Category Archives: Theatre

Reviews of theatre work.

‘Lawrence of Arabia and ME’ (Annexe at theSpace @ Symposium Hall, until AUG 29)

Posted in *EdFestivals 2026, 5*, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by

“Manages to medidate on the hot button topic of the Modern Middle East with seriousness, objectivity, and no small amount of drama.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

He is one of the most instantly recognised yet impossibly enigmatic figures of the 20th Century. A scholar, a servant of one empire, the arch-nemisis of another, a student of a civilisation that still is, a hundred years on, yet to refind its place.

We enter to find Lawrence haunting the stage. A deathly calm phantom faintly amused by the fascination we have for him. Few of us are more steeped in the Lawrence myth and legend than Oxford’s own Eamonn Gearon, the man who quite literally wrote the book on the Arab League. The shade of Lawrence is also here to watch Gearon deliver his life and times lecture, a stump speech which has been honed and polished across classrooms, book festivals, ocean liners, and now EdFringe.

Gearon is a gifted raconteur which, when combined with his world-class scholarship, delivers 50 minutes of memorable stage traffic which manages to medidate on the hot button topic of the Modern Middle East with seriousness, objectivity, and no small amount of drama. A distant cousin of Michael Collins – that beguiling Irish nationalist soldier statesman of the same vintage as Lawrence – Gearon delves with authenticity and insight into the idealistic yet murky affairs of British imperial policy. If you want to better understand the Middle East, and not simply have a yet more strident opinion about it, this is the show for you.

From Lawrence’s unusual childhood to his posthumous apotheosis in David Lean’s 1962 cinematic masterpiece, this is a pacey masterclass in storytelling done proper. It’s a humble hagiographic homage without pomp or excessive fanfare from a self-confessed fanboy. It’s exactly the right amount of appreciation for just how extra ordinary Lawrence truly was. The ghost leaves (or is that stays?) happy.

Come for the fresh perspective on an auld theme. Stay for the experience of seeing an uncloistered Don trying something different and succeeding. Get your thobes on and go see this!

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‘Orpheus: A New Musical’ (Annexe at theSpace @ Symposium Hall, until AUG 15)

Posted in *EdFestivals 2026, 4*, Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre by

“A confident and lively crowd pleaser.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars (Nae Bad)

One of the great pleasures at EdFringe is seeing new talent emerge. The budding talents showcased in Yorkshire CREATE’s retelling of the classic myth properly deliver. The lasses and lad, all in their teens, deliver a confident and lively crowd pleaser packed with invention. Their graft and focus are obvious from the get go as they pacily storm through Sam Essen and Ben Glastone’s new musical in which the legendary musician attempts the impossible.

Beneath the toe-tapping tunes, well-chosen costumes, and ultra-amazeballs puppetry is a grand piece of good auld fashioned storytelling which balances the human melodrama, tragedy, and comedy. Are the sound levels quite right on opening night? Not quite. Is every high note hit precisely? No, but the energy and effort of each and every swing of the bat is unmistakeable.

A unFringedly large cast transform a small space into a big canvas on which to shine. Much of the heavy lifting is done throughout by the actor playing the titular songster. Her performance is characterised by the assured gravity of a gifted young someone who has worked their cotton socks off. The rest of the cast is equally engaging with some truly memorable performances. You’ll never see another Oracle so gracefully light on their feet.

Come for the showcase of youthful energy and talent. Stay for the best Cerberus puppet in the known universe. Get your chitons on and go see this!

 

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‘Jess Carrivick: For Your Consideration’ (Nook at Gilded Balloon Teviot until AUG 30)

Posted in *EdFestivals 2026, 5*, Comedy, Gilded Balloon, Potterrow & Teviot, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by

“With many rapid costume changes and lively use of props, this is a highly theatrical show that goes way beyond the limits of mere stand-up comedy.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

Two years ago, I saw a one-woman show at the 2024 Fringe by a young lady called Jess Carrivick. Entitled Attention Seeker and listed as a ‘Work in Progress’, I thought it a masterclass in how to stage a solo piece of comic theatre. This year she’s back with For Your Consideration, a madcap whirlwind of character-based solo sketch comedy, directed by Elf Lyons and produced in association with Rosie Nicholls and Avalon.

