Articles by Rory Mackenzie

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Unmythable

Unmythable

An engaging, inventive and deliciously silly ride, Unmythable will appeal to anyone who enjoys either Greek legends or big laughs. Or both. It retells various Greek stories from a hilariously modern perspective, full of doo-wop songs, physical comedy and wonderfully imaginative storytelling... 

Girl from Nowhere

Girl from Nowhere

Filtered through the consciousness of the bright eyed and burnt out Jeannie, Victoria Rigby’s new play explores all that was best and worst about the sixties. Appearing as just another rock chick, with records scattered about and a battered acoustic guitar, Jeannie soon takes us down through a world of egomania, violence and beautiful music... 

Allie

Allie

Ruaraidh Murray’s new play is a solid - though far from stunning - tale of a marriage turned very sour. Beginning with a monologue about the little known existence of female ninjas in feudal Japan, the narrative then asks whether such female ninjas are possible in modern day Scotland... 

Boris: World King

Boris: World King

Boris: World King is a giddy, silly and savagely satirical delight. Impeccable performances match impeccable writing in this unique take on one of Britain’s most unique figures. The premise is that Boris Johnson has come to the Fringe to win a Foster’s Comedy Award, as part of his inevitable plan to become world king, and he certainly deserves it (the award, not the world)... 

Some Thing New

Some Thing New

Delivered as an interactive art workshop, with a narrative line slowly emerging, Some Thing New is a great idea with an unsatisfying execution. It bobs along somewhat enjoyably in parts, with plenty of audience participation... 

A+E

A+E

Lottie Finklaire’s new play A+E tells the story of three women waiting in the hospital to find out if their friend will ever wake from her coma. Her injuries are surrounded in mystery... 

Angel in the Abattoir

Angel in the Abattoir

Dave Florez’s new play Angel in the Abattoir questions the role and even the possibility of the modern hero. Angel (Phil Nichol), a Scot-Spaniard who combines all the passion of the Iberian Peninsula with the aggression of Leith, wants to be a hero in the mould of Achilles and Theseus... 

Shit of the Fringe

Shit of the Fringe

The Shit of the Fringe is a weird show to review. On the one hand its title and premise assure us that these acts will be amongst the very worst you will find in the Fringe. This should obviously be taken into account in any kind of critical appraisal of the show... 

Games of Love and Chance

Games of Love and Chance

A witty piece of throwback theatre, Games of Love and Chance is quite the delight. Set in the late 1920s, it’s a classic Wodehousian tale of mistaken identity, constantly falling in and out of love and increasingly weird cocktails... 

Dead Ghost Star

Dead Ghost Star

Like The Mighty Boosh in a minor key, Dead Ghost Star present a weird and wonderful double act of surreal, whimsical and thoroughly endearing comedy. Mr Dinner (Donal Coonan) and Cheekykita (Sonja Quita Doubleday) seek the limits of space, comedy and beyond... 

Can Stand Up - Don't Want To!

Can Stand Up - Don't Want To!

Tonally and thematically, Can Stand Up - Don’t Want To! is all over the place. Ostensibly a satire on our libertarian values, it succeeds in being awkward without ever being particularly funny... 

Monkeys and Typewriters

Monkeys and Typewriters

If a million monkeys hacked away at a million typewriters, eventually they would produce the complete works of Shakespeare. But could they read it? Would they have anything approaching the critical vocabulary to describe it? According to Monkeys and Typewriters, this is the fundamental human position not just on Shakespeare but on every word out in existence... 

Referendum and Dumber

Referendum and Dumber

Referendum and Dumber, from Ten Clowning Street, is irredeemably awful. It has to be one of the most shockingly one-sided and tediously unfunny shows that has ever disgraced the Edinburgh Fringe... 

Rat: Induction

Rat: Induction

Two men and one woman, apparently strangers, await orders for their induction day. We do not know what for. A voice coughs over the intercom. It asks mysterious questions that spark a series of flashbacks... 

