Here is my 3rd blog post gathering another set of reviews from shows I have seen. It follows straight on from this selection https://www.chrisgrady.org/blog/edfringe-2025-reviews-blog-2/ and Blog 1 https://www.chrisgrady.org/blog/edfringe-2025-reviews-blog-1/
These 16 paragraphs are written at speed between shows as much to remind myself of what I’ve seen, as to be useful to other folk. I am always grateful that I am not a professional reviewer. A highly skilled craft which needs to be learned [Check Mark Fisher’s excellent book if you’d like to hone your skills]
GISELLE REMIX For the first time I’ve had to read back the promotional copy to try and understand what I have seen. I know I want to cheer the phenomenal quartet of dancers who move from ballet through contemporary to what I might describe as thrash dance. I thought I would be exploring some of the Adam music or the Giselle ballet plot. The first was quickly dismissed by the narrator and the latter, if remixed, makes me realise I don’t know the ballet plot. From Hollywood lypsync to Sex Club instruction numbers I felt this piece tried to embrace too many of the central characters artistic passions. But wow the company worked tirelessly to generate cheers at the end. https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/giselle-remix
THE OTHER MOZART At 1hr 20mins this is a very long solo narrative which presents a single awful truth – that Mozart’s sister like so many talented (nee genius) women from the 1700s to the 2000s are wiped from history. Nannerl Mozart is now a composer I will look out for. Sylvia Milo weaves a fascinating chronology of her shared early life and then diverging path forced upon her by society. The play tells us that Kant describes women as “apeing the genius of the male” and another wrote at the time “thinking can make a women infertile”. This show is playing in the City where the first female medical students forced their way into the male bastion of the Edinburgh University. It is good that this show is shining fascinating light on this lost composer and virtuoso. Please consider the energy of an audience at 80minutes. https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-other-mozart
FOOTBALLERS’ WIVES This confident classily staged, over the top, joyful and sassy new musical knows its audience and delivers with a cracking book and great belting music. I know nothing about football or Footballers’ Wives, but I also loved it. Ceili O’Connor as Tanya leads a stellar West End ready cast. At 90 mins here in Edinburgh I presume there is one more story to intertwine to deliver a 2 Act show for touring and commercial. But this version was sizzling and just what I needed after two very demanding shows. Congrats to Laura Elmes and all your team. It is odd to be playing a decidedly English show in Scotland as a try-out. The majority of the popular audience for EdFringe have loyalty to Scottish football teams, but it had very little country specific references so it worked…I’m not sure we have footballers’ wives in the same way in this Country. Grab your ticket now before a West End theatre adds a nought to the ticket price. https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/footballers-wives-the-musical
PERFECT DEAD GIRLS Two excellent performers Chelsea Grace and Elizabeth Robbins set out to tackle a fast jump cut play of multi scenes in Limbo exploring the before and the hoped for after. The fact these two also co-created this well-crafted play is doubly impressive. I hope it is published because it is a great actor and director showcase going forward. But please….no programme, no website for new theatre company Audaciously Tenacious Co Ltd, makes it so hard for theatre producers and programmers to see your plans and pathways as artists and a company. I was at their 1st performance … maybe there will be a programme tomorrow. Congratulations. https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/perfect-dead-girls
PARADOK PLATFORM I’ve just seen Unwelcome which is, I presume, a new play. The three unnamed performers bring this new writing by an unnamed author to full life. It has an Osborne Orton feel of hidden personal truths masked to survive in family and relationships. I wish I could know more. Edfringe audiences deserve to cheer names writers and performers. I hope the writer develops this new work with a dramaturge and re-presents it in 2026. And please Paradok get a cast list or programme for the rest of the runs. https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/paradok-platform-2025
MA NAME IS ISABELLE A Wonderful storyteller creates worlds. A doric storyteller creates worlds where I never need to know every word, they are creating poetry in the wonderful Aberdeenshire language whilst taking a predominantly Edinburgh and English audience with them. It is so good that Lucy Beth has grown her show from a first commission from Eden Court to a rightfully cheered slot at the Scottish Storytelling Centre. Her joy shines through. Her desire to share her language and stories and craft shine through. I first met her at University of West of Scotland and I hope UWS is proud of this rapid rise of a fine artist. https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/ma-name-is-isabelle
