The Unstoppable Rise of Ben Manager

10/08/25

Pleasance Courtyard (Above), Edinburgh

Bunkum Ensemble’s The Unstoppable Rise of Ben Manager is a Kafka-esque nightmare of a play, skewering the emptiness at the heart of many people’s work.

Ben Weaver (Jack Parris, who also wrote the script) is an ordinary kind of guy, an unassuming office drone, who works to live, to pay the bills. As the play opens, we see him suited and booted, in town early for an interview, eating an almond croissant to kill the time. But Fate has something different in store for Ben today: when he picks up a lanyard bearing the name ‘Ben Manager’, he finds himself caught in a Faustian trap…

Ben aces his interview. As Ben Manager, he is king of the vacuous PowerPoint, master of the mindless acronym. He knows his OOOs from his ETDs and he’s great at restructuring (“You’re all fired!”). What’s harder to understand is what it’s all for: what does the company actually do? What exactly is his role? Disoriented, Ben tries to remember what used to drive him. “I think I’d like to be creative,” he muses. “Maybe costume design?” But these half-formed thoughts are nebulous, impossible to grasp, lost to the demands of his daily routine.

Parris is commanding in the central role, a leaf-cutter ant caught in the corporate machine. As events build to an almost hallucinatory crescendo, his mental unravelling is cleverly physicalised, and I love the disconcerting effect of the baby-sized puppet-colleague (operated by Teele Uustanti), its words spoken into a microphone by musician-performer Mike Coxhead). The audio-visual design is also impressive, adding to Ben’s (and our) growing sense of disconnection from reality.

Although it elicits plenty of laughs from the audience, The Unstoppable Rise of Ben Manager is fundamentally a brutal and discomfiting piece of theatre – and I’m not sure I’d find it amusing at all if I worked a nine-to-five.

4.3 stars

Susan Singfield

A Jaffa Cake Musical

10/08/25

Pleasance Courtyard (Forth), Edinburgh

Every year, the Fringe manages to boast an improbably-titled musical with broad audience appeal. In 2024, Gigglemug Theatre’s A Jaffa Cake Musical was a huge hit but, for reasons too complicated to explain, we didn’t manage to see it. So when it was announced that it would return for one final run, we decided we really should catch up with it. Tickets were duly arranged and we set off with high expectations.

But on the fateful day in question, Storm Floris decided to strut its stuff, managing to shut down the entire Pleasance Courtyard. Some frantic rescheduling ensued – a mere hiccup for us but no doubt a massive pain in the backside for all the productions affected. Finally, several days later, here we sit in the sold-out Forth and the show begins.

You might think, with that seemingly random title, that this is simply a silly fantasia, conjured up for everyone’s entertainment. But Sam Cochrane’s zany creation is loosely based on fact – the 1991 court case that determined the most important question of all: whether a Jaffa Cake is actually a cake… or a biscuit. Let’s face it, we’ve all asked ourselves the same thing at some point in our lives. And there was a lot on money riding on the outcome, since cakes (a necessity, apparently) are not subject to VAT while biscuits (a mere frivolity) are. Go figure.

Rookie barrister Kevin (Cochrane) lands his first big trial and, wouldn’t you know it, he is to defend Jake (Harry Miller), the Godlike genius who actually invented Jaffa Cakes, from the depredations of the villainous Tax Man (Katie Pritchard, embodying a character that pretty much everyone can hiss at). Opposing Kevin will be confident young barrister, Catherine (Sabrina Messer), who has a winning way with the old dance moves and has yet to lose a case. Meanwhile, the stern Judge (Alex Prescot) plays the keyboards while he presides, backed by bass and drums. (I did say it was loosely based on fact.)

Fuelled by its own sheer exuberance and gifted with a collection of witty songs, arranged by Rob Gathercole, A Jaffa Cake Musical is a delicious concoction (much like its inspiration) that hooks its audience, much like the tantalising taste of that smashing orangey bit.