Craig Campbell: Thrilling Mic Hunt

Craig Campbell: Thrilling Mic Hunt

Craig Campbell is one of the most natural and kind hearted comics on the circuit. He walks onstage looking like a wild mountain man with the elastic face of Jim Carrey. He wears shorts to emphasise his rugged demeanour and imposing height... 

Staple/face are... Going Down Fighting

Staple/face are... Going Down Fighting

Staple/face are a young sketch group, something they don’t shy away from. It is the source of their biggest strengths but also their biggest weaknesses. They are energetic and endearing with a handful of fantastic ideas... 

Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen (Vol. 2)

Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen (Vol. 2)

It would be unfair to describe Arthur Smith Sings Leonard Cohen Vol.2 as simply a tribute act to Cohen, as Smith himself does. It is more the story of how Cohen’s music has provided the soundtrack to Smith’s life at its most difficult moments... 

Cookies and Cream

Cookies and Cream

Cookies and Cream is a showcase of young comics that has its hits and has its misses. The four comedians all show promise, but some deliver on that promise more than others. Organised by Jamie Oliphant (the MC) and Archie Maddocks (the headline act) the show delivers an hour of solid if not stunning stand up... 

Gamarjobat: Boxer

Gamarjobat: Boxer

To celebrate their tenth year at the Fringe Japanese comedy duo Gamarjobat have reprised their debut show Gamarjobat: Boxer. The show is part homage and part pastiche of Rocky performed completely in mime... 

Symphony by Ella Hickson, Nick Payne and Tom Wells

Symphony by Ella Hickson, Nick Payne and Tom Wells

Symphony promises to blend a live gig environment with the best of contemporary British theatre. Such a promise inevitably puts high demands on its performers, but they more than meet these demands, proving themselves to be what I can only describe as annoyingly talented virtuosos... 

Four Beers and a Burger - Meet the Brewer

Four Beers and a Burger - Meet the Brewer

Very often at the Fringe one can feel short changed by titles; titles that promise this or that and yet deliver so pitifully little. However, it’s a joy to report that Four Beers and a Burger definitely does live up to its title... 

Bunbury Is Dead

Bunbury Is Dead

Imagine the complete works of Oscar Wilde thrown into a box, shaken about a good bit and then dropped all over the floor. The result would be an unholy mess. Even if one tidied up the mess and managed to make the random quotations somehow string together into a coherent plot it still wouldn’t be pretty, but this is the premise of Bunbury is Dead... 

Frank Sent Me

Frank Sent Me

Frank Sent Me is a gangster comedy that mixes fine moments with trite ones. The set-up is that Howe has done something to upset his boss Frank. Frank sends round someone to bump him off, which Howe is stoically resigned to... 

Milo McCabe: Troy Hawke

Milo McCabe: Troy Hawke

Milo McCabe’s latest comic incarnation is quite superb. Troy Hawke is an RP speaking, cravat wearing 1940’s dandy who is on an admirable mission to change the world. He is a lovable fool with a dash of sophistication... 

Awkward Conversations with Animals I've F*cked

Awkward Conversations with Animals I've F*cked

Awkward Conversations with Animals I've F*cked is f*cking great. My jaw didn’t drop; it fell through the floor, made its way past the earth’s crust and came out the other end... 

Mat Ewins: The Six Million Dollar Ewins

Mat Ewins: The Six Million Dollar Ewins

Deliciously silly, startlingly original and completely incomprehensible Mat Ewins’ new stand up show is a comic tour de force. To describe the through line would be an exercise in futility (it would take page upon page and even then it wouldn’t make any sense) but the basic premise is that Ewins is a secret agent who has been shot dead in a field (not in the field, in a field) and has been resurrected as a bionic man... 

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

A romping, stomping brain blast is exactly what Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas wants to be. It does manage it, although intermittently. Terrific acting, set design and soundtrack somewhat redeem this adaptation which must have sounded like a better idea than it ever really was... 

