Articles by Sarah McIntosh

Funny Girl

Revivals always run the risk of not resonating with a contemporary audience, or relying wholly on nostalgia, but Michael Mayer’s touring production of the Fanny Brice story, m…

Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story

Nostalgia is big business.

TOM, the Musical

Everyone has a story about Tom, says the narrator.

James III: The True Mirror

Like the first, the final play in Rona Munro’s James Plays is part family saga, part love story.

James II: Day of the Innocents

Day of the Innocents takes place on the same set as the first James play, but it feels somewhat different thanks to subtle changes of dressing and lighting.

James I: The Key Will Keep The Lock

There’s the feel of a gladiatorial arena to the staging of Rona Munro’s trilogy of James Plays, not least because some audience members seated on a raised area above the sta…

The Sound of Music

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II didn’t shirk from social issues within their musical theatre productions: racism (South Pacific), transient/absent fatherhood (Carouse…

Priscilla Queen of the Desert: The Musical

Australia is home to many curious creatures; a place where men are macho, except when they put on a frock, heels and make-up to sing along to disco classics.

Close to You: Bacharach Reimagined

If you grew up in the 1970s it was almost compulsory to know the music of Burt Bacharach and lyrics of Hal David - Alfie, Anyone Who Had a Heart, Look of Love and What the World N…

A Bench On The Road

Review
★★★
Sarah McIntosh
Edinburgh
Summerhall
25th Feb, 2015

Billed as “a story of women’s courage, of sisterhood and pride”, A Bench on the Road is a work in progress based on the true experiences of Italian immigrants, Scottish-bo…

Journey's End

With the death of the last surviving veterans a few years back, the so-called Great War of 1914-18 slipped from living memory, but some records remain preserved none-the-less, n…

BFG

Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre always has a Christmassy feel to it, with its gilded pillars and Arabian Nights ceiling, and this enchanting adaptation feels like an early Ch…

Ukulele Workshop With Tricity Vogue - Free

Last year I bought myself a ukulele but I have to confess that most of the time it looks really cute hanging on my wall.

Cabaret Roulette

PHB’s Free Fringe often uses some odd venues and this one, in the small disco downstairs at The Street, is cramped with awkwardly-shaped seating making it difficult for the whole…

Burton

The tiny venue was packed so tight for the opening performance of Burton no one in the audience dared breathe.

Trainspotting

Is it really 20 years since the publication of Irvine Welsh’s novel Trainspotting? This immersive stage version adapts Danny Boyle’s celluloid presentation of the novel brings…

Hiraeth

Bud wants to leave home, but when doing so breaks the tradition of four generations of farmers in rural West Wales, it is a tough decision for the aspiring artist.

Bianco

A few years ago I took my children to a circus.

Rumpelstiltskin

Don’t be put off by the title: this is a completely fresh reworking of the 19th century story by the Brothers Grimm.

Soul to Soul (I Have a Dream) by Movin' Melvin Brown

American song and dance man Movin’ Melvin Brown is not content to have just one show at the Fringe (The Ray Charles Experience), or two (an interactive workshop Tap into Health -…

Jamie Andrew Life and Limb

Each time a mountain rescue is reported in the media, it is difficult not to think ‘Why would they climb that alone/in that weather/at that time of year?’ But the truth for som…

Adventures of Andy Kershaw

Kershaw has had a lot of bad press over the last decade for his personal life but he’s back on track and promoting his autobiography No Off Switch at the Auditorium, Ghillie Dhu …

Snoopy the Musical

As part of the American High School Theatre Festival at Church Hill Studio Theatre in Bruntsfield, Van Buren High School brought to life the colourful and well-loved characters fro…

Kit Hesketh-Harvey and James McConnel

The Edinburgh Academy makes for a spacious yet slightly odd choice of venue for music and comedy due Kit Hesketh-Harvey and James McConnel.

Tony Benn and Richard Holloway: Two Old Gits

In a society where the older generation is generally ignored and marginalised by the media, Two Old Gits comes as a welcome change.

Journos

TTMOOTV Theatre & Film Company’s Journos is the new play by producer/actor Jamie Alexander Eastlake and co-writer/actor Adam Donaldson who did rather well at last year’s Fringe…

Three Half Pints

Last year I regretted not taking my junior reviewers to see the Three Half Pints.

