...

Her Slightest Touch

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Spotlites
8th Aug, 2016

Some argue that the Fringe has become too corporate and professional, thus pushing amateur groups out of the scene. However, the Kirkintilloch Players are firmly standing their ground at the festival with a strong and thought-provoking performance of Her Slightest Touch...

The Ones

The story of a relationship told entirely out of sequence as a play within a play. If this sounds complicated, that's because it was.The Ones (written and directed by Ilias Panagiotakopoulos for Urbn Theatr) was advertised as ‘a unique and complex story told in a completely new way’ and it certainly delivered on this...

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