Articles by Sam Forbes

Borderlands

Borderlands

We are on the border between England and Scotland, life and death, fluid and solid. We are on the banks of the River Tweed among the centuries old stone of Dryburgh Abbey. Established in 1150; burned down in 1322; all but abandoned by 1584, the Abbey’s ruins remain today as a remarkably well-preserved reminder of medieval monasticism and sacred solitude... 

The Ex

The Ex

Dutch jazz punk veterans The Ex, have been going for thirty-five years. In that time they have traversed as many styles, from free jazz to African rhythms, rattling through studio albums and band members in the process... 

You're Not Like the Other Girls Chrissy

You're Not Like the Other Girls Chrissy

Caroline Horton enters laden with suitcases against a pastel French tricolour. She is Christiane, the unique Chrissy of the show’s title. She waits at Gare du Nord, queuing for a ticket to England in the hope of reuniting with Cyril, her fiancé... 

Woolly Eyed Turtle 3D

Woolly Eyed Turtle 3D

Emily Johnson and Maeve Bell are a double act from Ireland. A proud Irish identity filters into their work; their show Woolly Eyed Turtle 3D is a fast and funny race through the rural stereotypes of Flackin O’Shlackin, the 'smallest town in Ireland'... 

To Sleep To Dream

To Sleep To Dream

To dream or not to dream? For the residents of Lhaytar, the only remaining city on an otherwise flooded Earth, the answer is definitively the latter. Not that they have much of a choice on the matter – the government has banned dreaming along with all other acts of personal creativity... 

Quiet Violence

Quiet Violence

The room smells of Deep Heat. The reason, Sophie Rose explains to us, is because the big physical show upstairs warm up in her studio space. Quiet Violence, she assures us, is not a big physical show... 

Darkness Falls – John's Gospel

Darkness Falls – John's Gospel

The Gospel of John is the most interesting of all the New Testament gospels. While the other synoptic gospels share material, over 90% of John’s Gospel is unique. It is also traditionally considered a ‘spiritual’ writing as opposed to the more historical writing of Matthew, Mark and Luke... 

Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons

Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons

123,205,750. The average number of words spoken by an average person over an average lifetime. In Sam Steiner’s play, which is anything but average, the government has limited the daily number of words per person to 140... 

The Accidental Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

The Accidental Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous creation is given a shaky new lease of life in this parody adventure by Tobacco Tea. Holmes (Jasmine Atkins-Smart) and Watson (Thomas Parker) haven’t had a case for a very long time... 

The Remnants: Threadbare

The Remnants: Threadbare

Archimedes (Alexander Wilson) is interested in scopophilia, pleasure derived from looking. He looks at us, an experiment to see how long he can sit before we leave. Mercifully, Phoenix (Emily Johnstone) interrupts and tells him a story about two lovers... 

Electric Dreams

Electric Dreams

Rose’s earliest memory is a ruined birthday party at the age of eighteen. The rest of her past is a blur to her: snatches of information, electric dreams. She meets Sebastian, a Chilean migrant and opponent of the Pinochet regime, on a bridge... 

ErictheFred

ErictheFred

An ambitious clown show from veteran performer Chris Lynam, ErictheFred never quite lives up to its multimedia promise despite some impressive and funny moments along the way. Entering dejectedly onto the stage, Lynam tears off his wig and tutu in disgust at a bad performance he’s given... 

The Pie-Eyed Piper of Hamilton

The Pie-Eyed Piper of Hamilton

Pantomime is not just for Christmas, according to Òran Mór, whose take on the genre is a wonderfully satirical look at the corridors of power. The plot is a traditional one: the mayor of City State enlists the help of a Scottish boy with a ‘magic pipe’ to rid the streets of rats... 

Stockholm

Stockholm

Todd and Kali are a young couple. They live in one of those all-white, open-plan apartments that only exist in interior design magazines. They are self-destructive. But that’s ok, because soon they are going to Stockholm and “everything will be better”... 

The Remnants: As Thyself

The Remnants: As Thyself

A short and beguiling piece of theatre, As Thyself is presented here as the first part in a conceptual series of plays by Isla van Tricht, although it was originally a standalone piece... 

