Theatre Cryptic is renowned for combining music, film, dance, movement and language in imaginative multi media performances. The word "cryptic" means mysteriously obscure. One of the aims of the company is "to create a sensory world of escape." 

The first professional production in London of Ibsen's "A Doll's House" (translated by the Scottish drama critic William Archer) took place on 7 June 1889. 

"Gowns by Edith Head" was one of the most familiar cinema credits of the 20th century. Edith began as a sketch artist in the 1920s, and worked her way up to become the most celebrated Hollywood costume designer winning eight Oscars

The warning signs were all there – I just momentarily failed to heed them. An amateur production of a little-known play by a major playwright. “Why is it so little-known?” I might have asked myself. “What kind of amateur group?” might have followed close behind.

Sometimes theatre just gets everything right – a superb cast, clear design, and storytelling so utterly absorbing that it just hoists you right out of your usual reality and fills your imagination with something extraordinary.

Flower-arranger Mig Kimpton says that “You will not see anything even remotely like this anywhere else on the Fringe.” Well, that’s true. But then he also says that the show is “an hour of flower fun’ – which I’d say is pushing it, mate.

There’s a lot of pain in Jane Russell’s one-woman show detailing the life and lot of your average pharmacist.

Well, you know what they say: “Sometimes it’s better to
travel hopefully than to arrive.” And so it goes with Edinburgh Graduate
Theatre Group’s revival of Abi Morgan’s 2001 hit

The lights don't go up for some time on 'Black Comedy' down in the hall of Old St. Paul's Episcopal Church (venue 45),

Conceived and directed by Michael Lessac, the docu-drama ‘Truth in Translation' revolves around the interpreted testimonies of people in South Africa who had committed atrocities during the Apartheid era.

With the great acting, the beautiful setting and a campervan as the main prop, this could only be classed as a top show.

The first sight of Hopetoun House (Scotland's finest stately home) is as you drive along the sweeping front drive. And it's very impressive. You can almost hear the clatter of horse’s hooves as the carriage and hansom cabs arrive.

Here and there, now and then, absolute joy can be found on the Fringe. It's rare, to be treasured and savoured, carefully wrapped up in the mind, saved against harsher, bleaker times.

'Wan hour twenty minutes! Have they read the f****r?' as this reviewer's friend Kevin put it on learning the length of RSAMD's production of 'Crime and Punishment'.

Benjamin Bagby walks onto the stage at The Hub: one man, one instrument and one of the most well-known and studied to near-extinction texts of Anglo-Saxon England.

With a cast of 7 Australian members, 1 percussionist, DJ, world championship beatboxer and 4 agile acrobats the Tom Tom Club is an amazing performance of high energy and incredibly high impact showmanship.

La Didone is produced by the New York artists collective - The Wooster Group. Under the direction of Elizabeth LeCompte, they have developed a reputation as pioneers of multimedia performance, and La Didone is nothing less than visually stunning.

Energy. Enthusiasm. Skimpy costumes. A casino. All in a fabulous historical venue, the Jam House. What more could you want from a late night cabaret show?

The Bitches Ball is a Regency era romp through the life of Mary Robinson: poet, novelist, actress and mistress to the Prince of Wales.

If you like cabaret burlesque this is a must because Voodoo Vaudeville know how to hold a very naughty party!

Penelope and Madeleine Solomon sing and sketch their way through an hour's worth of entertainment accompanied by a fine three-piece ensemble of button accordion, snare drum and double bass. This trio can certainly klezmer (klezmer being Jewish secular music, deriving from kleys (a vessel) and mer (song), i.e., song for drinking occasions).