Edinburgh Fringe 2024 Reviews

Rating	Show Details	Review
★★★★★ Excellent	The Sound Inside	Excellent play / two person storytelling and new writing. The interaction s of a older female professor and a new rebel student quite unlike the others in class. The overall theme plays with the mix of the intellectual, spiritual, personal and physical, entwining and unpicking one with each other over the course of the show. Excellent tension held through the show. The is a Literature/writing theme that also contrasts the differences in attitude that age brings. I was gripped throughout.
★★★★★ Excellent	Do This One Thing for Me	Excellent. Another Holocaust-related play. But focused on a woman’s relationship with her father and her father’s stories. One person. Very well done.
★★★★★ Excellent	Singing Sands	Very good play about family loss - funny and endearing.
★★★★☆ Very Good	Sell me: I am from North Korea	very fringe. Thought provoking storytelling. A little linear, but will definitely be one of the better things I see this year. Storyteller clearly very emotionally involved with the story.
★★★★☆ Very Good	The Bookies	Very funny play in a bookmakers with entwined dynamics of 4 players; I really liked it - it was very clever wit. It got completely ridiculous at the end, buy hey - I hope no one was taking anything too seriously by then anyway.
★★★★☆ Very Good	Scaffolding	Interesting portrayal of the challenges of single handedly caring for significantly disabled child, through a discussion with God/audience.
★★★★☆ Very Good	Girlhood	Three generations (okay, that is a spoiler but it is so obvious, you would have worked it out) discussing different attitudes of women to children. A standard play formula of intertwined interaction, but well written and performed well by a fairly young cast in a solid performance.
★★★★☆ Good	Dissociation	Interesting, different, but just a little bit too disconnected to be in the best show category.
★★★★☆ Good	Dara O’Brien	Good reliable comedy. Dara meets his birth family...
★★★★☆ Good	William Jack	A free cello concert in the cathedral. Fun show. Playing the cello as a guitar was a bit of a gimmick, but it made for a perfect fringe photo moment, so I instantly forgave him.
★★★☆☆ Fair	Life	Interesting play, set in an art show and slightly macabre.
★★★☆☆ Fair	Living Stone	Interesting. A little random and new agey. Could have been excellent, but it needed quite a bit more focus, and distilling to the good bits.
★★★☆☆ Fair	Reginal D Hunter: Fluffy Fluffy Beaver	Was his usual good self. As he predicts in the show, he will be cancelled and deplatformed. Should he be? Well you can guess what I think.
★★★☆☆ Fair	An Act of Grace	Good, but nothing special. Interesting idea, but a bit too much padding to keep the audience on their toes.
★★★☆☆ Fair	Yes-Ya-Yebo!	Young troupe from South Africa exploring, slightly haphazardly, songs and dance from various regions and languages of SA. I don't know enough to know if they were representative, but at a guess they were probably reasonable but not the best at the dances. Everyone had fun though.
★★★☆☆ Okay	Mythos: Ragnarok	WWF wrestling, but with a paper-thin wrapping of Norse myth. I'd hoped for more seamless integration of Ragnarok themes and the wrestling, but why I hoped for that I now have no idea - I had no reason to. This show does what it says on the tin.
★★★☆☆ Okay	Casting the Runes	Fair amateur acting and interesting props. But a bit slow for me, so got me a bit bored. The lack of storytelling compared with e,g, the seminal theatre ghost play, Woman in Black, that meant it didn't quite make the mark.
★★★☆☆ Okay	Ghost Light: Between Fall and Light	All filler and atmosphere and 5 mins of content. Capable acrobatics but no variety and pretty dull.
★★★☆☆ Okay	Aidan Jones Pianoforte	Talked through the formation of a Chopin Nocturne, building analogies to what the piece was saying while trying to be and occasionally being funny. Interesting idea. Execution a little hit and miss. Basically Aidan is not an ace comedian and not great concert pianist. But he targets a show at the intersection and partially succeeds.
★★☆☆☆ Poor	John Robertson: The Human Hurricane	Take John Robertson out of his Dark Room constraints and he is all over the place, bouncing off walls and topics like silly putty. Honestly, nothing good can come of it. And it didn't. But people will come flocking back just to be abused. And again. You too? Perhaps.
★★☆☆☆ Poor	Caledonia	Okay. Others wont feel the same. But for me it had the feel of a music performance for visitors to the House of Bruar. Or what you'd expect on a cruise ship maybe. I think this one is for the tourists. Just not for me.
★☆☆☆☆ Bad	Plotters	Bad acting for a play, not funny for a comedy. Worst show this year. Enough said.