Heads up! We’re working hard to be accurate – but these are unusual times, so please always check before heading out.

I Killed Rasputin review
Assembly George Square Theatre
The Fringe phenomenon of stand-up comedians deciding that performing at Edinburgh in August makes them playwrights by osmosis tends not to end very well – as a rule of thumb any piece of theatre written by or starring your favourite comic is best avoided. But there are exceptions, and I’m happy to report that this new historical comedy from obsessive compulsive funnyman and diarist Richard Herring is one.
His fifth and most ambitious play, ’I Killed Rasputin’ is not flawless, but it has at least three things clearly going for it. The first is that it’s genuinely illuminating of a small but fascinating piece of twentieth century history: the life of the Russian nobleman Felix Yusupov, who assassinated the ‘Mad Monk’ Grigori Rasputin and went on to exile in Paris, living there until his death in 1967, a ghost of Imperial Russia in the Swinging Sixties.
Taking the shape of an interview between the elderly Yusukov and a cocky American journalist determined to discover the truth about Raspitin’s notoriously murky demise, Herring’s play is inescapably heavy on the exposition but it’s all pretty interesting – I had no idea that the reason films carry a disclaimer stating ‘this is a work of fiction’ is because Yusupov successfully sued MGM over a dodgy fictionalised version of his wife in the 1932 film ‘Rasputin and the Empress’.
The second thing going for it is an excellent performance from Nichola McAuliffe as a fruity old Yusupov, living a life of comfortable self-aggrandisement in Paris, albeit haunted by Rasputin, a ghost he has created by his unwillingness to let the legend around the monk’s famously murky death die. The cross gender casting and ghostly face makeup is a minor masterstroke – drawling away fruitily like the shade of Quentin Crisp, McAuliffe is literally otherworldly, an alien beamed down to ’60s Paris, a folkloric figure alive long after her time.
And thirdly, it’s a funny piece of writing – McAuliffe’s Yusupov is a surprisingly sad, even tragic figure, but around her Herring and director Hannah Banister allow merry havoc to break out in the numerous expository flashbacks (Joanna Griffin’s turn as Adolf Hitler is particularly amusing).
The relative inexperience of both Herring as playwright and Banister as director perhaps means ‘I Killed Rasputin’ isn’t as emotionally fleshed out as it could be, and the veteran McAuliffe is left to provide most of the depth and soul. It’s constantly on the verge of making a good point about how a constructed reality can become a prison, but it doesn’t really seriously go for it until the last 30 seconds, by which time it’s a bit late, really. But you’ll learn a lot more and laugh a lot more from ‘I Killed Rasputin’ than at a lot of theatre at the Fringe – this comedian’s play is no folly.
By Andrzej Lukowski
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