Heads up! We’re working hard to be accurate – but these are unusual times, so please always check before heading out.
Dead to Me review
Roundabout @ Summerhall
There’s something eerily, convincingly vague about Tessa Parr’s performance as a psychic in Gary Kitching’s new play ‘Dead To Me’. She’s all flitty, jerky movements, wide smiles and direct stares, but behind her eyes there’s a palpable sense that she really is just making everything up as she goes along.
Which makes sense: most people think psychics are heartlessly doing vulnerable people out of their hard-earned cash. Except in Kitching’s script our expectations are flipped and everything we thought we recognised shifts just slightly.
‘Dead to Me’ is a funny, unsettling piece of writing which explores the human race’s gullibility and our need to believe in something. Straight-down-the-line Steven – who thinks a comment about his 'energy' is a reference to the fact that he goes to the gym – visits a psychic because his friend gave him a voucher but doesn’t really believe. When the psychic seems to predict a few things about his life, Steven returns and keeps on returning. It’s his burgeoning obsession with what he thinks is a ‘gift’ that dismantles our preconceptions of this duo’s relationship.
Selma Dimitrijevic’s direction is simple and smart and keeps Parr's psychic central throughout. She is the catalyst for Steven’s change, but where she has the upper hand to begin with, she’s certainly not in control of the monster she’s created. By the end, as Steven paces round the room, staring directly out at all of us, a cold shiver runs straight down the spine.
By Daisy Bowie-Sell
The latest Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews
KlangHaus review
So it turns out that the greatest gig venue in the world is the former small animal hospital at the hulking medical school-turned-arts megalopolis that is Summerhall…
Read the review
The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha review
You could say that the decision to stage Miguel de Cervantes’s seventeenth-century novel should not be taken lightly…
Read the review
Every Brilliant Thing review
Surprisingly, for a play about depression, ‘Every Brilliant Thing’ is filled to the brim with joy.
Read the review
Our Teacher's a Troll review
Not content with unsettling us adults with his dark TV show ‘Utopia’, he’s decided to redress the balance and see how much the kids can take. Kelly’s sublimely naughty RSC adaptation of ‘Matilda’ showed how he understood that kids tend to love the grotesque aspects of a character.
Read the review
The Future For Beginners review
It's rare to hear an opera about a question as mundane as who has just answered the phone, or how it was going in your data planning job. But Liveartshow’s ‘The Future for Beginners’ doesn’t care about your preconceptions, or any of the usual opera rules.
Read the review
Dead to Me review
There’s something eerily, convincingly vague about Tessa Parr’s performance as a psychic in Gary Kitching’s new play ‘Dead To Me’.
Read the review
I Killed Rasputin review
This new historical comedy from obsessive compulsive funnyman and diarist Richard Herring is funnier and more illuminating than much work on the Fringe.
Read the review
Hiraeth review
A combination of single-minded intent, outsider art naivety and sheer funniness all serve to lend lo-fi comedy 'Hiraeth' a sense of total freshness.
Read the review
Symphony review
An indie rockin' triple-header from three of Britain’s hottest young playwrights: Ella Hickson, Nick Payne and Tom Wells.
Read the review
Chef review
Sabrina Mahfouz’s popular monologue is served with great flair, but the meal feels a little conventional.
Read the review