Chaplin

Chaplin

An over-loving portrait of the lovable Tramp, Chaplin is an assured and solid play but one that refuses to ever take off its rose-tinted glasses. The play, written by Christoffer Mellgren and Johan Storgard, shows the meteoric rags to riches story of the world’s most famous silent comedian... 

Great Artists Steal

Great Artists Steal

Does originality exist? Are all creators thieves in disguise? The answer is no and yes (probably), at least according to Great Artists Steal, a new play by Seamus Collins. It is bizarre and stimulating in equal measure, where every abuse of theatrical convention is to some delicious purpose... 

Woody Allen's Writer's Block

Woody Allen's Writer's Block

Two one-act plays: one two stars, the other four. Hence the rating. Both are from the pen of Woody Allen and as one would expect the writing is witty, silly and ever so mind-bending... 

Our Town

Our Town

Thornton Wilder’s Our Town is a beautiful evocation of small town Americana in the first half of the century as well as a rumination on life, death and everything in between. It urges us to celebrate the beauty of every living moment but acknowledges that in the end we probably won’t... 

A History of Falling Things

A History of Falling Things

All quirky and endearing romcoms would do well to learn a thing or two from A History of Falling Things. Even Richard Curtis might see it and think ‘Damn it, why didn’t I do that?’ Robin and Jacqui both suffer from keraunothnetophobia (a fear of falling satellites) and meet on a chat room for fellow sufferers... 

Death is the New Porn

Death is the New Porn

Authentic, thrilling and (overly) ambitious, Death is the New Porn is a fine piece of theatre. Jack Elliot’s new play goes deep into the lives of its characters, exposing their hypocrisies and frailties with brutal honesty... 

I Killed Rasputin

I Killed Rasputin

The acting is exquisite. Some of the dialogue is extraordinary. So why does I Killed Rasputin feel so limp? Richard Herring’s script argues that whenever history is retold it comes with a sense of theatre... 

God on Trial

God on Trial

God on Trial is a vital and important piece of theatre. A group of Jews in Auschwitz decide to put God in the docks and debate in absentia whether he has broken His covenant to His people... 

The Bastard Children of Remington Steele

The Bastard Children of Remington Steele

What is The Bastard Children of Remington Steele? It has enough energy to be many things and enough intelligence to do them well. But in the end it shoots itself in the foot by trying to be many things at once... 

The Silence of Snow: The Life of Patrick Hamilton

The Silence of Snow: The Life of Patrick Hamilton

Mark Farrelly’s The Silence of Snow is a charming and funny, if not particularly deep, depiction of the life of Soho author Patrick Hamilton, best known for penning Rope and Hangover Square... 

Away From Home

Away From Home

Away From Home is the sensitive, touching tale of Kyle, who in his capacity as a rent boy is used to his fair share of sensitive touching. Thankfully, there is also a healthy dose of raucous good humour and devilish filth, which ensures a compelling portrait that’s hard not to fall in love with... 

Aaaaargh! It's 101 Jokes in 30 Minutes! Free

Aaaaargh! It's 101 Jokes in 30 Minutes! Free

The title of Masai Graham’s show gives the impression that it is a grand test of comedic athleticism, hinting at a Tim Vine like mania. It is a little odd then to find that Graham’s delivery makes him look more like a doped up sloth than a stand up Usain Bolt... 

The Lieutenant of Inishmore

The Lieutenant of Inishmore

In Your Face Theatre’s production of The Lieutenant of Inishmore lives up to its company’s name and in delicious fashion. It is visceral, gory and gut-wrenchingly funny.The simple story follows terrorist psycho Padraic, a renegade member of the INLA, a splinter group of the IRA... 

Borges and I

Borges and I

Jorge Luis Borges stands among the greatest writers of the twentieth century, a pioneering figure of South American literature and the magical realist genre. It was once said of him that he could have rewritten War and Peace in five pages and it probably would have been better... 

