Nigel Slater's Toast ★★★★
Nigel Slater's Toast ★★★★
Launched just last year to celebrate the country’s 150th anniversary, CanadaHub has quickly become one of the Edinburgh Fringe’s most exciting and intriguing venues, presenting a small but richly provocative programme of work from across that vast country. Here are just three of its offerings this year.
Daughter ★★★★
Chekhovian is a rather over-used word when it comes to describing some of the late Brian Friel's best work, but you can see why it might apply to Aristocrats, his 1979 play which premiered at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin before becoming a contemporary classic. You can count off the elements that remind you of the Russia master: decaying estates, feckless toffs, wistful longings and missed opportunities.
I’m still not entirely sure what the full associations of the title of New York playwright Jordan Seavey’s new play – its second element, at least: the first speaks for itself – may be, but with writing this accomplished any such uncertainties fall away.
Underground Railroad Game ★★★★★
Coriolanus Vanishes ★★★★
The Dark Web has an intriguing sound about it. Like something out of JRR Tolkein or JK Rowling, it suggests a netherland peopled by strange creatures, and maybe even dangerous monsters. As indeed it is.
Theatre critics tend not to experience an 140 percent increase in their financial assets within 21 minutes. So on that remarkable front alone, the London premiere of the Belgian £¥€$ (LIES) is giddily immersive fun, at least up until such time as the Ontroerend Goed production shifts gears and sends the financial world, and our momentary prosperity, crashing down.