Pros: The final twist is pretty clever. Cons: This show didn’t stand up to its name and made very little impact on me. The narrator of this drama is smartly dressed and has distinct manners. When he walks in, he puts his briefcase on the floor behind his chair, and invites us to pick some envelopes from a rack. These contain victim impact statements, talking about the aftermath of a big tragedy: loss, grief, and the inability to forgive. Then the ...

A living room drama which portrays the lives of three hopeless millennials but requires a brisk revision to realise its full potential.

Pros: A silent but expressive, accordion-toting Verges Cons: Too many cicadas It’s common these days to watch ‘high’ culture in a ‘low’ setting: Mayerling at the local multiplex, Hamlet on catch-up, in PJs. Watching Antic Disposition’s Much Ado About Nothing is the opposite experience. It’s a sort of cheesy sitcom (with shades of honour killing), in the pannelled and stained-glassed splendour of Gray’s Inn Hall. This cheesy sitcom is set in France, 1945. There are pretty girls in tea dresses ...

The swinging friendship of two heroin addicts is used to expose one of the biggest failures of Thatcherism.

Pros: A great combination of theatre and history. Cons: More polished storytelling required. When it comes down to walking tours I consider myself an expert – this is my favourite way to get to know a city. That’s why I was very excited to join The Cloak and Dagger Show, a first-time Fringe act with a well-established older sibling in London. The company’s mission is to share with their audience the surviving stories from the Jacobean period that revolve around ...

Pros: Painfully autobiographical. Cons: This show is not for those seeking entertainment. Have you ever wondered what happens inside the head of a person diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? How many times have you made jokes about ‘having OCD’ after lining up the pens on your desk or organising your wardrobe in chromatic order? I did this many times, and attending Sam Ross’s devised performance Can’t Stop Can’t Stop gave me a rare insight of how debilitating the actual condition ...

Pros: Candid and resounding. Cons: This show deserves a bigger audience. Anders Lee’s background as a comedian comes across distinctly in Dummy, although this is not quite the show one might expect. The jokes are there, as well as some awkward private revelations and a little interaction with the room. Yet, in his new work, Lee is promoting a socio-political message that is strongly relevant in our evolved civilisation. Diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder as a child, Lee is now a grown-up, ...

Pros: A poignant statement from the silenced benefit class. Cons: The actor’s stage presence is unconvincing. In the closing scene of KillyMuck, the protagonist Niamh (Aoife Lennon) raises a board that displays two stylised drawings. Three men are depicted standing on equal sized boxes. However, due to their different heights, only two men are able to see over the wall. This is how equality works: providing equal resources to everyone, but ignoring the specifics of each individual. On the bottom half, ...

Pros: The storyline is genius! Cons: Considering the quirky talents of the performers, the show could be enriched. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme is brimming with thousands of solo-shows, which are particularly suitable for their limited budget and less demanding venue requirements. Inspired by this phenomenon, USA comedy-duo, Patrick Romano and Benjamin Behrend devised Two-Man, One-Man- a goofy play about two performers and their one-man shows, who find themselves sharing the limelight, or to be more precise, taking turns in it. ...

The tenderness of brotherhood vibrates in the words of a WWI soldier.