Jack, Or the Submission

Jack, Or the Submission

When it comes to absurdity there are not many names more famous than Eugene Ionesco. However, among his repertoire there are not many plays less famous than Jack, Or the Submission... 

Fantastical Adventures in the Mundane

Fantastical Adventures in the Mundane

David (Douglas Cape) is a writer. He is writing a novel about another writer but things are not going well. With deadlines looming and the alcohol nearly gone, David undergoes a somewhat comical existential crisis and in the process is forced to face his own mortality... 

Simon Munnery: Fylm

Simon Munnery: Fylm

‘Very, very, very, very funny, literally rib shattering, deeply profound and seemingly inane - also overwhelmingly pink.’ This is the description that Simon Munnery states he wants to appear in the reviews for his new show Fylm... 

Tony Law: Nonsense Overdrive

Tony Law: Nonsense Overdrive

Tony Law is an irrepressible force; a man who pushes back the known frontiers of silliness, a clown of cosmic proportions. Dressed like an extra from Doctor Who in the seventies with two streaks of electric blue on his face and his fingers decked out with mini torches, his appearance is only a slight intimation of the kind of zany, surreal personality that Law unleashes on his audience... 

Do We Need You After The Apocalypse? The Game Show

Do We Need You After The Apocalypse? The Game Show

Society has crumbled, zombies are on the loose - what do you do next? A) Search for food, B) try to find other people or C) go see some bad comedians late at night with an underwritten show that depends primarily on the drunkenness of the audience for it to have any effect at all... 

Luke Toulson: I Don't Know How I Feel About My Kids - Free

Luke Toulson: I Don't Know How I Feel About My Kids - Free

Luke Toulson is very ambivalent about his children. Though being a father has meant that he had to go to their school production of a vaguely racist version of Miss Saigon and has to share his glory with his kids’ non-achievements, he realises that, on the plus side, parenthood gives you the moral high ground in every argument... 

The Rabbie Burns Supper Club

The Rabbie Burns Supper Club

Set in the impressive venue of the Ghillie Dhu, the Rabbie Burns Supper Club is an ostensible celebration of Burns poetry and Scots culture. What this celebration actually means in practice of course is just a bit of a piss up, with good food and music and not much Burns... 

Dying On Stage

Dying On Stage

Dying on stage is a one man show written by Edward Chapman that seems particularly prescient amidst the ongoing scandal of popular television presenters being accused of indecent acts with children... 

A Matter of Life and Death

A Matter of Life and Death

A Matter of Life and Death by Tom Morris and Emma Rice, as well as being a loving ode to the classic film by Powell and Pressburger, is also an original work in its own right. Charming, funny and unexpectedly poignant, this is family fun of the best kind... 

Are You Sitting Comfortably?

Are You Sitting Comfortably?

Are You Sitting Comfortably? takes as its premise the intriguing idea of setting a run of the mill office romcom inside a radio. Yes, you read that correctly. Not a radio station but a radio... 

Not the Messiah

Not the Messiah

Graham Chapman’s life was the tragic element at the heart of the world’s greatest ever comedy troupe, Monty Python. What a life; the first openly gay man on British television, the star of two of the best comedy films ever made and a man who drove himself to insensibility through alcohol... 

After Ever Happily

After Ever Happily

What ever happened after they lived happily ever after? When Red Riding Hood (not little) is sent to a psychiatric ward and told that she cannot be who she says she is, we realise that stories can develop into something more complicated than the usual fairytale endings might suggest... 

Pigmalion Zoo

Pigmalion Zoo

The posters for Pigmalion Zoo simply advertise it as ‘A New Play’ with no trace or clue as to who may have written it. Having watched Pigmalion Zoo I can now understand why a writer would refuse to take credit for a play that can only be described as the theatrical equivalent of a punch in the crotch... 

A Writer's Lot

A Writer's Lot

Josh King’s play, as the title suggests, is unashamedly metafictional, exploring the artist’s relationship with his art and how that is reflected in his relationship with the real world... 

