Articles by Dave House

Sink

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Space Triplex / theSpace @ Surgeons Hall
6th Aug, 2017

Sink is a poignant and fascinating drama about one of China’s greatest playwrights, Lao She; a man who wrote for his country and was once honoured as an ‘Artist of the people’ but was later renounced as a reactionary capitalist sympathiser during China’s Cultural Revolution in 1966...

ONE – The Man Chosen By the Spirit of the Japanese Drum

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
SpaceTriplex
19th Aug, 2016

A masked figure, all in white, carries the biggest drumstick you’ve ever seen and drops it on the biggest drum you’ve ever seen. Seriously, this thing is basically a tree. Boom! And again...

The Deer Johns: A Journey

A three-man band from Adelaide, Australia, tell an odd and very random story of one man’s travels through spoken word and song. There’s strong musicianship, with some cracking numbers and inventive lighting making for lovely moments, but there are also a lot of areas where the shows falls flat...

Blueswater Presents: Queens of the Blues

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
SpaceTriplex
19th Aug, 2016

Blueswater go from strength to strength with their all new show, Queens of the Blues, focusing entirely on the often overlooked heroines of Blues music and taking us on an incredible journey of sound and history...

The Hummingbirds A Cappella: Love Is Not Our Forte

Review
★★
Edinburgh Fringe
SpaceTriplex
18th Aug, 2016

To be fair to the Hummingbirds, I’m not really the right demographic for their show. I’m not a 15 year-old girl who watches teen comedies on the Disney channel, which is sort of what this show is like in between songs...

Dive and Summerhall Present... C U Next Tuesday Cabaret

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Summerhall
18th Aug, 2016

Sometime in between Jak Soroka cracking eggs on her naked body and Sam Reynolds dry humping someone in the audience, you realise nights at Dive’s C U Next Tuesday cabaret can get pretty wild...

Swansong

Four strangers survive the end of the world and end up stranded in a swan pedalo. Together, they try to piece together what life was like in the old world and what it could be in the new...

Daniel

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Zoo
14th Aug, 2016

Your best friend from school has been arrested for having a collection of child pornography on his laptop. What do you do? Daniel might be one of the most humane and thought provoking responses to one of our biggest - and disturbingly most common - societal problems...

We Grew Up in the Back of a Van

We Grew Up in the Back of a Van is a fun and energetic show with a big heart.It’s a comical two hander performed with great energy by Charlton O’Connor and Charlotte Duffy. A fragmentary account of two sisters’ childhood, mostly spent in the back of their dad’s van, where swift turns and potholes are a recurring, bumpy problem...

Beauty & The Beast

Review
★★★
London Fringe
Polka Theatre
1st Dec, 2015

Beauty & the Beast at Polka is a fun and vibrant production of a classic fairytale that boasts a beautiful set, wonderful costumes and some lovely effects delivering a visual treat for all the family...

Gilgamesh

Review
★★★★
London Fringe
Rich Mix
30th Nov, 2015

The Crick Crack Club’s Gilgamesh is a tour de force piece of storytelling. Ben Haggarty provides a sumptuous delivery of this ancient text and instrumentalist Jonah Brody provides an intriguing soundtrack...

Beasty Baby

Review
★★★★
London Fringe
Polka Theatre
23rd Oct, 2015

Beasty Baby at Polka Theatre is great fun for all the family and a fantastic show to introduce the little ones to the world of theatre.Polka is a unique place. Being one of only a few theatres in the UK dedicated exclusively to young audiences, it often functions as a child’s first introduction to the theatre...

Classically Chilled Piano

Rich Batsford’s Classically Chilled Piano is exactly that. It’s an hour to sit back and relax, take a break from the franticness of the festival and chill with these soothing piano melodies...

Christine Bovill’s Piaf

Christine Bovill has returned to the Fringe once again to grace us with her incredibly heartfelt renditions of some of Piaf’s greatest songs, on the centenary of the icon’s birth...