Carrivick has been either shortlisted or a finalist for more comedy awards than you can blow a raspberry at, and her undoubted talent has been praised by respected figures in the industry as “gearing up to conquer”. Her charismatic natural wit and flair for creating outlandishly funny characters is reminiscent of the late, great Peter Sellers (if he’d been female and looked a bit like the young Glynis Johns). Carrivick’s highly expressive face and her evocative talent for vocal impersonation combine to create a fast-paced succession of mercilessly parodic character-based vignettes, poking fun at day-to-day types ranging from pushy school mums to psychopathic cinema usherettes. One of Carrivick’s particularly memorable showbiz characters is Cassandra Della Treebourne, an elegantly wasted diva jazz chanteuse whose cigarette-raddled voice has more vocal fry than your local chippy – imagine a godforsaken, ageing lovechild of Judy Garland and Keith Richards.

With many rapid costume changes and lively use of props, this is a highly theatrical show that goes way beyond the limits of mere stand-up comedy. Use of projected Carrivick family videos as a framing device also bestows a certain cinematic quality. But the solid gold heart of this show is the sheer visual physicality of the solo performer. Two particular highlights were: a Chaplinesque ballet routine that had the audience – including me – hooting with shrieks of laughter at its surreal absurdity; the other was a mad sea captain-cum-wannabe mermaid who sang the most hilariously filthy sea shanty you’ll ever hear.

The intimate Nook auditorium at the Gilded Balloon Teviot was packed with a highly appreciative audience who left at the end with their sides having been completely split and their ribs thoroughly tickled. Give this woman a TV show, for goodness’ sake – she’s far more innovative than much of the predictable sketch-based comedy we see on the telly.

The tickets are worth every penny – you won’t see a funnier show at the Fringe this year.

 

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‘A Highly Suspect Murder Mystery: Knives In’ (TheSpace @ Surgeons’ Hall, Fleming Theatre, until AUG 29)

Posted in *EdFestivals 2026, 4*, Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre by

“In a tone of relentless pun-infested irony, the crime fiction genre itself is mercilessly parodied as the cast guide the audience through a fiendishly intricate plot to identify the killer.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars (Nae Bad)

Like many people, I like a good murder mystery, and with the Cosy Crime genre in the midst of a boom these days, the performance company Highly Suspect – seasoned Fringe veterans with a track record of sold-out shows – are catering for a ready-made audience.

As that Knives In title suggests, what we have here is a spoof of the hugely successful Knives Out movie franchise. The renowned detective Beignet Blank arrives at a remote country house to solve the murder of a famous author. In a tone of relentless pun-infested irony, the crime fiction genre itself is mercilessly parodied as the cast guide the audience through a fiendishly intricate plot to identify the killer.

To ease the complexity a little, the cast of four limit the action to five characters: detective Blank; his uncannily identical twin, a poet of excruciating doggerel; the late author’s graspingly cynical publisher; the late author’s nurse; and where would any country house murder mystery be without the local vicar?

To assist the audience with their investigation, the cast hand out very smart executive-style folders which are evidence packs full of cryptic clues, character summaries, diagrams, and visual puzzles. There was a tangible buzz in the air as the audience of would-be detectives attempted to solve the riddle.

The full house in the fairly large Fleming Theatre clearly enjoyed this show. A number of individuals and teams were unbelievably competitive and at least one team managed to work out the solution to a fairly complex mystery.

The only small fly in the ointment for me was the ambience of the venue. Most murder mysteries I’ve attended have been situated in fairly smart hotels, with the audience sitting around tables in self-selected family or friendship groups (and often after a good dinner). Here, the auditorium is actually a lecture theatre at the Royal College of Surgeons; the seating in pretty tightly-packed rows of seats with desks in front of them. This isn’t ideal for working in sociable groups, often with complete strangers either side of you. The fact that the house lights necessarily remained on (to aid reading and writing in the folders) throughout the show gave it the feel of an exam at times. Nonetheless, most of the large audience had clearly enjoyed themselves. (Though I got the impression that a few visitors from abroad – perhaps unfamiliar with this genre of entertainment – had been rather mystified by the experience.)

For fans of the genre, the Highly Suspect company are also staging another murder mystery called ABBAsolute Murder in The Space @ Surgeons’ Hall  (Theatre 1), which we are “assured” is absolutely not a spoof of either ABBA or the Eurovision Song Contest!

