When you are faced with a Fringe programme of thousands of shows, sometimes it is useful to know of just a few.
These shows are opening this week.
- The Spy Network
- On the morning of February 8, 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots enters the great hall where she’ll soon be executed for treason. There she meets Barnaby Fulke, an enigmatic actor sent to provide merriment before the chop. With one last chance to set the record straight, Mary stages her story, revisiting the spies, secrets and betrayals that sealed her fate. Secret codes, espionage and treason propel this gripping three-hander through Scotland’s turbulent past. But history isn’t always written until the last act and in the life of Mary, there is still one final scene left to play.
- Company: Shooting Fish Theatre Company
- Venue: Greenside Riddles Court, Thistle Theatre
- Dates: 17 – 29 Aug. Time: 13:50 (50 mins)
- Review from: 18 Aug.
- Category: Theatre, New Writing, Historical
- Age guidance: 8+
- Content Warning: Distressing or potentially triggering themes, Scenes of violence
- Aliens
- Join real-life mother and daughter Marta McIlduff and Alessandra Celesia on a road trip from Donegal to southern Italy, as they weave their personal stories with those of Italian immigrants in Northern Ireland. Blending performance, video, archive testimony and live electronic music, the duo meet present-day migrants, activists and strangers along the route, asking who gets to draw the lines between us and them.
- Company: Curious Industries and Dumbworld
- Venue: ZOO Southside
- Dates: 18 – 30 Aug. Time: 16:20 (75 mins)
- Review from: 19 Aug.
- Category: Theatre
- Age guidance: 12+
- Laughing Out Lonely (LOL)
- An electrifying and deeply affecting exploration of what it means to feel alone in a hyperconnected world. With lyrics drawn from anonymous social media posts, digital confessions are transformed into a raw, live experience. Acclaimed countertenor Morten Grove Frandsen delivers a tour-de-force solo performance.
- Company: OPE-N
- Venue: Summerhall, Dissection Room
- Dates: 18 – 31 Aug. Times: 13:15 & 14:15 (45 mins)
- Review from: 18 Aug (14:15 performance)
- Category: #DANISH, Music, Theatre
- Age guidance: 14+
- Content Warnings: Strobe lighting, distressing or triggering themes, strong language
- M.I.S All Night Long
- Three men. One night. No escape. A physical comedy celebrating the glorious mess of being human in a man’s body. Somewhere between showing off and falling apart, men wrestle with friendship, rivalry, tenderness and the desperate need to belong. All night long they compete, carry each other, lose control and search for balance in a world that constantly pulls them off course. With explosive physicality, absurd humour and moments of unexpected tenderness, M.I.S. – All Night Long is a celebration of our attempts to hold it together – and what happens when we finally let ourselves be moved.
- Company: Don Gnu
- Venue: ZOO Southside, Main House
- Dates: 18 – 30 Aug. Time: 12:30 (60 mins)
- Review from: 19 Aug.
- Category: #DANISH, Theatre, Comedy
- Age guidance: 14+
- Content Warning: Audience participation, Nudity, Scenes of violence
- Good Enough?
- From the critically acclaimed, award-winning company behind Mass Effect and Champions, comes a brand-new performance celebrating imperfection, queer joy and the courage to find your tribe. Good Enough? is a queer, quirky and boisterous physical theatre performance about reclaiming your story and having the courage to be loud, awkward and unapologetically yourself. A show about the instinct to move, to express and to be seen –especially when language isn’t enough.
- Company: HIMHERANDIT Production
- Venue: Summerhall – Main Hall
- Dates: 19th – 30th Aug. Time: 13:30 (60 mins)
- Review from: 19 Aug.
- Category: #DANISH, Dance, Physical Theatre
- Age guidance: 16+
- Content Warnings: Scenes of a sexual nature, nudity, audience participation
- Our Other Organ
- With brutality and humour, Boaz Barkan digs into a living body to uncover a new organ – the place where our racism resides. Our Other Organ dissects antisemitism and its impact on Jewish identity, culminating in the creation of a new Zionist body and structures of violence and domination. The performance explores the anatomy of victims and oppressors as simultaneous conditions within the same body.
- Company: NoLands / Boaz Barkan
- Venue: Summerhall, Anatomy Lecture Theatre
- Dates: 18 – 31 Aug. Time: 16:15 (60 mins)
- Review from: 19 Aug.
- Category: #DANISH, Theatre
- Age guidance: 14+
- Content Warning: Distressing, potentially triggering themes