Eclectically. Arranged. Poe and The Tell-Tale In Part

Eclectically. Arranged. Poe and The Tell-Tale In Part

Fusion Theatre return to Greenside with a Poe-faced and incoherent piece of physical theatre that often makes even less sense than its overwrought title.Eclectically. Arranged. Poe and the Tell-Tale In Part is a devised piece that takes its cues from the Gothic stories of Edgar Allen Poe... 

The Mountain Top

The Mountain Top

In April 1968, Martin Luther King Jr went to Memphis. He made a speech about how, having survived an assassination attempt, he was not afraid of death. He had ‘been to the mountaintop’... 

On Track

On Track

A gallery space with assorted artworks: chainsaw, feathered headdress, a map of the world. The words “Kristien De Proost, 2015” on the back wall in bold capital letters. They relate both to the exhibitor and the exhibited – in the centre of the room is De Proost, running steadily on a treadmill... 

Wojtek: The Happy Warrior

Wojtek: The Happy Warrior

In 1942, a girl traded some food for a Persian bear cub. When the bear, whom she named Wojtek (Polish for ‘happy warrior’), became too big for her to look after, members of the 22nd Transport Company of the Polish army agreed to look after him... 

Fiesta de los Muertos

Fiesta de los Muertos

It’s one of the very few natural certainties that as we begin, so we must end – everything that lives, one day, has to die. Humans, perhaps uniquely aware of our own mortality, deal with this fact through ritualising death with every civilisation having different customs, fables and folktales about the afterlife and the importance of dying... 

Souvenirs

Souvenirs

Ashley (Ellice Stevens) has just moved to a new town. She finds some other children who tell her to break into the house of the Birdman (Alex Welsh) and steal something. His house, she discovers, is full of junk: cardboard boxes, old furniture and other mismatched trinkets... 

PAN

PAN

PAN, the Korean word for festival, is a showcase of traditional dance and drumming and forms an eye-opening if not always compelling introduction to the country’s performance.The festival that we witness is split into two “banquets” – the first is a succession of choreographed pieces to recorded music; the second involves live drumming, a hugely important element of Korea’s musical history... 

Twin Primes

Twin Primes

As any GCSE maths student will tell you, a prime number is one that has only two factors: one and itself. Furthermore, there are an infinite number of primes that are separated by just one number, like 11 and 13, called twins... 

Writing

Writing

A charming, witty and engaging show, Writing is an exploration of just that - the process of writing, as seen from a child’s perspective. Emma Clarke and Olive Merrill take us through a creative five-year-old’s world; navigating lunch box surprises, cut-out paper dragons and simple but vital reading and writing lessons... 

Talking with Angels: Budapest, 1943

Talking with Angels: Budapest, 1943

A crucifix, a menorah, the smell of incense. A single chair for a single performer, acting out her four roles. Shelley Mitchell enters this already sacred space slowly, her focus highly practised... 

Mind the Gap

Mind the Gap

Six passengers travel on the tube from Stratford to Ealing Broadway. One is an objectophile, one is a drunk, one is the runner up in the 2014 Irish beatboxing championships. A confusing mix of people that forms a perfect metaphor for Mind The Gap: an awkward blend of spoken word, bad jokes and beatboxing that never coheres into an understandable whole... 

The Communist Threat

The Communist Threat

A hotel room in Vienna, 1950. A member of the British secret service, Nightingale, sits with a gun, waiting for his superior for whom he has instructions. When he arrives, apparently on holiday, a tense and engaging dialogue starts, about espionage, loyalty and cricket... 

Traces

Traces

Traces has been amazing audiences around the world for nigh on a decade; it is a testament to the visual and theatrical power of the show that it’s lasted as long as it has. With an all-invigorated international cast, Les 7 Doigts de la Main’s most influential show is as buoyant, playful and impressive as ever... 

Incarnadine

Incarnadine

Macbeth gets the prequel it never needed in Chiaroscuro’s portrait of the thane as a young warrior. We meet the witches, the Lady and the doomed Scot himself in a well-meaning but bafflingly staged imagining of how Shakespeare’s villainous tragic couple came to meet... 

Munch

Munch

Thanks to E. L. James, S&M is both ‘in’ and grossly misunderstood. Indeed, anyone that thinks Christian Grey’s dungeon is the start and end of all things kinky would be well advised to see Munch, Sitch ‘N’ Kink’s self-proclaimed ‘A to Z’ of BDSM... 