 

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‘Lear’s Fool’ (Greenside @ George Street, Lime Studio, until AUG 22)

Posted in *EdFestivals 2026, 4*, EdFestivals, Greenside, Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre by

“An engaging tragicomedy in the Stoppardesque spin-off manner, offering stark juxtapositions of comedy and terror, despair and song, political polemic and renaissance stand-up comedy, in a lively romp of a show.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars (Nae Bad)

Way back in 1966, the Edinburgh Fringe saw the premiere of Tom Stoppard’s tragicomedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which famously highlights and follows the two eponymous minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, once they disappear from the main action of the play.

Here, in Lear’s Fool, we see similar treatment of the Fool, the court jester from King Lear, who exits and disappears about halfway through Shakespeare’s other great tragedy. This new production of David Henry Wilson’s play is directed by Liz Carruthers. It is an engaging tragicomedy in the Stoppardesque spin-off manner, offering stark juxtapositions of comedy and terror, despair and song, political polemic and renaissance stand-up comedy in a lively romp of a show.

Even if you don’t know Shakespeare’s original work, this production offers an entertaining and often heart-breaking show which can be enjoyed on its own terms. Set in a prison cell near Dover, the Fool’s treatment and interrogation by a jailer and his captain reflect the hierarchical values of a bygone age whilst also offering contemporary takes on the futility of war, the self-interest and corruption of politics, and the stranglehold of the social class system that will ring true to modern ears.

Wilson’s writing reworks well-known Shakespearian quotes from the original play to give fresh and often ironic meaning within the play’s postmodern context. The eponymous Fool, played with aplomb by Jill Riddford (a two-time Scottish Theatre Critics Award nominee), is still the mischievous joker from the parent play, but her excruciating puns mask a soul that is devastated by continuing news of her old master’s madness and downfall as the action of the source drama unfolds offstage.

Shakespearean humour is notoriously dated and hasn’t aged at all well, but Riddiford’s occasional delivery of some lines stand-up style direct to the audience, rather than other characters, made them laugh out loud.

King Lear and Lear’s Fool overlap with each other at the end when Lear (Finlay McLean) and his faithful daughter Cordelia (Kirsty McDuff) make a striking Shakespearian intervention into the postmodern world of the play. Sam Stopford (another Scottish Critics Award nominee) is an engagingly cynical and mercenary jailer, whilst John Kay Steel’s sinister portrayal of the ruthless Captain surely puts him in the running for casting as a Bond villain once they’ve got a new 007.

Whilst not actual Shakespeare, this show makes a welcome addition to the small body of the Bard’s works featuring in this year’s Fringe, so it’s well worth a look.

 

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EdFringe Talk: I Made You A Mixtape

Posted in Theatre by

“The audience is your final collaborator.”

WHO: Christie Lee Manning

WHAT: “Welcome to the party you always wished you were invited to. Step into the heart of a 90s college dorm hang, complete with live musicians and the greatest hits of the decade. Nine girls arrive for one last night together before their lives change forever. With each track played, we get a new glimpse into their world; through impromptu music videos, deep female friendships, and unfiltered emotion by the bucketload. This isn’t your typical dance show – it changes every night, with the girls’ fates being revealed to them, and you, in real time.”

WHERE: Big at theSpaceTriplex (Venue 38) 

WHEN: 19:00 (50 min)

MORE: Click Here!

Is this your first time to Edinburgh?

Yes! It’s our first Fringe, and I’m already wondering why anyone ever thought putting thousands of theatre-makers in one city was a sensible idea… because it’s brilliant. As a director and choreographer, I love that everyone comes here to experiment. You see shows you’d never normally buy a ticket for, and some of the biggest surprises come from taking a complete gamble. That’s what makes the Fringe special—you never quite know what you’re going to get. Which, to be fair, is also a pretty good description of our show.

What are the big things you’ve learned since 2025 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?

I’ve learned that the audience is your final collaborator. As a director, you can spend months believing something is the answer, then an audience politely proves you wrong. We premiered I Made You a Mixtape in London and I went home after opening night thinking, “Well… that didn’t land the way I’d hoped.” I barely slept, came back the next morning, completely rearranged the running order, terrified the cast, and suddenly the show clicked. That experience really reinforced one of the philosophies behind our company. We make work that’s built to respond, so it would be pretty hypocritical if I wasn’t willing to respond myself.

Tell us about your show.