There’s plenty to admire here, not least the antics of the seven-strong cast – bowler hats off to Pritchard in particular, who is a quadruple threat: singing, dancing, playing the saxophone and swapping roles with absolute assurance. The staging is simple but effective, everything nicely colour-coded in distinctive shades of orange and chocolate brown, and one song in particular has such a catchy hook you’ll almost certainly leave the building humming it aloud. (I know I do.) Ali James directs with aplomb and a jolly good time is had by all.

Lights down. Applause.

Which only leaves me to answer that all-important question: is it a cake or a biscuit? Well, why not cut along to the Pleasance (weather permitting) and judge for yourselves?

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Lady Macbeth Played Wing Defence

09/08/25

Assembly George Square (Studio One), Edinburgh

The music’s pumping, the lights are flashing and the Dunsinane Hellhounds are warming up on the netball court. There’s no mistaking what kind of show this is going to be: high-octane, in-yer-face, Barbie-pink and lots of fun.

It’s Macbeth, but not as you know it: Macbeth without the monarchs, without the murder – without the men. Macbeth in an Aussie high school, where captaincy of the Year 12 netball team represents the seat of power, and where the Dagger Divas’ prophecies are streamed from Spotify.

“Mac” Beth (Orla Jean Poole) – wing defence – has always dreamed of leading the team. But Coach Duncan (Courtney McManus, who also wrote the book) has other ideas, and promotes Chloe Macduff (Shannon Rogers) instead. Mac is furious. Her best friend, Summer Banquo (Kate Sisley), tries to placate her, but Mac is too fired up to listen. She’ll do whatever it takes to ensure she gains the throne…

Crash Theatre Company’s Perth production pivots onto the Edinburgh scene via the House of Oz. Composer/director Bec Price’s electro-pop score is vibrant and lively, while the lyrics (co-written by McManus, Price and Ana Ferreira Manhoso) are a playful blend of Shakespearean verse and modern vernacular, with the bard’s most famous quotations all present and correct. The choreography (courtesy of Rogers) is suitably vigorous, while the bold costuming cleverly distinguishes the characters – no mean feat when they’re in matching uniforms.

This is a true ensemble piece, and I love the performers’ energy and vim. However, I do think there’s scope for the story to venture into darker territory, for Mac to engage in more nefarious deeds, as LMPWD stops a long way short of its progenitor’s “direst cruelty”. I’d also prefer a less saccharine ending, more akin to the original…

Nonetheless, there’s no denying the dynamic effect of this production: there’s a discernible buzz in the auditorium and plenty of people singing the catchy ‘Thunder, Lightning, Rain‘ on their way out (displaying the lyrics on the backdrop, karaoke-style, is an inspired idea). I find myself playing the score while I’m making dinner, and I’ve no doubt Lady Macbeth Played Wing Defence will prove especially popular with teens.

All hail, “Mac” Beth, that shalt be a blockbuster hereafter.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Lost Lear

08/08/25

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

King Lear is my favourite Shakespeare play and, fittingly, Lost Lear is my favourite 2025 Fringe production (so far). Dan Colley’s interpretation of the tragedy sees a retired actor, Joy (Venetia Bowe), who is struggling with dementia, reliving her role as the eponymous monarch. The care home staff accede to Joy’s version of reality, willingly reading in for Goneril, Regan, Cordelia and the fool. It’s kinder than confronting her with the bleak, unhappy truth, says Liam (Manus Halligan) to Joy’s estranged son.

But Conor (Gus McDonagh) takes a little more convincing. He’s uncomfortable playing Cordelia. He doesn’t want to understand the play; he wants answers from the mother who gave him up at birth. Sadly, Joy is largely unreachable, and it’s only through the bard that the pair can connect.

Colley’s beautifully-conceived script intertwines excerpts from Lear with moments in the here and now, gently but relentlessly uncovering the horrors of cognitive decline. There is a stillness at the centre of the piece, belying the chaos of the “cataracts and hurricanoes” as Joy/Lear rages at a world s/he no longer understands. But there is layer upon layer here: this is as much an exploration of stagecraft, poetry and the nature of performance as it is of ageing, care work and the complexities of love. It’s not just a play to watch, it’s one to study too – and I make sure to buy the script as I leave the theatre, so that I can delve into it again after I’ve had some time to think.