Mitch’s Movie Pitches

Mitch’s Movie Pitches

Mitch (Eric Sigmundsson) loves movies. And he really, really wants to make one. Over 55 crafted minutes, he pitches several to us: a homophobic Santa Claus terrorises a gay couple; a couple find love being burned alive watching a short film; a blind man attempts a tightrope walk... 

Kafka's Ape

Kafka's Ape

Franz Kafka’s short story A Report to an Academy takes the form of an informative lecture given by an ape called Red Peter. In it, he describes to the academics his journey from Africa’s Gold Coast to the music halls of Europe, a journey that includes training to become a music hall entertainer and learning to drink alcohol... 

A Reason to Talk

A Reason to Talk

Sachli Gholamalizad moved from Iran to Belgium when she was five. For the two years that she and her brothers waited for their father to make the journey, her mother was her protector in this strange new country with its formidable barriers of language and discrimination... 

Scattered

Scattered

When their estranged father dies, twins Nicky and Jake reunite to execute his will. The unexpected arrival of Sam, a half-brother they never knew they had, forces them to question their relationship as the three new-found siblings patch over domestic scars, creating new ones in the process... 

This Wide Night

This Wide Night

Chloë Moss’ 2008 play about two women reunited after getting out of prison is confidently revived by SUDS in Eliza Gearty and Tom Herbert’s searing production. Lorraine (Kitt Barrie) is fresh out of prison after a twelve-year sentence... 

(Un)tied

(Un)tied

Georg Büchner’s fragmented masterpiece Woyzeck has always attracted experimentation, from one-man shows to Punchdrunk’s latest, The Drowned Man. Recent graduates Company ON continue this experimental tradition with style and originality... 

Amy K

Amy K

The expectations and contradictions of the modern world are explored in Deborah Gibbs’ well-meaning but heavy-handed production inspired by Franz Kafka’s The Trial. Our protagonist Amy K, after Kafka’s Josef, is told one morning to shut her curtains as “they are watching”... 

Why Is Life Like Sparrows?

Why Is Life Like Sparrows?

Anni Dafydd emerges onto the stage wearing layers of mismatched technicolour clothes. The patchwork outfit perfectly describes her show: offbeat, muddled but oddly endearing.Why is Life Like Sparrows? takes the form of a gently surreal sketch show... 

A World Beyond Man

A World Beyond Man

In 1912, Captain Georgy Brusilov sailed to the Arctic. Having been imprisoned by the polar ice for eighteen months, navigator Valerian Albanov left the ship with thirteen others and set off across the ice in search of land... 

The Hunting of the Snark

The Hunting of the Snark

Chicago’s Forks & Hope Ensemble brings Lewis Carroll’s famous nonsensical poem to magical life in this youthful and ebullient adaptation. Faithfully following Carroll’s original verse, the thirteen-strong cast bound chaotically around the stage, breathing new life into the narrative... 

Private View

Private View

 Plunge Theatre’s Edinburgh debut unflinchingly explores 21st century femininity in this confrontational piece of modern feminism in which three women explore perceptions of female body image... 

Pieces of Eight

Pieces of Eight

Aberdeen’s Literal Lines bring their confused and incoherent sketch show to Edinburgh for the first time. Over fifty unrelentingly dismal minutes, the cast of five prove just how difficult it is to bring successful comedy to the Fringe in a display from which no-one emerges with much dignity... 

Bond!

Bond!

There is only one way that Gavin Robertson can possibly start Bond!, his one-man parody of Ian Fleming’s greatest creation. Walking out into a single spotlight, sharply dressed and with hair slicked back, he faces the audience, pulls out a gun and fires... 

Actors

Actors

There’s an hour to go before an amateur production of Hamlet – the star of the show still hasn’t turned up, the rest of the cast hate each other and the director’s an egomaniac... 

Seawall

Seawall

Putting on Sea Wall at the Fringe is a bold move. Simon Stephens’ devastating monologue was written for and first performed in Edinburgh by Andrew Scott and, whilst there’s nothing wrong with performing works written for specific actors, Sea Wall seems like it should be an exception... 

The Boy in Blue

The Boy in Blue

Bringing a show to the Fringe is a daunting prospect even for established theatre companies. For Lambrook Prep School to bring not one but three shows to Edinburgh with performers as young as ten is therefore nothing short of extraordinary... 