I wrote and directed I Made You a Mixtape, and it’s produced by Lauren O’Sullivan and Response Theatre Company. Response was born out of a question I’d been asking for years as a choreographer: what if dancers approached movement the way Meisner actors approach text? Instead of deciding what a dance should means, what if they discovered it in the moment? That eventually became the Response Method and, as far as we know, we’re the UK’s first Meisner-based movement company.

The show premiered in London earlier this year, and I’m actually really glad it did because it changed dramatically once we put it in front of an audience. We reshaped the running order, refined the audience interaction, and finally found the version that looked a lot more like the show I’d been imagining… and a lot less like my sleep-deprived notebook.

Edinburgh feels like the next chapter rather than the finish line. Every night we learn something new because every audience gives us something different to respond to. We’d love to keep touring the show after Fringe and eventually take it to North America. It feels like the beginning of the show’s life, not the end of it.

What should your audience see at the festivals after they’ve seen your show?

We’ve actually been terrible Fringe punters so far because we’ve been so busy opening our own show (and incredibly lucky to squeeze in some extra performances, including performing at the theSpace press launch) so our “must-see” list is currently more of a “we desperately WANT to see” list.

We absolutely have to shout out GTN Ensemble and their show How to Feel Feelings. They came to see us last night, loved it, and they’re actually coming back tonight with more of their cast, which might be the nicest compliment you can get at the Fringe. They just really got what we’re doing, they’re the loveliest humans, and now we’re ridiculously excited to see what they’ve made.

And then we’ve completely fallen in love with Julia Atkin, behind Crying at my Podiatrist. Tragically, she’s performing at the exact same time as us, so we can’t see it, which is honestly very rude of the Fringe scheduling gods. But everything about her and the show makes me think it’s going to be fucking phenomenal, and I’m deeply jealous of anyone who gets to see it. So on whichever night you’re not in our dorm, go cry at the podiatrist instead.

That’s probably been one of my favourite things about Fringe so far: you start championing people before you’ve even seen their work because you’ve met the humans behind it. And when you find artists who really get what you’re trying to do, you want everyone else to discover them too.

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‘Heart Beats Strong’ (Pleasance Courtyard: Bunker Two, until AUG 31)

Posted in *EdFestivals 2026, 5*, Dance, EdFestivals, Pleasance, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by

“A highly energetic performance, presenting stark, fast-paced vignettes contrasting the innocence and vulnerability of youth with the wild, dangerously carefree onset of adulthood.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

This is a lively coming-of-age story written and performed by Noah Manzoor, Kai Porter, and Alfie Wickham (collectively known as Kickdrum), and apparently based on their actual teenage diaries. In a highly physical production, themes such as cultural identity, sexuality, and the pressures of boyhood, adolescence, and the approach of manhood are explored in a punchy drama enhanced by music and dance, with a cinematic ambience bestowed by acrobatically effective use of hand-held lighting.

In the medium-sized black box studio of Bunker Two at the Pleasance Courtyard, the three young men delivered a highly energetic performance, presenting stark, fast-paced vignettes contrasting the innocence and vulnerability of youth with the wild, dangerously carefree onset of adulthood; all interspersed with highly synchronised bursts of vigorous street dance.

Whilst this is very much a young person’s show (at 67, I was the oldest person in the room by a country mile), their evocation of the crass boorishness and insensitivity of male childhood raised a wry smile; then the angst-ridden sexual fumblings involved in the onset of adolescence and then manhood gave rise to regular laugh-out-loud moments.

No punches are pulled in what is very much a vigorously in-your-face production, with the dark undercurrents of racism and homophobia often raising their ugly heads. Unfortunately, one other dark undercurrent was occasional external noise coming from the queue for another show outside the venue’s poorly-soundproofed door. However, the vigorous enunciation and projection of the talented onstage trio easily overcame this unwelcome backing track.

With the auditorium almost full for the show I saw in the very early stages of this year’s Fringe, it already looks like a pretty hot ticket – so I wouldn’t hang around if you wanted to see it.