Bowe is utterly compelling in the lead role: an imperious, querulous woman, quite difficult to like. But Liam and the other staff (Clodagh O’Farrell and Em Ormonde) treat her with such quiet respect that we take our cue from them, affording her the sympathy that everyone in her position needs. Halligan and McDonagh perform with absolute precision too, but theirs are very much supporting roles, the moons to Joy’s planet.

The set design (Andrew Clancy) and tech (Ross Ryder, Suzie Cummins, Kevin Gleeson) are integral to Lost Lear: cameras are used for extreme facial close-ups and there are microscopic projections too, creating the backdrops. I have rarely seen puppetry so well done as it is here, and never with such relevance. The tragedy is both miniaturised and magnified, viewed from inside and out.

As the metaphorical curtain falls, I turn to Philip and find him silently sobbing, his shoulders heaving, tears falling down his face, caught up in memories of his own mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s. Lost Lear feels worthy of its progenitor: a clever, multi-faceted drama; a treatise on the nature of life and death.

5 stars

Susan Singfield

Standing in the Shadows of Giants

08/08/25

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

I have never has the misfortune to be linked to a famous sibling but Lucy Barât is the older sister of Carl Barât of The Libertines – a notorious band in their day (but mainly, it has to be said, for their tabloid-fodder antics, rather than their music).

After finishing school, Lucie puts in her years at drama college and emerges fresh and hopeful for a successful career in acting, but spends much of her time being pursued by older male producers, who claim they can get her in front of ‘the right people’ – provided she’s suitably nice to them. Around the same time, brother Carl’s career goes meteoric and she is invited along for the ride, sharing his easy access to drug-fuelled parties. Don’t misunderstand, she’s pleased for her brother, but – yes, okay, she’s jealous of him. Eventually, she gets her own big break – a role in an epic sword-and-sandal film, shooting in Malta. But she scuppers her chances when, hopped up to the gills on booze and drugs, she manages to puke over the sandals of an A-lister…

After this disappointment, she begins the inevitable slow descent into drug and alcohol addiction, followed by countless spells in rehab, as she struggles to get herself back on track.

Barât is a confident performer and she handles this one-woman show with considerable zeal. Director Bryony Shanahan keeps everything stripped back and straightforward. Barât talks directly to the audience, sharing her observations about the destructive nature of missed stardom. She also has an impressive singing voice, though we only catch snatches of this, as her songs are generally interrupted by memories of the next mishap.

If there’s an issue here, it’s that too often the story strays uncomfortably into the realms of self-pity and there’s isn’t really enough in the way of conflict – or, indeed, redemption – to sugar the pill. Since her brother’s story also features a similar arc (not to mention the awful woes of frontman Pete Doherty), what we’re really left with is the age-old tale of an artist failing to meet their own high expectations.

Barât assures us that she’s happy now, which is certainly good to hear. But Standing in the Shadows of Giants feels a little too introspective, and I leave feeling decidedly downbeat.

3 stars

Philip Caveney

The Beautiful Future is Coming

08/08/25

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Flora Wilson Brown’s The Beautiful Future is Coming is a triptych: a thought-provoking meditation on the subject of climate change set over centuries. 

New York, 1856. Eunice (Phoebe Thomas) believes she has discovered evidence that sunlight and carbolic acid will one day have a dramatic effect on the world’s weather. She’s understandably keen to spread the word – obsessed with the notion – and she’s supported at every step by her well-meaning husband, John (Matt Whitchurch). However, nobody in the scientific community is prepared to take the word of an amateur – and what’s more, a woman – seriously.

In 2027, Claire (Nina Singh) and Dan (Jyuddah Jaymes) are based at a design agency in London where, ironically, they are working on an advertising campaign for Greenpeace. They begin a flirtation, which develops into a serious relationship. But when Dan’s mother home is flooded by a sudden, catastrophic weather event, Dan’s whole worldview is irrevocably tainted.

