Scotland
Brìghde Chaimbeul, Round Chapel review - enchantment in East LondonThursday, 18 September 2025
Hackney’s Round Chapel is an appropriate venue. Scottish smallpipes player Brìghde Chaimbeul opens her set with “Dùsgadh/Waking.” It has the spirit of a call to prayer: the directness, the insistence, the magnetic quality. All of which draws in... Read more... |
Lammermuir Festival 2025, Part 2 review - from the soaringly sublime to the zoologically ridiculousTuesday, 16 September 2025
My colleague Boyd Tonkin visited the Lammermuir Festival for the first time this year. His eyes and ears have been opened to its treasures, but some of us have been in on the secret for years. Importantly, that includes the East Lothian audiences,... Read more... |
Frances Wilson: Electric Spark - The Enigma of Muriel Spark review - the matter of factTuesday, 16 September 2025
How do you tell the story of a person’s mind? In the preface to Electric Spark: The Enigma of Muriel Spark, published this year by Bloomsbury, Frances Wilson points out that biography was one of her subject’s own fixations.Spark’s first full-length... Read more... |
Lammermuir Festival 2025 review - music with soul from the heart of East LothianWednesday, 10 September 2025
One piece that you’re unlikely to hear at the Lammermuir Festival is Lucia di Lammermoor. As co-director James Waters explained during a drive to the absurdly picturesque church and castle at Crichton (fit setting for a Netflix epic, let alone a... Read more... |
Blondshell, Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow review - woozy rock with an air of nonchalanceMonday, 08 September 2025
There is such nonchalance with Sabrina Teitelbaum that even her appeals to the crowd appeared laid-back. At points during her set the Los Angeles singer would slowly raise an arm, in the time-honoured tradition of a musician demanding noise, but in... Read more... |
The Maccabees, Barrowland, Glasgow review - indie band return with both emotion and qualitySaturday, 23 August 2025
You wait years for a guitar group with brothers to reunite and then two come along at once. The Maccabees return might have attracted far less attention compared to the Gallaghers hitting the road again as Oasis, but as they strolled onstage on a... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Refuse / Terry's / SugarSaturday, 23 August 2025
Refuse, Assembly George Square Studios ★★★★Maks works as a bin man in a small Ukrainian town. His little son might get picked on at school and told he’s smelly because of his dad’s occupation, but Maks is content with his lot, his soulmate of a wife... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Imprints / CourierThursday, 21 August 2025
Imprints, Summerhall ★★★★Keep your wits about you for this appropriately tricksy, sometimes elusive but beautifully put together show from young company the Palimpsest Project. For a work that’s ultimately about memory, Imprints is just as... Read more... |
Works and Days, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - jaw-dropping theatrical ambitionSunday, 10 August 2025
With the sheer density of theatrical creations jostling for attention across Edinburgh’s festivals, there’s no shortage of arresting stagings, innovative visuals and powerful, memorable design. (Just take Cena Brasil Internacional’s shocking Tom at... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: The Beautiful Future is Coming / She's Behind YouSaturday, 09 August 2025
The Beautiful Future is Coming, Traverse Theatre ★★★★★Flora Wilson Brown’s epoch-straddling, climate change-themed six-hander had a run at the Bristol Old Vic before transferring to the Traverse Theatre for its Fringe residency. It shows: this is a... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe 2025 reviews: Lost Lear / ConsumedTuesday, 05 August 2025
Lost Lear, Traverse Theatre ★★★★A rehearsal room; a tense preparation session for a production of King Lear, provocatively gender-swapped; a troublesome diva in the title role; and a near-silent understudy barely able to contribute.Dan Colley’s... Read more... |
Make It Happen, Edinburgh International Festival 2025 review - tutting at naughtinessMonday, 04 August 2025
You could distinctly hear the murmurs of recognition from the Edinburgh audience – responding to knowing mentions of the city’s Leith and Morningside areas, the building of Royal Bank of Scotland’s immense Gogarburn HQ, the institution’s towering... Read more... |
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