The Dog Stars

26/08/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

One thing I’ve always admired about veteran director Ridley Scott is that I never know what he’s going to come up with next. In the case of The Dog Stars, based on the the 2012 novel by Peter Heller, my first thought is that this is the last genre I would have expected from him. What we have here is a bleak, post-apocalyptic dystopia set in 2035, when a flu epidemic has erased most of the world’s population, leaving only small pockets of hard-scrabble survivors.

One such survivor is Hig (Jacob Elordi), a former mechanic now occupying a deserted airfield along with a former marine, the apropriately named Bangley (Josh Brolin), who deals ruthessly with any survivors who come a-calling by promptly shooting them in the head. True, there are gangs of ‘Reapers’ out there, tattooed weirdos who are prepared to kill anyone for whatever bits of food or fuel they might have, but Bangley never gives anybody the benefit of the doubt and tells Hig that he’s ‘too soft.’

Hig has a light-engined plane and he also has a faithful dog called Jasper, who accompanies him everywhere. The twosome regularly head off in the plane in search of medicine and gasoline – and from time to time Hig even calls to his former home in Denver, where he thinks about his late wife and the baby she was carrying when the flu took them both. Hig occasionally makes a call to a group of Memmonites in their remote mountain hideaway, though he never mentions this to Bangley – and on another trip, he meets up with Pops (Guy Pearce) and his daughter Cima (Margaret Qually), helping them to escape from an attack by an army of Reapers…

There are of course some good elements here. Few directors handle action sequences as well as Scott and an extended Reaper attack on a lone Bangely is nicely handled, as are the extended aerial sequences, filmed by Erik Messerschmidt, with rural Italy standing in for Colorado. But a third act development that has the trio landing at former air steward Darlene (Alison Janney)’s weird airport retreat, Grand Junction, feels like it’s wandered in from a different film entirely – and a ‘shock’ revelation shortly thereafter comes as no surprise whatsoever.

Furthermore, an attempt at a redemptive final act doesn’t really manage to lift this one out of the doldrums. With the real world plunged into such dark times, a story that deals with the annihilation of most of the population is going to have to work pretty hard to keep me entertained, and despite Ridder’s best efforts, this falls somewhat short of the mark.

2. 8 stars

Philip Caveney

Noted

26/08/26

Assembly Roxy (Upstairs), Edinburgh

I’m attracted by The Back Pack’s press release, which promises “playful invention” – a phrase that strikes joy into my heart. It chimes with the ideology of the youth theatre company I work with here in Edinburgh so I arrive with a smile this morning, clutching my coffee, expectations high.

The Back Pack’s dizzying mix of clowning, illustration and animation doesn’t disappoint. We whirl from one scene to another with barely time to catch our breath. A short film – gently amusing; a group of school kids with cartoon backpacks – lots of lols. Puppetry, dance, video, cine-theatre – it doesn’t get more eclectic than this.

Twenty minutes in and there are hundreds of pieces of paper discarded on the stage. I’m grinning like a fool, loving every minute – even though I’m struggling to understand how the performers are managing to keep everything under control. There’s so much of it. Including the entire history of the world…

The live-delay is especially impressive (it’s all impressive, but this stands out). The performers are on stage, moving; we can’t tell what their contortions mean. Thirty seconds behind them, an overhead shot is projected onto the backdrop, creating an array of scenarios: horse-racing, moon walks, synchronised swimming. What’s not to love?

The choreography is stunning. The performers – Pete Betcher (who also directs), Katie Kohler, Alec Silver and Lauren McFall – are all excellent dancers, and they form a perfectly drilled quartet, making this most complex of productions look effortless (which logic tells me cannot be the case).

Noted is family-friendly in the best possible way. There really is something here for everyone. It’s silly, funny, clever and astonishing. An ideal start to the day.

5 stars

Susan Singfield

Overtone

25/08/26

Pleasance Dome (Jack Dome), Edinburgh

Tom Brennan’s assured play depicts the ongoing relationship between a young couple, set across two entirely different timelines. Paul (Scott Fletcher) and Maggie (Claire Dargo) are teenagers when we first meet them. Paul has finally managed to get into the choir. Maggie is already an enthusiastic member – and both of them are eager to impress their charismatic choirmaster, Alan. It’s clear from the very start that he exerts a powerful hold over them.

