REVIEW: Copenhagen @Minerva Theatre, Chichester One of the certain facts of the universe is that everything is uncertain. It’s a physicist’s paradox – alongside the fact that the one thing we can’t see is ourselves seeing others. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
EDINBURGH FESTIVAL REVIEW: Banana Boys @The Space on the Mile Two 8-year-old boys, longing for the day when they are 16, and the world is theirs, jump into Hampstead Heath ponds, in a rather poor imitation of a scene from Butch Cassidy. By Brian Butler • 1 min read
EDINBURGH FESTIVAL REVIEW: Dietrich – Natural Duty @The Pleasance Courtyard Peter Groom is one of the outstanding performers at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe in his magnetic recreation of Marlene Dietrich. By Brian Butler • 1 min read
EDINBURGH FESTIVAL REVIEW: A Joke @The Assembly Rooms An Englishman, an Irishman and a far from certain Scotsman meet in a kind of no-man’s land. They aren’t waiting for Godot, though it feels like it – but they are waiting for a punchline. You see, they may be in a joke – but they’re not sure. By Brian Butler • 1 min read
Edinburgh Festival Review: Don’t tell me not to fly @Underbelly Claire Sweeney, star of Brookside, Celebrity Big Brother, Chicago, Guys and Dolls and many more shows is as unpretentious as they come. By Brian Butler • 1 min read
EDINBURGH FESTIVAL REVIEW: Grace @Gilded Ballroom In this multi-gender knock about show, Katie Reddin Clancy seeks to confuse, amuse, explore and generally mix up our perceptions of men and women. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
EDINBURGH FESTIVAL REVIEW: De Profundis @The Assembly Rooms Simon Callow gives a stunning bravura performance in this Frank McGuiness adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s famous monologue. On a caste black-draped stage, a sturdy chair is lit from above by an uncompromising interrogator’s light. In the chair sits Oscar Wilde, coming towards the end of his prison sente By Brian Butler • 2 min read
EDINBURGH FESTIVAL REVIEW: After Today @PQA Bill Grundy was an erudite, surprisingly intellectual news interviewer who regularly took top-flight British politicians apart on television in the 1960s and 70s – a sort of Paxman of his era who took no prisoners. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
EDINBURGH FESTIVAL REVIEW: Margo: Half Woman, Half Beast Melinda Hughes is an internationally known lyric opera singer who has diverted from her main career to create the real-life role of Margo Lion – supposed lover of Marlene Dietrich, ballet dancer from Constantinople turned 1930s cabaret chanteuse in Berlin. By Brian Butler • 1 min read
EDINBURGH FESTIVAL REVIEW: Free and Proud @Assembly Studio 4 They seem fatally mismatched from the start – Hakeem, a high-flying Nigerian-born professor of theoretical physics, obsessed with the minutiae of the universe and self-absorbed by the admiration of his colleagues. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
EDINBURGH FESTIVAL REVIEW: The Half @The Pleasance It’s 30 minutes to curtain up on a charity show at the London Palladium, and the long-separated female comedy duo Anderson and West meet for the first time in 10 years, we are led to believe. By Brian Butler • 2 min read
EDINBURGH FESTIVAL REVIEW: Bottom @Summerhall Willy Hudson starts his show as he means to go on – hiding his inadequacies with a towel and sheepishly retrieving his dinosaur print underpants from under the seat of an audience member. By Brian Butler • 1 min read