The Constant Soldier

The Constant Soldier

A soldier sits in an anonymous room. He doesn’t know who he is. All he has for company is a bottle of whisky, a revolver with one bullet left and Cartwright, a psychotic figment of his imagination... 

Leave Me

Leave Me

Boy meets girl. He seems reserved, she more outgoing. They go back to her apartment, he doesn’t leave in the morning and gradually they fall in love. So far, so straightforward. An act of sexual violence then turns everything on its head as Act One show a darker side of relationships that is sadly all too common... 

My Luxurious 50 Square Feet Life

My Luxurious 50 Square Feet Life

In Hong Kong, thousands of people – poor families, students, white-collar workers – live in dystopian-sounding “sub-divided units” that sometimes only amount to 50 square feet... 

The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven

The Gospel According to Jesus, Queen of Heaven

Every evening, the understated sacred space of St. Mark’s church plays host to what is surely one of the most remarkable shows of the Fringe. In flickering candlelight, Jo Clifford performs a breathtaking and moving monologue as a transgender Jesus, filtering classic New Testament parables through beautiful queer lenses... 

Landscape with Skiproads

Landscape with Skiproads

What happens when the past collides with the present? If the philosophical is made tangible, does it still have the power to transform? And can myths ever hold any relevance to our lives? These are the questions that Belgian performer Pieter De Buysser sets out to answer in his quietly remarkable one-man show about objects, families, and a mysterious boy called Zoltan... 

Stackard Banks is Self-Discovered

Stackard Banks is Self-Discovered

An Amazonian tribe, a German arch-nemesis and The Bourne Ultimatum are just three of the things on the mind of world-renowned adventurer Stackard Banks, played with much gusto by Ed MacArthur in his near-solo show about exploration, identity and, inexplicably, The Bourne Ultimatum... 

Hamlet

Hamlet

New theatre company Gin & Tonic makes an assured debut with an abridged version of Hamlet that breathlessly energises Shakespeare’s masterpiece with a confidence not often seen in such a young company... 

Enigma - Emmy Goering (Hitler's Diva)

Enigma - Emmy Goering (Hitler's Diva)

Never has pre-show music been better selected: upon entering the second theatre space at Surgeon’s Hall we are greeted with a single mournful violin battling against heavy acoustic drums... 

The Rose of Jericho

The Rose of Jericho

In a bare room, ex-soldier Danny (Kevin Hely) tells his life story: a troubled childhood, new beginnings in London and the horrors of Kosovo and Iraq. It’s a story that stays with you and resonates well beyond the confines of the theatre... 

I Promise I Shall Not Play Billiards

I Promise I Shall Not Play Billiards

In the mid-19th Century, Madeleine Smith was accused of poisoning her lover, Pierre Emile L'Angelier. The jury found her neither innocent nor guilty, returning the uniquely Scottish verdict of “not proven”... 

Red Tap/Blue Tiger

Red Tap/Blue Tiger

A taut piece of modern drama about broken homes and broken lives, Red Tap/Blue Tiger marks Richard Vincent’s successful return to theatre and sees the emergence of exciting young talent in the form of The Albion Company... 

The Quant

The Quant

The world of high-level economics is no less mystifying after this one-man show by Jamie Griffiths, but he does at least shed some light on the individuals caught up in the financial system... 

Mafia on Prozac

Mafia on Prozac

Jay (T. Anthony Marotta) is a troubled man. He’s been dreaming of Al Capone and wants to take down the mafia. Unfortunately, he himself is a mob hitman and he and his long-time partner Tee (Ray Paolino) are about to introduce a man in a sack to the bottom of a river... 

Watching Windows

Watching Windows

In 1964, a young bride is discovered standing on a high window ledge at her own wedding reception. Twenty years later, a business deal is on the verge of collapse and thirty years after that, a group of students discover a mysterious box... 

God Is in My Typewriter

God Is in My Typewriter

Anna-Mari Laulumaa’s one-woman show about the life of troubled poet Anne Sexton is as uncompromising and uncomfortable as Sexton’s work itself. God Is in My Typewriter follows Sexton from birth to untimely suicide, as she experiences child abuse, mental institutions, and Pulitzer Prize winning fame... 

Gordon

Gordon

Sometimes less is more. Gordon, a one-man show by Ian Winter, tells the story of Barry, a successful but overworked salesman who succumbs to the pressures of modern life and begins losing the things most dear to him... 

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