222 stories by "Eleanor Turney"
(3/5 stars) In 2011, the graffiti artist Banksy spray-painted "This looks a bit like an elephant" across the side of a water tank just outside Los Angeles. That water tank had been Titus Cov…
(3/5 stars) The basic problem with this show is that the nuclear bombs detonated on Hirshima and Nagasaki just aren’t funny. A light-hearted romp through the life of Albert Einstein, R…
(4/5 stars) Richard Dresser’s script is a beautiful thing, given hilarious life by a cracking cast of actors under Hamish MacDougall’s direction. Full of black humour, Below the …
(4/5 Stars) Casual Violence’s wonderful show, The House of Nostril, is a macabre and very silly treat. The cast of five bounce about the stage as a huge variety of characters, gurning …
(1/5 stars) Tonguetied Theatre’s Edinburgh debut is billed as "funny because it’s true". True it may be (well, sort of) but funny it ain’t. Sol Max’s one-man show (pe…
(3/5 stars) Billed as "feminist burlesque", Aisling Kiely’s show is definitely feminist but seems to have missed the burlesque. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing " although it&#…
(3/5 stars) Solpadeine is an over-the-counter painkiller, comprised of codeine, paracetamol and caffeine. It’s also the most constant presence in Stefanie’s life. Moving from Cor…
(2/5 stars) The cast do their best with Power Games. They really do. But with direction, choreography and script all stacked against them, it was never going to work. One clever idea is supp…
(4/5 Stars) Minotaur Theatre Company from the University of East Anglia should be envy of every student theatre company at the Fringe: it has managed to make a virtue of being "studenty". Fr…
(4/5 stars) This melancholic piece crams an awful lot into its half hour slot. It is powerful and fascinating glimpse into the rather twisted psyche of one man, Owain, but at times it slight…
(3/5 stars) Superbolt Theatre’s sweet show manages to make old tropes feel fresh by giving them a sci-fi twist. Set in the future, the company has created its world well and realises i…
The first 15 minutes of Wu Hsing-kuo’s one-man dance-opera of Kafka’s Metamorphosis are stunning. The remaining 120 minutes are, unfortunately, a masterclass in why scripting, di…
(2/5 stars) Hans Christian Anderson’s rather tedious tale of the steadfast tin soldier who battles adversity to return to the love of his life is performed in a sweet but ultimately la…
(3/5 stars) Static is not a perfect show, but it is a mature and mostly well-judged exploration of growing up and trying to make sense of the world. Our teenage protagonist, Boy (Hugh McCann…
(3/5 stars) Warwick University Drama Society’s production of Vinegar Tom makes a decent stab at staging Caryl Churchill’s play, but weighs it down with self-indulgent songs that …
(3/5 stars) It’s not easy to cram all of Wuthering Heights into an hour-long show, and unfortunately it shows in this production from 3BUGS theatre company. The cast rattle through the…
A Younger Theatre invites emerging writers, critics and journalists to a breakfast networking event in partnership with C venues " if you are a young or early-career writer, please do join u…
(3/5 stars) Two young men are in hospital, sharing a room as one recuperates and the other gets slowly worse. We watch them bicker, fart and giggle away their long, lonely days together, as …
(4/5 stars) David Leddy’s Long Live the Little Knife is such a clever piece of writing. Treading a very find line between intelligent and incomprehensible, Leddy’s play (which he…
(3/5 stars) Oh Edinburgh. Where else but the Fringe are you going to see a Hammer Horror-inspired production of Pinocchio? It’s a somewhat baffling choice by Pants on Fire theatre comp…
How to write about this show? This is a play beyond words, above star ratings and separate from the usual concerns of reviewing: it would feel pointless, wrong even, to comment on the lighti…
(2/5 stars) This super-camp, massively melodramatic re-telling of Jekyll and Hyde takes itself far too seriously despite all of its self-mockery. Trying to mix gothic horror with inventive s…
(3/5 stars) Bryony Kimmings’s new show, Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model, is a mish-mash of ideas, tropes and songs. It feels like it was created by a child " it’s scatters…
(3/5 stars) Hand Head Hand is a simple show: Laura Jane Dean sits on a chair in a tiny studio and talks to us about her life with OCD. She takes us through the rituals she finds necessary an…
(2/5 stars) For all of its constant talk of darkness and gore, this is a bloodless and gutless version of Angela Carter’s complex and knotty tale. In Carter’s story, the well-wor…