Underneath

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Dance Base
27th Aug, 2015

From award-winning and internationally acclaimed Irish theatre company Fishamble: The New Play Company, comes this extravagant one-man show. In Underneath, an ash-covered figure talks to the audience from beyond the grave, reliving their experiences and recounting them to us in a mixture of haunting and often comical ways...

Janis Joplin: Full Tilt

Angie Darcy returns to the fringe with her stellar tribute to and exploration of Janis Joplin. More than just a tribute concert, Janis Joplin: Full Tilt is a provocative blend of concert and theatre that examines Joplin’s troubled life and interlaces the brilliantly performed songs with provocative spoken word from Joplin to form a mini biography...

Loch Ness Monster Hunter

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Bedlam Theatre
26th Aug, 2015

From the creators of Vampire Hospital Waiting Room and GhostCop comes another cult pop culture theatre comedy show that once again gets its audience in hysterics. Back of the Attic have developed quite a following at the fringe - they’re almost the Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright combo of the Edinburgh festival - and this is the third part of their own cornetto trilogy...

Butterfly

A haunting and powerful adaptation of Madame Butterfly, Ramesh Meyyappen’s silent movement piece about love, lust and loss is hauntingly powerful and will stay with you long after you’ve seen it...

Simon and Garfunkel – Through the Years

Dan Haynes and Pete Richards of Bookends have returned to the Fringe to once again give us their mesmerising renditions of some of Simon and Garfunkel’s most beloved songs. Documentary footage projected above the artists tells us the story of Simon and Garfunkel’s partnership and Haynes and Richards add to this with some nice anecdotes...

Violence of the Lambs

Last year Chris Davis performed brilliantly in Drunk Lion and garnered great reviews. This year he’s back with two solo shows - Bortle 8 and Violence of the Lambs. The latter of which, sadly doesn’t hit quite as well as Drunk Lion...

Bobby or not Bobby? Emily Carding as Richard III is Broadway Baby’s pick of the Fringe

Feature
Dave House
Edinburgh Fringe
25th Aug, 2015

In Brite Theatre's production of Shakespeare’s Richard III, Emily Carding stars as Richard but all the world’s a stage and the audience literally players in it - taking on the parts of all the other characters in the play...

Late Night Phantasmagoria With Jack Lukeman

The moment Jack Lukeman enters the stage, it's clear this is going to be a fantastic show. Lukeman’s a very talented musician and singer and his Late Night Phantasmagoria is an utterly brilliant performance and one hell of a night out...

Orson's Shadow

Orson’s shadow looms heavily in Austin Pendleton’s play about the prolific director; not only over the protagonist but over the entire play which whilst fascinating and faithfully performed, struggles to overcome its creative shortfalls...

How To Win Against History

What a cracking show this is! What an utterly hilarious, ridiculous and relentlessly energetic show this is.How To Win against History is a three man strong musical about the ‘alleged’ life of exorbitantly wealthy aristocrat and failed artist, Henry Cyril Paget, the 5th Marquis of Anglesey...

Rime

Most people know at least the odd line from Samuel Taylor’s epic poem from 1798, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Few people may remember the story of the Ancient Mariner who becomes lost at sea and sees a magnificent Albatross...

Major Tom

Told through a journey into the comparable worlds of beauty pageants and dog shows, Victoria Melody’s Major Tom explores how easy it is to become obsessed with personal image and competitiveness...

Russell Kane: Smallness

He’s not Nick Grimshaw! Russell Kane is a superstar entertainer who often gets confused for the Radio 1 DJ. But he’s one of Britain’s top billings and is arguably a more formidable talent...

Bridge Over Troubled Lager (Volume 2)

Bridge Over Troubled Lager (Volume 2) from Rory McGrath and Philip Pope is an evening of easy listening funny tunes and mild jokes. The singing and musicianship is solid and there are some funny moments but the pair tend to bore just as much as they amuse...

Sophie Willan: Novice Detective

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Zoo
24th Aug, 2014

Sophie Willian: Novice Detective is a stand up show homage to daytime TV detective programmes like Murder She Wrote and Poirot and when focused on these it’s about as good as you can reasonably expect...

