Riverside Studios

Remember that incredibly cool band from Scotland in the ’80s that changed music forever despite only playing a few gigs? No? Well that’s because they didn’t exist. This sort-of one-man play (a hit in Edinburgh in 2022) is adapted from David Keenan’s 2017 hallucinatory novel about an imagined Scottish post-punk band called Memorial Device. There’s a lead singer who can’t form memories and a bassist who likes to cover himself in blood, that kind of thing.Paul Higgins plays Ross Raymond, a fanzine editor-cum-journalist who was there for all of it, enthusiastically bringing the band to life with mannequins, a fancy dress box and a laptop. Higgins is great, one of those middle-aged music obsessives who's never quite let go of their youth, telling the story with a passionate intensity, like he can’t quite believe we don’t know more about Memorial Device. Mimicking the form of the novel, which consists of interviews with other people who were there, a projector screen plays talking heads who flesh out some of the story.The text, adapted and directed by Graham Eatough, brings that place and that era to life in a beautifully joyful, haunted way. There’s the attention to detail first and foremost: the carefully created memorabilia, genealogy maps of the various bands that coalesced and broke up to eventually get to Memorial Device (Occult Theocracy, Slave Demographics), and the snippets of music from Gavin Thomson and Stephen Pastel which suggest a kind of woozy psychedelic vibe.And Ea

Shu-wing Tang’s all-female, wordless take on Shakespeare’s great tragedy of old age and madness won have been hugely feted in her native Hong Kong and now calls in at Riverside Studios as part of a global tour.

Following last year’s one-woman ‘Great Expectations’, comedy legend and occasional serious thesp Eddie Izzard tackles Shakespeare’s greatest work solo, taking on a walloping 23 roles in a little over two hours. As with ‘Great Expectations’ the vibe is more serious than silly, but Izzard is a charismatic enough performer that comedy fans ought to have a good time (though being familiar with the play can’t hurt).