They are both excited about those infamous camping trips he organises, where adolescents get to drink and smoke and party – though of course, you have to receive a personal invite from Alan before you can attend…

Then quite suddenly, the narrative skips forward twenty years. Paul and Maggie are now a married couple, meeting up at a posh restaurant to offer advice and encouragement to their goddaughter, who is about to tie the knot herself. But as the evening unfolds, it quickly becomes clear that Alan still has that same grip on the couple, even though they haven’t seen him in years.

Tightly directed by John Hogarth, I love the way this tale unfolds. I’m initially thrown by those abrupt switches in time but, as the story moves on, they soon fall into place and I begin to fully appreciate what this story is really about: the all-pervading menace of those questionable relationships we sometimes experience as teenagers, and the various ways in which they affect us long term. Overtone deals with themes of abuse and coercion and carries a content warning.

Having experienced such a situation in my own youth, I really relate to this story – and I understand the desperate need that both characters have to keep returning to the man who has been exploiting them for years. Both Fletcher and Dargo deliver pitch-perfect performances and I love David Spence’s simple but effective set design, the curtained backdrop that is gradually opened to reveal the full picture.

This North Wall world premiere is a play worth watching and it’s exactly the kind of project the Edinburgh Fringe was made for. There are only a few days left to catch it at the Pleasance so book your tickets now.

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Bad Boy

25/08/26

Underbelly Cowgate (Belly Laugh), Edinburgh

Meet Jack (Daniel Adolfsson), a laid-back kind of guy, just trying to make his way in the world. Okay, so he recently split up with the girl he’s still hopelessly in love with, and from whom he’s inherited a bulldog (her new partner is allergic, apparently). And yes, he does live in a crummy little flat that doesn’t even have its own shower, but he’s determined to make it as an actor. Meanwhile, to make ends meet, he’s happy to man a suicide line and talk people out of doing something desperate… and there’s no chance of him ever doing anything stupid like that himself because that big break will surely come along one of these days. Won’t it?

Oh, and the guitar on the chair beside him? He doesn’t even play guitar, it’s just there as a conversation piece.

Adolfsson has a relaxed and likeable presence and the story (which he also wrote) is gently and confidently told – which makes the character’s toxicity all the more chilling. He describes his irascible landlord, the shy woman who recently moved in next door, and her eight year old daughter, who just might be interested in having occasional guitar lessons. And then, one day, his best friend casually mentions that he might have fixed him up with a major role in an adaptation of Anna Karenina…

Directed by Lilac Yosiphon, this piece of narrative storytelling is described as a dark, Nordic comedy. It follows a linear path and is most interesting when things go wrong for Jack, which they inevitably do. However, I can’t help feeling this piece could do with a little more fire in its belly, a little more jeopardy.

And the guitar? Sure enough Adolfsson eventually picks it up and gives us a couple of (very good) songs. Which only goes to show, you can’t trust everything a Fringe performer tells you. Maybe it’s a sign that Jack is starting to deal with all those unresolved issues.

3 stars

Philip Caveney

Copycat

24/08/26

Pleasance Dome (Jack Dome), Edinburgh

I’m initially drawn to Joe Sellman-Leava’s show because it promises to tackle the thorny topic of AI and, as an author and therefore somebody who sees it as perhaps the most dangerous invention of the 21st century, I’m keen to learn more.

And yes, it does handle the subject, but in a frustratingly roundabout way.

We find our narrator seated at a desk in front of a laptop, surrounded by heaps of discarded paper. An overhead projector allows him to display the different images he sets out on his (non-virtual) desktop. He proudly shows us a sketch book from his schooldays, which features caricatures of the teachers who guided him through his academic years. One in particular, it turns out, was an inspiration to him – and a section of the show will be all about Mr Swift.

Then Sellman-Leava does some impersonations – good ones as it turns out. His Ed Miliband is right on the nose. Just as I’m settling into that, he impersonates Big Arnie before segueing into selected excerpts from Lord of the Rings. It starts to become clear that Copycat is made up from a lot of disparate threads.

When we eventually get to the AI stuff, it is absolutely terrifying – the point that our National Health Service’s computer system has been outsourced to Palantir – an AI company often accused of ‘techno-fascism’ – is a particularly chilling premise. Sellman-Leava points out that we are all turkeys voting for Christmas, a conclusion with which I heartily concur. But then once again, we’re heading off in a different direction to revisit Sellman-Leava’s end-of-term show, in which he is obliged to impersonate the aforementioned Mr Swift.