Late Night Dark Show

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Cowgatehead
24th Aug, 2014

It’s the Late Night Dark Show - take that title as a hint. It gets dark. If you’ve just wandered in because of the rain and thought you’d catch some comedy be ready for it to get nasty...

New Zealand Music Showcase

The New Zealand Music Showcase is a great way to see some of New Zealand’s greatest artists here at the fringe. In the second and final show, the acts were the deep and dark anxty sounds of Martin Phillips of band The Chills fame and the livelier smooth rock trio Lawrence Arabia...

Heavy Petting: Hammer Time

Middlesbrough sketch-pros Heavy Petting put on a wacky and fast-paced comedy sketch show complete with a weird fetish for Batman, hitting people with hammers and totally authentic hip hop...

The Pirates of Penzance

Campy am-dram with a pre-school aesthetic, Edinburgh theatre company, Cat-Like Tread’s The Pirates of Penzance is likely to have you humming the Gilbert and Sullivan Songs but will leave you utterly uninspired...

The Cuban Brothers

Review
★★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Gilded Balloon
22nd Aug, 2014

‘I took him to pumpin’ school, for the guys who are not so good with the chicas’ says Cuban Brothers’ frontman Miguel Mantovani of his newest and shyest member of the team, a fantastically acrobatic and breakdancing young stud...

Different is Dangerous

Different is Dangerous is a production from double team Nyla Levy and Fadia Qaraman’s group Two’s Company. It’s a performance the two describe as ‘headphone verbatim’ and comprised of interviews with over a hundred people in Leeds discussing ethnic issues involving the Asian community...

Bill Clinton Hercules

Bill Clinton was one of America’s glowing presidents, a shining democrat in the fashion of Jimmy Carter and even America’s beloved JFK. But after the scandal with Monica Lewinsky, Clinton’s lasting legacy has been cemented by that one infamous quote, ‘I did not have sexual relations with that woman’...

Jeremy Hunt and Other Spelling Mistakes

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Wee Red Bar
20th Aug, 2014

Jeremy Hunt and Other Spelling Mistakes is a new comedy sketch show from St. George Medics Revue. As you’d expect, it features a number of jokes about the Secretary of State for Health, taking a funny look at the trouble the NHS is in and the ineptitude of the MP...

The John Conway Three Minute Interview

Feature
Dave House
Edinburgh Fringe
20th Aug, 2014

John Conway is a wacky comedian all the way from Australia. His show John Conway Tonight, is accompanied by the vocal styling of the equally hilarious and very talented Benjamin Russell - (wait till you hear his genius Michael Caine) - who also co-wrote the material and directed it...

The Kiya Heartwood Three Minute Interview

Feature
Dave House
Edinburgh Fringe
18th Aug, 2014

Kiya Heartwood is an award-winning American singer-songwriter who writes smart, funny and poignant songs about the famous and not-so-famous legends of America. She is making her first appearance at the Fringe with her acoustic show, Short Stories: True Song Tales from the American Edge...

Jenan Younis: A Masterclass in Anger Management

Jenan Younis is a surgeon with anger management issues. In her first stand up show she talks about doctor/nurse politics and the particular mind-set that makes a surgeon. But the main story is what finally threw her over the edge, forced her to go into anger management and propelled her into the world of ultimate therapy: stand up...

Dan Jones: New Kid

Dan Jones: New Kid is a character-based stand up show in which Jones’ hopeless characters try desperately to entertain and showcase their talents. It’s a rather odd look at the nature of entertainment at the festival, providing a pastiche of Fringe comedy...

In The Pink - Ten Years in Harmony

In the Pink are a young all female 10-piece a capella group who perform variations of hit pop and hip hop.Numbers include big cheesy hits like Oasis’ Wonderwall, Whitney Houston’s How Will I Know, and a mashup of Bonnie Tyler’s I Need a Hero and Destiny Child’s Survivor...

Short Stories – True Song Tales from the American Edge

Short Stories - True Song Tales from the American Edge is an acoustic solo show from Kiya Heartwood, an award-winning American singer-songwriter. Her songs are based in American folk tradition and tell the stories of some of America’s famous (and not so famous) legends...

