Theatre

A look at the New World themed theatre productions showing at the 2010 Edinburgh International Festival.

John Gay's The Beggar's Opera was written in 1728 as a comic farce, poking accurate fun at the social and political scandals of the period. Its central themes cover poverty, injustice, crime and corruption. As a morality play it has remained perennially relevant, updated by Bertolt Brecht as The Threepenny Opera, featuring the classic torch song, Mac the Knife.

The last witch burning in Scotland in the early 18th century, enacted at this year's Edinburgh International Festival, has an uncomfortable resonance 300 years later with an all-too-familiar tale of superstition, torture and brutality.

"All children, except one, grow up. Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!"  Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end."

"Peter Pan: (or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up)," J M Barrie's most famous play was rewritten in 1911 as a novel, "Peter and Wendy". Rather than being just an adventure story for children, it can be read as a self help guide for adults

Afterplay, written by Brian Friel, is most unusual in that he has taken characters from two familiar Chekhov plays and created a scenario in which these two strangers strike up a conversation in a Russian café.

Three of the "most innovative theatre makers" at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year were announced as winners of the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize 2009 today. The three are The River People, David Leddy (pictured), and Inspector Sands.

Brian Friel's play, The Yalta Game, is based on a short story by Anton Chekhov, The Lady with the Lapdog, that tells of a holiday affair between an older married man and a young married woman while they are both on holiday alone.

It's not yet 3am on Christmas morning, 1977 - everyone is still sleeping.  We are about to share Charlie Chaplin's last hour.

As he take us through his life and work we will discover that the cult of celebrity is nothing new.  It's a rags to riches story

It is unfortunate that the life and work of political cartoonist, and man of many other talents, Harry Horse is overshadowed by the horrific circumstances surrounding his death in January 2007. Perhaps this is why Tam Dean Burn takes the unusual step of providing an introduction to this evening, softly informing us that the visual backdrop will display the cartoons Horse supplied to the Sunday Herald in the two years prior to the bodies of he and his wife being discovered at their home on West Burra.

I walked into the darkened theatre.  The atmosphere hit me like a slug from a .45.  I dropped into my seat.  OK, bring on the action.

The play takes as its starting point the screening of Orson Welles' 1958 film A Touch of Evil

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of seeing a French production of Molière's play Le Malade Imaginaire by the Paris company Ecla Théâtre. It was done in period, and was updated linguistically to encompass modern vernacular French.

This comedy drama about a Fringe theatre company is actually based on real events which took place during the Edinburgh Festival each August between 2005 to 2008. A programme giving plot storyline and cast list is available (so do ask for one as they are not readily offered) which may prove invaluable.

Chronicles of Long Kesh is one of the best shows on the Fringe this year.  A powerful two-hour drama, it is about the infamous prison in Northern Ireland in which members of the IRA were interned without trial - never knowing their release date.

It is usual in a review to give a synopsis of the performance and some detail of the show, but in order not to spoil the many surprises of the spectacular Ringside, it seems best to say as little as possible beyond what is already in the programme.

You just can't go wrong with zombies, can you? They are both scary and funny in equal measure. Pure entertainment! And that is probably the best way to describe Opening Night Of The Living Dead. Absolute pure entertainment.

I have just seen one of the funniest things on the Fringe - unfortunately, it wasn't this show.

Although listed under Dance in the Fringe programme, this is not a dance performance per se, but more of a dramatised play with film, music and short dance sequences. This devised theatrical piece based on Titanic survivors' stories is performed by a group of six young dance and performing arts students.

Modern art isn't everybody's cup of tea, but is there a chance that it could change your life?

"Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start."  Altogether now, Doe, a deer, a female deer, ray, a drop of golden sun....

Love it or hate it, The Sound of Music has been a musical phenomenon for 50 years

Walden is an account of an ‘experiment in simple living' that was carried out and documented by Henry David Thoreau, a 27 year old Harvard graduate, failed teacher and student of Eastern philosophy. For two years from 1854, he attempted to live entirely by his own resources in woods near his hometown of Concord, Massachusetts.