Things to do in Edinburgh today

The story of the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland must be like catnip to James Graham, who has become the pre-eminent playwright in the country by writing niche dramas about unfathomably British subjects and unerringly striking box office gold. The 2008 financial crash (does anyone still call it the credit crunch?) has long been documented in drama: Lucy Prebble’s surreal breakthrough play ENRON emerged as early as 2009, while Stefanno Massini’s The Lehman Trilogy offered a more oblique take in 2013. The British end of things has largely been ignored by dramatists: you’re clearly not going to get an American playwright writing about the Royal Bank of Scotland, and for British writers the fact our nation saw RBS’s collapse first hand perhaps left it less in need of an urgent response. Now, though, it’s 17 years on: high time the tale was told properly. And what a tale Graham has cooked up: if you were worried there wouldn’t be enough material for one play, then the problem with Make It Happen is that there’s actually material for at least three.  One is a sweeping historical drama about the close knit, hidebound world of Edinburgh banking over the last three centuries.  One is about Adam Smith, the Scottish godfather of capitalism itself, here played by the great Brian Cox in what amounts to a juicy supporting role. And then there’s the ‘main’ plot, which follows the now infamous Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwin, a dour Paisley accountant with no formal banking qualifications...

Seiriol Davies’s giddily preposterous musical is a true Edinburgh Fringe classic, having originated at the festival back in 2016. A larky collision of Gilbert & Sullivan and Monty Python, it tells the story of Henry Paget, the fifth Marquess of Anglesea, a flamboyant Victorian nobleman who frittered away a fortune converting the family chapel into a theatre and staging his own terrible plays there at enormous expense. Alex Swift’s original production did really quite well for itself, but in the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Paget’s birth How To Win Against History is back in a new upgraded production from incoming Stratford East boss Lisa Spirling. Exactly how different it is to the original is TBC – frankly it would be fine if it was unchanged – but the original cast of Davies, Matthew Blake and Dylan Townley are all returning for the Francesca Moody and Bristol Old Vic-produced revival. 

An immersive Peter Pan musical based around a tranche of early ’00s pop hits sounds like a great piece of Fringe fluff, especially in a relatively late night slot where audiences can let their hair down a bit. Will Club NVRLND actually be good as well? Certainly there’s good reason to hope: it’s written by Jack Holden, whose Cruise was solid and KENREX even better. And the plot isn’t just Peter Pan plus millenial bangers because lol: Holden’s thesis is that millennials are a generation of lost boys (and girls), unable to grow up because of a capricious and unfair world that prices them out of property, kids etc. In it, Wendy is on the cusp of marriage – but reunion with the eternal boy Peter Pan throws everything into a spin. It’s directed by Steven Kunis, with choreography from Ashley Nottingham.

A cult hit in the US, this autobiographical musical two-hander is based around the real lives of married indie folk duo The Bengsons, specifically Shaun’s rejection of his religious faith and embrace of his hearing loss. It’s produced by Francesca Moody – unerring queen of the most zeitgeisty recent Fringe hits, including Fleabag and Baby Reindeer – and has a transfer to the Young Vic already pencilled in, so expect big things. 

Anarchic performance trio In Bed With My Brother were last seen at the Fringe with Difficult Second Album, a show inspired by the KLF’s burning of a million pounds. There’s been other work since – notably their furiously anti-Jeff Bezos Barbican show PRIME_TIME – but they make their return to Edinburgh with another music themed show. Philosophy of the World sees them explore their fasicnation with The Shaggs, the bizarre ’60s and ’70s rock band comprised of a trio of sisters with little interest in music, whose strict father nonetheless forced then to form a rock band as a result of a prediction made by a fortune teller. Mocked at the time, their one album Philosphy of the World has become an avant-garde cult classic. In Bed with My Brother’s show of the same name is billed as ‘part tribute act, part feminist reclamation, part fever dream’.

This review is from London in 2024. We tend to think of New Yorkers as pathologically grouchy souls. But primary schooler-orientated NYC wizard Mario the Maker Magician is defined by his infectious elan. Whether he’s goofing around with the petty logic of a seven-year old or accessibly expounding on his love for Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, it’s the giddy atmosphere that the Sesame Street and David Blaine-endorsed Mario fosters in his show that makes it work as much as the actual magic. And the magic is great: a lot of sleight of hand stuff that impresses and winds up the smaller members of the audience in equal measure, plus a fair amount of out-and-out trolling of the adults. And this is the key: while never actually losing control, Mario encourages an air of borderline anarchy that’s extremely good fun (one audience member is required to look after a box and run off if Mario gets anywhere near her… which he does, a lot). His nominal USP is his homemade robots and devices (the ‘maker’ bit), and it has to be said that while these are very much part of the show – there is a very cute extended section with one little DIY droid – his act doesn’t lean on them quite as much as one might expect from the spiel. But that’s hardly an issue unless you’re an obsessive robophile: Mario himself is the main attraction. To be honest, aside from shonky kids’ party entertainers I’m not sure I can remember another children’s magician playing in London, let alone one turning up...

The great touring company Paines Plough hasn’t been able to bring its iconic Roundabout venue to Summerhall this summer – for reasons you can google – but it’s still up at the Fringe with two shows, this one even at Summerhall. Comic Mark Thomas scored great notices a few years back for his rivetingly intense acting debut in Ed Edwards’s England and Son. Now actor and playwright are reunited for Ordinary Decent Criminal, a story about a recovering addict prisoner who becomes part or a liberal rehabilitaton experiment in the years after the Strangeways riots. Paines Plough co-boss Charlotte Bennett directs. 

Stalwart touring theatre company Paines Plough’s much loved Roundabout pop-up venue has been a sad victim of the uncertainty facing the future of Summerhall this year: it’s a long story (that has a happy-ish ending) which we have no time for here, but the basic point is there’s no Roundabout, but – yay! – there are still two shows from Paines Plough. Consumed is by Northern Irish writer Karis Kelly, who is best known for screen work, but this Edinburgh debut sounds promising, a dark comedy about four generations of Northern Irish women reuinited at a dysfunctional ninetieth birthday party. Paines Plough co-leader Katie Posner directs.

Okay, you probably need to keep your expectations of high art in check: Footballers’ Wives: The Musical is unlikely to be noticeably more intellectual than the wilfully trashy ITV series it’s based upon, even if one imagines there might be a splash more irony at play here. But it looks like a good laugh, with Ceili O'Connor and Matt Beveridge playing ruthlessly scheming power couple Tanya and Jason Turner. The musical by Kath Gotts and Maureen Chadwick will presumably at least loosely follow the plot of the series. It’s directed by Anthony Banks, with the legendary Arlene Phillips a big name signing as the choreographer.  

Megan and Kevin are just pals; until a one night stand caught on camera makes them reconsider their relationship. This ‘anti romcom’ delves into the amateur industry – not uninteresting as an idea, but what makes it considerably more intriguing is that Paldem is the debut play from rising Brit star David Jonsson, known for Industry, Rye Lane, Alien: Romulus and more. He won’t be starring in the two-hander, though: Tash Cowley and Michael Workeye play the duo, while Zi Alikhan – who has worked on Industry – directs.