Best of Edinburgh Showcase Show

The Best of Edinburgh Showcase Show at the Cabaret Bar in the Pleasance Courtyard claims to be the longest running and most successful lunchtime show at the Edinburgh Fringe. It allows you to see five comedians in one hour long show, with a new line-up each day...

Napoli Mia! Dinner and Show

In Napoli Mia!, Scottish performer and Naples familiar Phillip Contini sings Italian songs from and about Naples and its people. He’s accompanied by the excellent Be Happy Band...

Alan Anderson: Whisky For Dafties

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Scottish Comedy Festival @ The Beehive Inn
12th Aug, 2014

Whisky for Dafties is a mostly derisive overview of Scotch whisky history and appreciation from whisky-swigging Scottish stand up Alan Anderson, complete with whisky tasting, nonsensical whisky describing and a fair amount of shouting about whisky...

Jazz Bar Music

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
The Jazz Bar
12th Aug, 2014

An afternoon of Jazz from the Jazz Bar’s very own Jazz Trio; Ed Kelly on double bass, David Patrick on piano and Bob Kyle on drums. Melodies in the repertoire include but are not exclusive to the jazz classics: My Romance, How Insensitive and They Can’t Take That Away from Me as well as compositions from the musicians themselves...

Just the Tonic Comedy Club's Midnight Show

The Midnight Comedy Club features different comedians each night showcasing their talents. It’s a fantastic way to see different comedians in one show and get an idea of the variety in stand-up comedy the fringe has to offer...

Nick Hall: Helmet

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
George Next Door
11th Aug, 2014

Nick Hall: Helmet is a splice of easy going, bittersweet stand-up from a man in his early thirties re-evaluating his life. Hall talks about cycling, the MI6, a regrettable stag do and the lamenting of a failed love affair...

Hot Chocolate at 10

First things first. Let’s talk about that chocolate: That’s pure thick chocolate you’ve got there, melted and served hot with cream. It’s good. It’s really good. Once you’re warm and cosy with your hot chocolate, the lights in St Marks go out leaving the church to be lit mostly in natural candlelight...

Shellshock! Improv Live!

Shellshock! Improv Live! features a daring band of young performers improvising sketches entirely from audience suggestion. There are various fun games; one where one improv agent leaves the room and upon returning must use their powers of deduction to decipher their own story, as provided by the audience, to figure out why they have arrived late into the scene...

Dean Friedman In Concert

Dean Friedman shot to fame in the late 70’s with the American hit Ariel in ‘77 and then Lucky Stars which made it to no. 3 in the UK charts in ‘78. But soon after that the artist fell largely into obscurity, still producing songs and albums but never achieving the limelight he did in the 70’s...

One Or Two Things About Us

1 or 2 Things About Us is a community production from Mixit Days, an inclusive theatre company who work with disabled people and give them a chance to perform on the stage. 1 or 2 Things About Us has a great compilation of songs and acts whilst shining light on many of the issues people with disability face as well as new government legislation that instead of improving things has inhibited much of the work supporting people with disabilities...

Cat Stevens Reconstructed

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
The Jazz Bar
8th Aug, 2014

In Cat Stevens Reconstructed, New York vocalist Jess Abrams performs her own interpretations of Stevens’ classic songs, providing a mellow alto tone and interesting variations on many of his greats...

Free Historical Walking Tours of the Royal Mile

This tour is a brilliant way to explore the history of Edinburgh’s famous Royal Mile. You’re given an extensive overview of the whole Royal Mile covering Castle Hill, Lawn Market, the High street, Canongate and Abbey Strand...

Stuart Laws When's This Gonna Stop? (1hr Show)

Review
★
Edinburgh Fringe
Banshee Labyrinth
7th Aug, 2014

Irritating stand up from an irritating man. Stuart Laws is like the kid at school who used to get picked on so now he just picks on everyone smaller than him. In this case; his audience...

Jim Holland: Shoegazing

Jim Holland is an introvert who likes hats and two-toned shoes. He also likes metal music but doesn’t like the lighthouse family. He had a girlfriend but she left him but its ok because he’s got a new one now and she bought him a pair of tap shoes and even paid for some lessons for him...