…ITS NOT MY PROBLEM Empowering a born stage performer, singer , and songwriter to bring their first show to Edinburgh is not usually an ambition of most parents and godparents. But Sebastian has this opportunity to share his passion for music, its calming effect on his psychophysical wellbeing, and to honour his teachers who have worked with him to release a massive voice and lovely stage presence. Sebastian has Special Needs (his chosen term) but his ability to put across fabulous MT classics reached straight to my heart. Not because of his dis-ability but his ability. So glad John, his godfather and my old school theatre friend from 55 years ago suggested I make my way to Gladstones Land. If you get the chance go and enjoy seeing how Musical Theatre brings joy to Sebastian and to us. https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/it-s-not-my-problem
EDWARD (IN MEMORIUM) My 2nd Bristol Uni show and very different from Cabin Fever . Here the company of 3 actors explore the relationship of Edward and Gaveston as captured by Marlowe and Brecht without the poker. Here it is repositioned to a young heir to the throne, Edward, in the late 1990s finding a bride to stay within the expected outward show of heteronormative royalty, even if the couple may choose to run away from the spotlight for a new life. In a cruelly hot space with a loud fan to overpower some vocals, I found it difficult to feel a tension in the play between characters. I’d love to see this idea developed further into the future. https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/edward-in-memoriam
WANTED Occasionally a true life news story is found by a writer and explored into a fascinating tale. We know it doesn’t end well from the get-go, but the twists and turns of love and privilege, friendship and betrayal, give the three actors plenty to explore. Whether there is enough meat here to get further productions, I’m not sure, but that is what Edfringe is for…so a writer can see with multiple audiences the high beats and the less energised moments. I’d love to see it in a more claustrophobic space…maybe that’s a plan. https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/wanted
HOW TO WIN AGAINST HISTORY This excellent company of musicians and 2 inexhaustible central actors played in a packed Underbelly cow. I’m not sure whether the audience came for the Fleabag effect, hoping to be in at the start of another Francesca Moody smash hit, or an interest in the blanked out history of Henry of Anglesey who sought to live a gay life in Edwardian style. The piece revolves around Henry’s desire to create a crowd-pleasing artistic experience for audiences across the country and beyond. I’m not sure whether life is imitating art here or whether once again the cheers for this phenomenal company will raise the roof in London, across Wales, and across the world. https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/how-to-win-against-history
LOBSTER POT MUSIC I had to head back from the wee Edinburgh Festival to our own weekly music night. I live in a village of 70 souls, a castle, a small marina, a distillery and a pub which today celebrates its 6th birthday. As I walk in there are 22 musicians all exploring the theme of a piece thrown from a multi-story flat to reach 700 hungry wains. There are traditional fiddle players, blues songs, Americana and even some plinky plonk (to quote the Irish landlord…by which we mean MT and jazz standards). Someone had the audacity to say to me today that out of August all the arts happen in Glasgow…no they happen in Sessions all over this extraordinary country of storytelling and music making. Happy birthday Colm and Sheena. Thank you for welcoming phenomenal artists every week in Blackness. Including the phenomenal natural voice of Aunty Kathy who brings the oral song tradition to life each week. [Kath just told me around 6 musicians have already played and moved on…so 28 musicians played in a village of 70 souls. There is magic in the air]https://lobster-pot.co.uk
ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE (EIF) Once in a while a directorial vision and the execution of that vision leaves an audience breathless with delight and cheering for more. Taking Gluck’s exquisite opera, adding sensational acrobatic artists, and ensuring the finest musicality was ever present was yesterday’s feast at the Playhouse. Every beat of the complex emotional journey for Orpheus sung gloriously by Iestyn Davies were complemented by the visual moves and by beautiful embedded subtitles which themselves became visual poetry. Samantha Clarke beautifully delivered the two roles of Euridyce and Amor. These two stars will stay in my heart thanks to director Yaron Lifscitz and conductor Laurence Cummings who led the creative team with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Scottish Opera Chorus and the Circa Ensemble from Australia. Thank you EIF for coproducing this exquisite feast with Opera Australia. https://www.eif.co.uk/events/orpheus-eurydice