Sellman-Leava is a talented and confident performer for sure, his warm, friendly demeanour connecting with his audience – but when he gets to the extended sequence where the presentation collapses into a confusing blare of random voices, augmented by impressive sound and lighting effects, I find myself thinking how much more effective this would be if the framework of the story were more straightforward.

There’s plenty of interesting content here but, in this form, they’re all fighting each other for dominance – and there’s no clear winner. Nonetheless, it does raise some vital points – and asks important questions..

3 stars

Philip Caveney

Spring Awakening

24/08/26

theSpace@Surgeon’s Hall, Edinburgh

I’ve said this before: it’s mind-blowing to think that Frank Wedekind’s Frühlings Erwachen was written way back in 1890, when Kaiser Wilhelm II ruled the Deutsches Reich, Queen Victoria was on the British throne and Robert Gascoyne-Cecil was our PM. Not that anyone was brave enough to stage it right away – it wasn’t until 1906 that the transgressive play premiered at Berlin’s Deutsches Theater.

A whole century later, Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik’s musical adaptation opened on Broadway – and this is the version we’re seeing today. You might think a contemporary adaptation would go further than the original, but it’s actually not the case. Yes, there’s more swearing, but there’s a softer ending – and no rape or masturbation scenes.

Nonetheless, this still feels like a bold piece for a school to take on. The very fact that I find myself thinking They must have a really progressive head teacher and I wonder if all the parents are on board just proves how relevant the play’s themes still are. These students are the same age as the characters, and Wedekind’s whole point was to illustrate the dreadful consequences for young people of silence, censorship and repression.

Set in Germany, in a conservative provincial town, Spring Awakening tells the story of a group of teenagers, forced to abide by a very strict set of rules that no one ever explains. Wendla (Melody Moppett) asks her mother (Alice Davidson) to tell her how babies are made, but Mrs Bergmann is too embarrassed to explain. “You have to love your husband,” she tells her daughter, leaving her horribly ill-equipped to deal with her burgeoning sexuality. Wendla finds herself drawn to Ilse (Minna Williams), who ran away from her abusive home at fourteen and now appears to enjoy a bohemian lifestyle in an artists’ colony. What Wendla doesn’t know is that Ilse’s freedom carries a heavy price.

Meanwhile, Moritz (Greg Cameron) is struggling to keep up with his studies, working day and night, unaware that his fate has already been decided. “There are only sixty places in the final year,” says Headmaster Knochenbruch (Rufus Pilcher). There’s no room for Moritz, whatever grade he achieves – but his father won’t forgive him if he fails. What’s a boy to do?

Hänschen (Alexander Christie) and Ernst (Joe Ridley) have their own problems: they know how they feel about one another, but they’ve been taught that homosexuality is a sin. Still, as ever, love and lust prove stronger than societal disapproval. They might just be the happiest characters in the play.

On the surface, Melchior (Jasper Simmons) is better off than the others. His mum (Davidson) is relatively open-minded; she’s raised her son as a free-thinker and taught him about sex. As a result, he’s seen as the fount of all knowledge by the other boys. He’s also a thorn in the side of the Headmaster, and an easy scapegoat when things go horribly awry…

This is a very ambitious project and, for the most part, Kingston Grammar School’s KGS Theatre Company pulls it off. Meg Christmas’s direction is impressive: there are a lot of bodies but the stage traffic and choreography run like clockwork – no mean feat in a performance space without any wings, just an awkward opening upstage centre. I also like the simple set: stage blocks are positioned in regimented formation, with cleverly-concealed pockets behind them, holding microphones and minimal props.

Musical director Mark Laflin provides keyboard accompaniment, augmented by cast members Williams, Ridley and Catherine O’Shea on acoustic guitars.

The whole cast work well, both in their individual roles and as an ensemble, but the standouts for me are Moppett and Williams, who both have beautiful singing voices and imbue their very different characters with strength and vulnerability. Allegra Kelly also offers a strong performance, evoking our sympathy as the maltreated Martha.