Russell Hicks: Unprepared

You’ve got to have a bit of a thick skin to go to Russell Hicks: Unprepared. The whole stand-up show is entirely improvised off the back of the audience. Whoever you are, you’re going to end up being at the butt of at least one of his jokes...

Luisa Omielan... Am I Right Ladies?!

After the success of her previous show, What Would Beyoncé Do?! Luisa Omielan has returned to Edinburgh with a brand new stand-up act, Am I Right Ladies? It’s a loud and crude turbulent ride and it’s utterly brilliant...

The Cathy SK Lam Three Minute Interview

Feature
Dave House
Edinburgh Fringe
7th Aug, 2014

Cathy SK Lam is a writer, actor and director from Hong Kong. She is also the Artistic Director of the Hong Kong based theatre company, Threewoods. Her recent political comedy The Immigration Lottery is about the Chinese national identity in the 21st Century and China’s growing influence on Hong Kong since the British Handover to China in 1997...

Breakfast Baps with Witty Chaps

Gooood Morning! Breakfast Baps with Witty Chaps starts at 9am. That’s a terribly early start for fringe goers, where the norm is staying out ‘til 3 in the morning. Thankfully, if you do make it over to Cowgate for this morning show, you’ll be given tea, coffee and chocolate brioche buns and greeted with smiles and good conversation...

Dreams of Peace and Freedom

Part choral performance, part spoken word, Dreams of Peace and Freedom charts the development of the European Convention of Human Rights, reciting passages from one of its main champions, David Maxwell Fyfe, who was also a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials...

Gary Colman: ChUNT - The Verb to Grumble

Gary Colman (no not that one) has been a strong force at the free fringe for some time now and he certainly hasn’t dropped the ball this year round. In his new show, Gary Colman: ChUNT - The Verb to Grumble, Gary constructs a witty and personal reflection on everyday life...

Fleeced

Review
★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Venue 13
4th Aug, 2014

Fleeced is an original comedy musical that tells the story of the made-up ancient Greek hero Jersephules; a simple farm boy doted on by his parents. Farm life isn’t enough for Jersephules; just like Luke Skywalker he dreams of adventure, so one day he escapes the farm disguised as a fair maiden...

The Immigration Lottery

It’s July 1st, 2017, precisely twenty years after China took back Hong Kong from the British. A citizen of Hong Kong, Jenna Wong, enters a lottery she finds on the internet called the “Immigration Lottery”...

Peter Straker Black Magic

Peter Straker’s arrived in Edinburgh ladies and gentlemen. Prepare to be entertained, seduced and electrified by an artist whose career has spanned over fifty years. Straker shot to fame after his performance in the original production of Hair on Broadway in ’68 and since then he’s performed in numerous musicals, appeared in TV shows such as Doctor Who and has worked with Freddie Mercury...

New York, New York: A Toe-Tapping Journey Through the Great American Songbook

New York, New York: A Toe-Tapping Journey through the Great American Song Book is just that; a fun night of swing and brass band favourites from Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Glenn Miller, Louis Armstrong and George Gershwin...

Edinburgh – A Tale of Two Towns

A two-hour and fifteen minute walk through Edinburgh’s city centre, with a good coverage of the history of Edinburgh’s Old and New towns.The tour takes you from Greyfriar’s Bobby, down to the Grassmarket where you’re told about Edinburgh’s dark history of hangings and the story of Maggie Dickson, around the nooks, crannies and alleyways of the Royal Mile and through to the flat that belonged to David Hume, which stands outside Edinburgh’s Writer’s Museum...

The Original Underground Tour

Review
★★★
Edinburgh Fringe
Meet outside Tron Kirk at Auld Reekie Tours Boards
2nd Aug, 2014

Welcome to Edinburgh’s dark and dirty side. You’re given a little history of ‘the Athens of the North’, Edinburgh’s amusing nickname, and told the smelly story of why they call it Auld Reekie and the funny origin of the term ‘shitfaced’...

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