BOOK OF MOUNTAINS AND SEAS (EIF) You win some you lose some. We came from the exquisite endlessly inventive Orpheus and Euridyce to see this contemporary opera and puppetry blend from Huang Ruo and Basil Twist. I have no doubt that the endless 12 part acapella unintelligible libretto was wonderfully crafted and phenomenally performed by Ars Nova Copenhagen. However the puppetry was elementary and the repetitive nature of waving Ikea lampshades to represent 10 suns was excruciating. As each entered I am sure half the audience was counting. They waved around a lot. Then each left so so slowly. The concept was dramaturgically messy. One tale talks of a man chasing the sun till it sets. Don’t then walk the lit sun across the stage. Then walk it round the stage going upwards…the sun goes down when it sets. Don’t then walk it the other way round the stage…the sun only goes one way. Ahhh. I find it disturbing that the director offers My Neighbor Totorro as his key biog credit. The puppets in that show were wonderful but the imagination and creativity flowed from Improbable and I would love to have seen what Phelim and his team might have made of this dense operatic piece. How the EIF creative team thought this was world class imaginative puppetry inspired performance I have no idea. Hopefully they are scouting round the Fringe and talking to younger emerging companies who could, in time have a mass Lyceum audience cheering rather than leaving bemused and disappointed.https://www.eif.co.uk/events/book-of-mountains-and-seas
BEN MOOR An unexpected delight. I was due to see Rose and Ben from Lyric Belfast this morning but it was cancelled. I hope everyone is OK with that ompany. But instead I got the last ticket in the house for Ben’s new show. I have loved every fantastical world weaving surreal deeply heartfelt show of Ben’s. He opens his heart to us and we explore how his synapses fire a little more extra-ordinarily than mere mortals. His linguistic flights of fancy and his considered reflections on human existence flow from him at glorious speed. Thank goodness we can buy the playscript after. In the words of Ben, I Have More Trees to Climb and I hope I have more Ben Moor shows to see. I wonder whether anyone has taken one of monologues and created a dance or physical world with his voice as soundtrack of a theatre universe. If so, I want to see it. https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/ben-moor-a-three-thing-day
OUR MARTIN IN THE BACKGROUND I’m delighted to find I was at the World Premier of Mark Kydd’s new solo theatre piece. It was sold out and rightly so. His character Martin is a wonderful composite of a young man growing up in the Lancashire, a young man finding his way as a background artist in Brief Encounter (1945) with the wonderful Celia Johnson, a young man discovering his love that dare not speak its name at a time when homosexuality was illegal, and a young man finding his way to the blackout and then the bright lights of London at the end of the War. This is a beautifully crafted, heartfelt piece which will, I hope, appeal to the widest audience on tour, back at EdFringe 2026, and onward into a delicate piece of television. It is gentle and emotionally held…just as Noel Cowards Still Life and David Leans movie are. https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/our-martin-in-the-background
[Mark takes the show to Dundee Fringe 17th and 18th Sept if you can’t get a ticket at the Storytelling Centre]
INLET Any wonderful piece of sculptural contemporary dance like this offers each audience member the chance to impose their own narrative. I’m glad I didn’t read the excellent programme before because I was in another world of childhood innocence, staglike male battles, and the emotional journey of a woman enjoying being with, and then confronted by two men who steadily destroy all the joy they found at first. Saeed Hani creates a visual and choreographed world inhabited by three extraordinary dancers Ana Melero, Francesca Ferrari and Michelle Scappa. Dancebase is a welcoming place but surprisingly the sightlines for floor work here are very bad. Get to the front of the line and aim for the first two rows. Congratulations to UK Edinburgh producer Ida Casilli for bringing this company and this audience together for a raw, beautiful, and powerful experience. https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/inlet
This brings to 29 the reviews I’ve added so far (plus the Lobster Pot) up to the end of Week 2. I will continue to share thoughts and welcome any comments from you – especially strong disagreements because these are most definitely not objective opinions