Punk Rock

This tense drama, nominated for two best new play awards in 2010, centers around the lives of seven young people as they sit their mock ‘A’ Levels at a public school.

Val McDermid - Killing People For Fun and Profit

As a writer I am always keen to find out how other writers tap into their creative process, and the opportunity to delve into the mind of such a prolific writer as Val McDermid in …

Susie McCabe: An Uncivil Partnership

About as far down the opposite end of the spectrum from disappointing as you could get, McCabe’s set is an insight into her coming out at the age of 17 (her dad asked, ‘Susie, …

Vanessa Knight

Vanessa Knight is the most glamorous thing to come out of Birmingham since Duran Duran.

Writing Plays for Young People

Head of Drama at Trinity College London, John Gardyne does not lecture in the art of playwriting, yet he makes an engaging host for this one-hour workshop encouraging the craft.

Threesome

How do you stop people from getting scared by the word ‘feminism’? Why do we live in a world that presents the size zero as the bodily ideal, and any normal, curvaceous figure …

Arthur Conan Doyle Experience

Despite being described in the Fringe brochure as a ‘walk and talk exhibition’, the audience of the Arthur Conan Doyle Experience was sat in a lecture room upon arrival and a s…

Kindness

Sam Brady ushers us into his gig and then darts behind the curtain to announce his own entrance.

Aurora Winterborn's Candid Cabaret

The rise in popularity of Burlesque at the Edinburgh Fringe means there is sometimes no telling what is tacky and what is classy.

The Loveboat Big Band Summer Love-In

It’s true: All the nice girls really do like a sailor.

Classical Guitar - Jonathan Prag

Any single live performance can be affected by many things; a cold venue, a small audience, a slightly fidgety child in the second row (BBR8, sorry!), but when a performer is bille…

Blackwell's Writers at the Fringe

This series of free events gives the public a chance to see, listen to and meet Scottish literary performers, from poets to crime novelists, folk musicians to a-capella singers; a …

Pips and Panda Meet the Three Bears

The thoughtful touch at this venue was two rows of weenie seats at the front that my petit companion Olivia (4) announced she was going to sit in, next to the girl at the front.

Funny Women at the Fringe

A soggy Sunday afternoon spent in a cosy tent with the rain pitter-pattering on the roof felt much better than the battle of brollies it took to get there.

Colours of Tango

To say that the audience was full of women of a certain age at Colours of Tango would be slightly unfair.

Antigone

The last time I ‘did Greek’ was the NTS’s production of The Bacchae with Alan Cumming.

The Three Half Pints

If I were an anthropologist or a linguist I could write a thesis on non-verbal communication through shared laughter.

Chinese Music Traditional and New

The connection between traditional Scottish music and Chinese music is something I had given no thought to until this concert, but the Harmony Ensemble changed all that with their …

Angels and Demons

I love the name Wendy.

Moon

Given that I am Welsh and probably genetically hardwired to love close-harmony singing, I do not normally go out of my way to find it.

Lady Carol Must Die

There’s a definite buzz on George Street.

Dancing About Architecture

The host for this chat show is Mark Olver, a stand up who has supported Russell Howard on tour and is the warm-up for such television favourites as Deal or No Deal and Vicar of Dib…

Kevin Dewsbury: In...Sane - Free

There’s a familiar traditional-northern-comic style about Kevin Dewsbury as he welcomes the audience to the room above the Meadows Bar, mixed with a bit of laddish banter.

Forget Therapy - Just Drink - Free

It promised to be a fun show.

And the Girls in Their Sunday Dresses

Two women, one food queue and one unlikely friendship.

Fag Ends and Families...!

Simon Egerton is already playing the electric piano when we enter the bar.

The Noise Next Door: Bring The Noise

I’ve never been a huge fan of improvisational comedy for its sheer clever-dick-ness and the prospect of spending an hour with five testosterone-fueled young guns filled my heart …

Luminous Tales

Shadow puppetry has delighted people for about 1,000 years and little has changed.

Sarah McIntosh: 11 hours of James Plays in one day? Challenge Accepted.

Feature
Sarah McIntosh
Edinburgh
13th Feb, 2016

It’s been nearly two years since The James Plays made their considerable impression at the 2014 Edinburgh International Festival and today audiences have the opportunity to spend...

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