If you’re looking for a lively, provocative start to your day, I recommend you take yourself to the Surgeon’s Hall for this high-octane, fearless production of Spring Awakening.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Tom Neenan: Portrait of a Tom as a Young Neenan

23/08/26

Underbelly (Bluebell), Edinburgh

Tom Neenan is a bit of a favourite here an B&B. We first chanced upon him at the Fringe in 2015 with The Andromeda Paradox, a whip-smart parody of The Quatermass Experiment. The following year there was Vaudeville, a kind of Hammer horror spoof, which won one of our Fringe Bouquets.

With the oddly-named Portrait of a Tom as a Young Neenan, he steers closer to a traditional stand-up set, explaining that he hurriedly invented that title when his original choice, Work in Progress, was nixed for obvious reasons.

POTATAAYN is based around true events. During the lockdown in 2020, Neenan took up painting pictures as a method of passing the empty hours. Unlike so many comedians who undertake artistic endeavours, he turned out to be genuinely talented and his paintings can be easily found online. (I should probably be grateful he didn’t attempt to start writing fiction, but stick around, that could still happen.)

In 2024, Neenan was commissioned to paint a portrait of an eccentric 86-year-old Yorkshireman called Lionel and, around the same time, was also invited to attend a wedding that he really didn’t want to go to – mostly because, during lockdown, he’d become addicted to eating sweets and his suit was now uncomfortably tight…

From these disparate elements, Neenan derives a set that has me (and the rest of the audience) laughing throughout, ranging from amused chuckles to hearty guffaws – and, while I do occasionally find myself wistfully missing the clever parodies of those earlier shows, he’s clearly taking a different route here and is doing so with his customary aplomb.

Suffice to say that Neenan still has that peerless timing and an ability to deliver a punchline with a wicked self-deprecating grin. If you’re hunting for guaranteed laughs – and let’s be honest, there are thousands of  people who come to the Fringe with exactly that aim – you’ll find what you’re looking for in Underbelly’s Bluebell.

Oh and yes, Tom, I do remember when Snickers bars were called Marathons…

4 stars

Philip Caveney

The Second Best School Shooting

23/08/26

Pleasance Courtyard (Baby Grand), Edinburgh

Parker (Rachael DeBoer) and Ava (Shaylaren Hilton) are besties, hanging out in Parker’s bedroom, studying and painting their toe nails. So far, so ordinary. But it soon transpires that this is a school day and that they’re home because something terrible has happened…

One of their classmates brought a gun to their physics lesson yesterday, planning a massacre.

The girls are in shock.

But they don’t feel entitled to their trauma because, while their shooter was stopped before he hurt anyone, another incident across town led to thirteen teenage deaths. Social media is full of sympathy for the students of the other school. Meanwhile, no one’s even acknowledging that anything happened to Parker and Ava.

Parker’s on board with that. She just wants to forget it ever happened, to bury herself in physics revision and try to get the GPA she needs for a college scholarship. Ava, on the other hand, is furious. How dare people brush their experience under the carpet? Of course she’s glad that no one she knows died but that doesn’t make everything okay. She’s been through something terrifying and she wants to effect change.

She wants to mount a challenge to the NRA, to gun laws, to late-stage capitalism and selfish billionaires.

But all she’s got is a TikTok account, some headed notepaper and a purple Sharpie. It’s not exactly a fair fight. How is a schoolgirl to make her voice heard?

Written by Alice Stanley Jr and directed by Riley Rose Critchlow, The Second Best School Shooting offers a rare insight into the effects of gun violence on teenage survivors, whose emotional landscape is shaped by the ever-present background fear that they could be shot at. Anywhere. The script is sharp and snappy, creating a believable dynamic between the friends, and confronting the audience with some uncomfortable truths about the world we’ve created for our young people.

DeBoer and Hilton are perfectly cast as the contrasting central duo, DeBoer skilfully capturing Parker’s outward calm as well as her internal struggle, while Hilton cleverly allows Ava’s high-octane performance to slip, revealing the panic she’s struggling to control.

Developed alongside March for Our Lives, the political group formed by students who were in the 2018 Parkland tragedy, The Second Best School Shooting is an urgent, important piece of theatre. I urge you to see it.

4.2 stars

Susan Singfield

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

22/08/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Once again our Fringe sojourn has to be briefly interrupted for the much-anticipated release of Jane Schoenbrun’s ‘does-what -it says-on-the-VHS-box’ release, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. It’s mostly about the transgressive consequences of watching an 18-certificate slasher movie when you’re under the recommended age – and the long-term effect that such an occurrence can have on an impressionable child.