In Real Life (IRL)

In Real Life (IRL)

We live in a world where technology is changing the way we see ourselves and other people. The opportunities for anonymity, for secrecy, for deception are ever increasing and even those who are seemingly innocent can find themselves caught up in a web of lies... 

Splatter

Splatter

The actor James Webb fears something is amiss on the set of his next film, a torture-porn horror flick called Porkies. He is of course right to be suspicious. An inhospitable shooting location, sketchy details about the crew’s arrival and a director with something to hide all suggest that the lines between fiction and reality are about to be blurred... 

Damned

Damned

Damned is the new play by Jack Harrison and it is damned difficult to explain. Its plot is vaguely non-existent and its characters may or may not be human, the dialogue delights in repetition and obscurity and there is absolutely no clear meaning to be found anywhere... 

Mat Ewins: Once Upon a Time in the Jest

Mat Ewins: Once Upon a Time in the Jest

Mat Ewins is a passionate fan of history and of stand-up comedy, so quite naturally he brings his ardour and insider knowledge of both to create a show that is clever, silly and brilliantly funny... 

Davey Connor Live! But Not in Your Living Room

Davey Connor Live! But Not in Your Living Room

Davey Connor is a charming, unimposing performer whose style washes over the audience and wins them over seemingly without effort. And his new show Davey Connor Live! But Not in Your Living Room is a finely tuned, well thought out and very funny set... 

Javier Jarquin: Joke Ninja

Javier Jarquin: Joke Ninja

At the beginning of his show, Javier Jarquin warn his audience that his show is called Joke Ninja because his jokes are so stealthy that you probably won’t notice them. The problem however was the opposite... 

Sean Hughes - Penguins

Sean Hughes - Penguins

Classic stand-up comic Sean Hughes is worried he’s past his best. He shouldn’t be. Despite the demeaning comments about him written in the Sun, comments which form the starting point of his set, he is on fine form... 

Diablo

Diablo

Diablo is a dark, violent and frighteningly authentic play about the sex trafficking industry in Northern Ireland from Spanner in the Works Theatre Company. They have a reputation for producing solid, hard-hitting dramas and after having seen Diablo I can only say that this reputation is well deserved... 

Forest

Forest

Starting with a premise as old as any in the world of fairy tales, Forest begins with a little girl waking up in a dark and magical forest. Unfortunately, aside from chatting to some talking animals, not much really happens beyond this point... 

A Complete and Comprehensive History of the Roman Empire in Less Than an Hour - With Jokes

A Complete and Comprehensive History of the Roman Empire in Less Than an Hour - With Jokes

Misnomer number one of the title; it does actually last a full hour. Misnomer number two of the title; it contains only some jokes. Ed O’Meara is a charming and likeable comic who seems to have bitten off far more than he can chew... 

The Major

The Major

Absurd, grotesque and quite brilliant, The Major is a small comic theatre gem of a decidedly weird kind. A satire on social ambition in 19th century St Petersburg, based upon Nikolai Gogol’s The Nose, this is a sprightly adaptation by the award-winning Oliver Michell... 

Sara Pascoe vs the Truth

Sara Pascoe vs the Truth

‘There are no facts, only interpretations’ so said Frederic Nietzsche. It is certainly an unusual through-line for an hour of comedy, but such is the premise of Sara Pascoe’s quite wonderful new show... 

15 Minutes

15 Minutes

Andy Warhol once proclaimed that in the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes. The charming and silly satire, Fifteen Minutes, is essentially an extended riff on Warhol’s dictum... 

Long Live The Little Knife

Long Live The Little Knife

The value of art, human redemption, dead labradoodles... all are at stake in David Leddy’s latest fast-paced comedy about the forgery of art and the art of forgery. It is (ostensibly) a verbatim play based on a true story but which also toys with Brecht, abstract painting and some funky scat jazz... 

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