In 2100, scientists Malcolm (James Bradwell) and Ana (Rosie Dywer) are trapped in a research centre in Svalbard, Norway, where a storm has been raging for months. Ana is trying to conduct experiments on weather-resistant strains of wheat – and getting precisely nowhere. She is heavily pregnant and beginning to wonder if she can make it to safety before her baby arrives…

The story switches effortlessly back and forth in time, the scenes interconnecting almost seamlessly, the events occasionally echoing each other, as if to emphasise that, no matter how hard humanity tries to effect change, we hardly ever succeed. 

This complex tale is told with deceptive simplicity. The three couples move around Aldo Vázquez’s set like chess pieces on a board, while Elena Penãs atmospheric sound and Ryan Day’s lighting contribute to the play’s immersive atmosphere. For me, the only uncertain point here is Dan’s OTT reaction to his mother’s fate – there’s been no hint in his previously cheerful demeanour that such darkness lies within him.

But The Beautiful Future is Coming does have a profound impression on me, even if I can’t help feeling that the words ‘Don’t Hold Your Breath’ would make an apt suffix.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Midnight at the Palace

08/08/25

Gilded Balloon Patterhoose (Big Yin), Edinburgh

“I went to primary school with Baylie Carson’s stepmum.”

I know, it sounds like a Fringe show title, but it’s not. It’s just a fact. Summer 1982, North Wales: while the rest of our class dealt with the big move to high school, Kerry faced a more exciting change, emigrating all the way to Australia. And now, more than forty years later, I’ve climbed the stairs to the third floor of Edinburgh’s Patterhoose to see her stepdaughter perform. It’s a tenuous connection, but feels oddly significant. It’s lovely to see our peers succeed, and somehow even more lovely when it’s their children doing well.

And Carson is doing really well, recently appearing in West End productions of SIX (Anne Boleyn) and Mean Girls (Janis). They’re in the ascendant.

But tonight they’re here, part of a sequin-clad ensemble bringing the little attic room to life with this sparkling production of Midnight at the Palace.

The musical is based on a true story. It’s the late 1960s and San Francisco’s counterculture is booming. Radical Hibiscus (Andrew Horton) and disco-diva Sylvester (Gregory Haney) lead a ragtag group of hippies, freaks and drag-queens, known as The Cockettes, whose performances at the North Beach’s Palace Theater are legendary. As the group becomes successful, however, tensions begin to rise, especially when they get the chance to appear in New York. While the others are drawn by the allure of Broadway, Hibiscus believes that ambition corrupts. He wants to stay in California, true to his ideals, performing for free, refusing to be co-opted by ‘The Man.’

Perhaps to its detriment, Rae Binstock’s book doesn’t really focus on the conflict, but Brandon James Gwinn’s music is great, with some really catchy, memorable songs. The piece works best as a celebration of queer culture: the gaudy costumes and home-made props a riot of colour and joy; the vivacious performers full of sass and vim, gleefully waving two fingers at the normies, swallowing acid and quaaludes; singing, dancing, shagging around. However, there’s not much of a storyline, and it’s a shame that the fascinating political undercurrents are only referenced rather than explored.

Carson is a standout as Pam, the sweet country girl with a yearning for excitement, who hitches her way to The Golden City to find a family of friends. Their song Take Me Home is a highlight of the play. Haney is also fabulous as Sylvester, dominating the stage, while Horton’s A Crab on Uranus is a visual delight. I also really like the puppetry (John Waters and Divine are particularly amusing), and am mightily impressed by the dynamic dance routines Paul McGill manages to choreograph on such a small stage.

Midnight at the Palace is a blast: a spectacular, gender-bending kaleidoscope of fun.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Rob Auton: CAN (An Hour-Long Story)

07/08/25

Assembly Roxy (Upstairs), Edinburgh

I haven’t seen Rob Auton performing live before, but I have heard him on The Elis James and John Robins Show and found him appealing. So I’m looking forward to this hour, my introduction to a new (to me) comedian. He doesn’t disappoint.

In what is (I learn) something of a departure for Auton, CAN is a character comedy. The eponymous ex-motivational speaker charts his ascent from an ordinary man doing a home workout to a global influencer, changing hearts and lives. And then he tells us of his descent, his growing disillusion with the whole idea of motivation, his acceptance of normality.