 

‘King Lear’ (Venue 33, until AUG 24th)

Posted in 5*, EdFestivals 2025, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by

“An uncondescending condensing of the immortal classic by the acknowledged king of festive Fringe storytelling.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

Pip Utton is the Edinburgh Fringe. His productions are insightful, playful, joyful, and memorable. He’s the most respected player among his fellow professionals and the most beloved among his devoted followers from across the footlights (me included). Getting out of a Pip Utton performance takes several ages of man. You go from mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms to second childishness and mere oblivion in the time it takes for everyone ahead of you in the exit line to gush their appreciation to the master. Utton is best known for his candid biopics. Churchill, Hitler, Dickens, Bacon, Thatcher, and Bob Dylan walk into a pub and the barman asks, “What will you have, Mr Utton?  This year we have simply Lear in an uncondescending condensing of the immortal classic by the acknowledged king of festive Fringe storytelling.

We enter to find no king, just Lear. Bereft of the trappings and dignity of power, here is a man who has learned the hard way that it is folly to grow auld without having first grown wise. In the depths of depression, with all his charms o’erthrown, Lear ponders on the cruel reversal of his fortune. Across town, at the National Portrait Gallery, nestled among the artistic jewels of Shakespeare’s great royal patron, James VI and I, are early sketches for the proposed flag of the newly reunited kingdoms of England and Scotland. This was one part of the Jacobean undoing of what, at the time, was seen as the historic Lear’s legacy – the disunion of the island of Britain. Lear is written as a deliberate contrast to James, the author, scholar, and father of sons, although, fun fact alert, it is through James’ only surviving daughter, married to the winter king of Bohemia, that we owe our present royal family.

Lear is Shakespeare’s other Shylock, a publicly bad character to whom bad things publicly happen. Utton’s instinctive feel for the humanity of the great and the good characters he uncannily inhabits downplays the madcap Toby Belchery of the recent retiree. Instead, Utton emphasises the subsequent family drama and ensuing unvirtuous betrayal. Although Catholic missionaries had begun arriving in China from the 1580s, precise knowledge of Confucianism and its emphasis on filial piety, moral governance, family and hierarchy was limited to a few pioneering Jesuits with whom Shakespeare could have had no correspondence. Yet there are uncanny parallels, not undisimilar to the Swan of Avon’s synthesis of the Florentine Machiavelli, who would not be translated into English until the 1640s. Truly, Shakespeare was not of an age, but for all time. Utton’s minimalist edition of Lear reopens the text like a scythe to an overgrown, weedy meadow.

Truth be told, I haven’t liked Lear since I first saw the play. It was that 1997 staging at the Leicester Haymarket, the one in which Kathryn Hunter became the first woman to play the title role professionally (I’m still amazed anyone could get paid for a performance that bad). Ponderous, maudlin, a script written for achktors to perform more than for audiences to be entertained by. Lear can bring out the worst kind of feet-apart shouty overemphasis when done to death. By stark contrast, EdFringe’s quiet legend, Pip Utton, brings the play and the role to life as never before or not in a long time. “Walk softly, and carry a big stick”, advised Theodore Roosevelt. Among his properties Utton has just such a big stick. His performance is as soft and rich as an ostrich egg boiled for an hour and is best enjoyed in the cheerful company of friends who know they are in for a big treat.

Come for the familiar megastar doing something a bit different. Stay for an intelligent, gentle performance. Get your magisterial cloaks on and go see this!

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‘Sam Blythe: Method in My Madness (A One-Man Hamlet)’ (Venue 17, until AUG 24th)

Posted in Theatre by

“Possessed of both comic grace and dramatic power, Blythe’s affectionate connection with his audience is Mastersonierian in the obvious regard chanelling in both directions across the footlights.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

Is Hamlet mad? Is the Royally gazumped Prince a mindless brute or meditative Brutus? We enter to find ourselves locked in with someone, someone who just can’t seem to get Hamlet out of his mind. There is a mid-century, Patrick Hamilton quality to the gaslight. Our narrator switches back and forth between his present bare circumstances and the play in which so much of not very much happens, until THAT final scene.

Hamlet is Shakespeare’s magnum opus and one of his most successful literary works, published twice in quarto editions (1603 and 1604) before the First Folio (1623). The play’s early and enduring popularity, on stage and off, makes it accessible for audiences, who will know the key plot points and themes as well as they know their chocolate bars and cartoon cereal characters. For actors, however, the destination is more troublesome. How to be distinctive yet harmonious, respectful yet challenging, insightful yet universal? Above all, how to be memorable?