This was a formative experience for Kris (Hannah Einbender) back when she was twelve. Now she’s an emerging queer filmmaker, who’s drawn some attention with a remake of Psycho, seen from the POV of the shower curtain. She’s determined to be the one who will successfully reboot the Camp Miasma franchise. The series has now sunk into the depths of redundancy having been remade, sequelled, prequelled and relaunched countless times. 

The film’s history is played out (hilariously) over the opening credits via a series of posters and VHS covers. It’s all about a lakeside holiday camp, frequented by teens and used as a regular hunting ground by a serial killer called Little Death. The non-binary killer hides their face behind a ventilator-styled mask and uses a gigantic spear to decapitate victims. (Think Friday the 13th and you’ve pretty much got the inspiration.)

But Kris has always been intrigued by the fact that the first film’s final girl, Billie Presley, did a runner after its release and has never been heard from again. Kris manages to track her down and finds Billie (now played by Gillian Anderson) living alone in the deserted holiday camp that was the setting for the first movie. She appears to be existing on a diet of fried chicken and regular viewings of her acting debut on 35mm.

She welcomes Kris into her Camp Miasma home so they can get to know each other…

Anyone who watched Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow will be familiar with her aesthetic: colours amped up to picture-postcard intensity; still photographs employed as landscape backgrounds; and a liking for undercutting tense situations with comic dialogue. Kris’s hapless Zoom pitch to the potential producers of her new project is a particular highlight. The film is also obsessed with multi-coloured candy bars and packets of gummies – another forbidden delight from childhood.

Anyone put off by the ‘Slasher’ aspects of this film, should note that, though it does get pretty gnarly, the kills are exaggerated to the point of absurdity with victims spouting geysers of Kensington gore. I actually laugh out loud in several places. Schoenbrun’s much more interested in the sexual side of the story. 

Einbender is nicely vulnerable as the young protagonist desperately looking to reconnect with something powerful from her past, while Anderson is as brilliant as ever as a kind of reclusive Norma Desmond figure, still inextricably ensnared in the events of the film that first brought her to the public’s attention. (Keep your eyes peeled for a brief but unmistakable tribute to David Cronenberg.)

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma certainly won’t be for everyone but I enjoy every profane minute of it. 

4.6 stars

Philip Caveney

Big Stuff

22/06/26

Assembly Roxy (RoxyBoxy), Edinburgh

Stuff. Love it or hate it, we’re all surrounded by it; it’s just the way we deal with it that differs. How about you? Are you a hoarder or a declutterer?

As two self-declared stuff-shunners, we’re fascinated to see what Canadian comics Matt Baram and Naomi Snieckus have to say on the subject.

We hit our first obstacle as soon as we enter the cutely-named RoxyBoxy shipping container (an apt venue). We’re given pencils, cards and a question: what object do you own that reminds you of someone you love? In my best handwriting (I’m always keen to please), I put, “the books my husband wrote,” not realising until later that it should be someone who’s dead. Philip is sitting next to me, very much alive and frowning at his card. “I haven’t got a clue,” he says. I remind him of his great uncle’s mandolin, which is hanging on our wall. “I never met him though,” he says, then shrugs and writes it down. I guess we’re really not ‘stuff’ people.

But that’s okay – because that’s the point of the show. One person’s trash is another one’s treasure and all that. Matt and Naomi are married and, unlike Philip and me, do not agree about clutter. Where Matt sees a bag full of half-used lipsticks, Naomi sees her late mum, putting on her face. Matt wants to chuck it all in a skip; Naomi wants to hold on to everything. The answer – unsurprisingly – lies somewhere in between.

Directed by Kay Sandler, this is a gently comic, life-affirming show – part love story, part obituary, part (metaphorical) communal hug. Snieckus provides the warmth – she genuinely has one of the friendliest faces I’ve ever seen – while Baram tempers the show’s more saccharine moments with his precisely-timed jibes. Their affection for one another is palpable and it envelops the audience too.

Are there any profound revelations or transformative ideas? No. But do I leave with a smile on my face and a general sense of wellbeing? Yes, I do.

I’m still a minimalist though. That hasn’t changed.

3.5 stars

Susan Singfield