This EdFringe we’ve seen Sam Blythe directed by Yorick (Guy Masterson’s ‘Animal Farm’) and by Ophelia (Elf Llyons, ‘Method in My Madness’). Unlike the Orwell adaptation, in this one-man Hamlet, Sam plays the drama primarily through the title role, amplified and distorted by the abridgement’s premise – a man locked in a room with his own thoughts. An unseen Richard Burton impersonator loftily entones the first soliloquy, topping and tailing the drama. There is a Welsh theme running throughout the modern frame, as though Captain Fluellen and Dafydd ap Gwilym have captured the drama by sudden storm. All of these subtle hints buttress the purpose of the show, which is a fine and loving tribute to Blythe’s own father – a Welsh actor who never got to play The Dane.

At 2,200 lines, even the “bad” First Quarto would have had a running time of 2 hours. The Second Quarto’s 3,800 lines equate to the 4 hours plus, jeered at by Blackadder – “Who’s Ken Brannah? I’ll tell him you said that, and I think he’ll be very hurt.” The First Folio, from which most modern editions are drawn, sits at around 3,500 lines. Getting that down to 60 minutes of comprehensive, comprehensible stage traffic requires some tough choices to be made. This is especially true for a production attempting to reconcile the alleged artistic differences between Wills Shakespeare and Kemp. 

Having played Peter, Dogberry, Costard, and Bottom, the infamously adlibbing clown Kemp left The Lord Chamberlain’s Men around 1599, making his famous jig from London to Norwich. The professional ghost of Kemp haunts the text of Hamlet, not least in the play’s most iconic moment. The Light directorial touch of Kemp’s own favourite daughter, the ultra-acclaimed EdFringe giant Elf Llyons, melts the play’s too solid flesh into a resolute dew that lightly shimmers and sparkles throughout. Here is a memorable ‘Hamlet’.

‘Method in My Madness’ confirms what many of us have been thinking for a while, that Sam Blythe is the coming man of the EdFringe stage, a moody, broody, transatlantic temporal offshoot of the triggerhappy Booth dynasty perhaps. Possessed of both comic grace and dramatic power, Blythe’s affectionate connection with his audience is Mastersonierian in the obvious regard chanelling in both directions across the footlights. Come for the when Frank got Dean and Jerry back together reconciliation of auld bad performative blood – Kemp and Shakespeare are friends again. Stay for a star who is rising on the EdFringe skyline. Get your doublets on at the double and go see this!

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‘Hidden Powers’ (Venue 39, until AUG 23rd)

Posted in 4*, EdFestivals 2025, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by

“An intensely unassuming stage presence blossoms like it’s midnight in a garden closely planted with cereus flowers.”

Editorial Rating: 4 5 Stars (Outstanding)

Warwickshire’s own Angus Baskerville is a wonder. Active since 2014 and a member of The Magic Circle since 2020, Baskerville’s reputation is rapidly growing under the grow lamp and hydroponics of his neurodivergency, combined with a total commitment to the past, present, and future of the magician’s art. An intensely unassuming stage presence blossoms like it’s midnight in a garden closely planted with cereus flowers and with spectacular results.

We enter to find a table on which are a few properties, as well as a whiteboard prominently showing the free wifi info – which will be needed for one of Baskerville’s more incredible feats. Over the next 50 minutes, we will watch him ascend to ever greater heights of mindblowing relatability using his neurodivergency like a rock climber uses magnesium carbonate – it’s what gives him such a firm grip, absorbing any nervous energy, reducing slips and keeping him focused like a laser pointer cellotaped to an eagle

There’s no escaping the fact that this still feels like early days. Baskerville is still to hit his full stride as a performer. The moments when he totally loosens up and starts to really enjoy himself on stage are a promise of what’s coming in EdFringes yet to come. This is an act whose confidence doesn’t yet match the considerable ability being demonstrated – a comforting contrast and inversion of many lesser shows across the genres. Baskerville gets rid of his cape early in the show; this is about magic, not about spectacle. Perhaps it’s the corporate hotel venue, or because we’re watching a jobbing local magician (available for weddings, functions, private parties, etc) but there’s something there that’s missing a polish and or sparkle that’s not quite up to speed (yet).

Still, here is an EdFringe legend so obviously in the making. A personable performer with something deep and meaningful to say on a subject about which much more is said than understood. Come for the insight into neurodivergency as the superpower that it is. Stay for tricks that will have you shaking your head and wondering if Baskerville oughtn’t to be reported to the witch-finder general. Get your capes on (or not) and go see this!

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