Can tells us it’s hard to describe our existence on earth; likewise, it’s hard to describe this hour-long story. It’s gentle and life-affirming, silly and bleak, familiar and strange. Auton’s dry, deadpan delivery belies the emotional heft; he’s mocking motivational speakers and yet somehow motivating me (just into a kind of general positivity; I’m not planning on doing anything drastic like moving the toaster…).

I don’t want to give too much away, but the hour flies by in a carefully-orchestrated onslaught of ideas. There’s some pretty standard observational stuff mixed in with the surreal; some poetic riffs and some important points. I’m sold. And I’ll be back to see whatever Auton does next.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

James Phelan: The Man Who Was Magic

06/08/25

McEwan Hall at Underbelly, Bristo Square, Edinburgh

James Phelan was probably destined to be a magician. After all, his uncle was the late Paul Daniels, a man known for the infamous catch-phrase, ‘You’ll like this. Not a lot, but you’ll like it.’ Not that I would apply that description to Phelan’s show, which I do enjoy. A lot. It’s bigger, more grandiose than the kind of offering his Uncle Paul was known for and features several WTF moments that have me shaking my head in disbelief.

Phelan enjoyed a palpable success at last year’s Fringe, though we didn’t get the opportunity to add him to our watchlist. This year, you’ll find him in the cavernous surroundings of the McEwan Hall, which is great news for him – the importance of bums on seats is not to be ignored – but in some ways works against him, because some of the tricks inevitably lose their power by being distanced. Though we’re seated in the stalls, I sometimes find myself struggling to maintain a clear sight-line and one routine in particular, which takes place right on the edge of the stage, is lost to view behind a sea of heads.

Of course it would be unfair to share details of any of the illusions; suffice to say that some of them are quite bewildering and I find myself wracking my brains for hours afterwards, wondering how a particular bit of wizardry was achieved. A prominent sign when we enter announces that ‘no stooges are used in the show’ or words to that effect. So how the hell did he…?

Trust me, don’t go down that road.

Overall, The Man Who was Magic is an accomplished production and Phelan is a relaxed performer who takes the audience into his confidence and enjoys playing with their expectations. But I do have reservations. At one point, the theatre is plunged into total darkness for several minutes, which just feels downright suspicious, an opportunity for his stage crew to tinker with things. To give him his due, Phelan announces that he’s not entirely sure about keeping this bit in and I think I agree. We all know there’s no such thing as magic, only the power of suggestion and the trick of misdirection – but for something to be truly astounding, we need to believe we’ve seen every single moment in crystal clear detail.

Still, the audience troops out talking excitedly about what they’ve just witnessed – and at the end of a Fringe show, that’s exactly the effect that every performer is hoping for.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Kanpur: 1857

06/08/25

Pleasance Courtyard (Beneath), Edinburgh

Set in Kanpur, India, in the aftermath of the so-called “Sepoy Mutiny,” an unnamed Indian (portrayed by the play’s author, Niall Moojani) is sentenced to death for insurrection. The captive is a Hijra, often described as ‘the third sex,’ who are traditionally assigned as male at birth, and can decide which gender they wish to assume in the fullness of time. The officer in charge of the execution, played by co-director Jonathan Oldfield, offers his victim an opportunity to speak, or rather demands that they do so. Afterwards, they will be strapped to a cannon and blown apart in front of a crowd of onlookers – or, as we’re known in these quarters, a Fringe audience.

A serviceable-looking cannon has been sourced, and it’s pretty much the only prop in evidence. I can’t help thinking about the difficulties of bringing such a cumbersome weapon down into the Pleasance Courtyard’s ‘Beneath’ performance space, but happily that’s not my job.

Oldfield’s officer serves in a distinguished Highland regiment, though his accent is – perhaps inevitably – cut-glass English. Now, he suggests, is the time for the condemned to explain what has brought them to this awful situation. A garrulous sort, the officer can’t stop interrupting his victim’s narrative, asking awkward questions, offering his own privileged perspectives, even at one point picking up a guitar and lending some lilting accompaniment.

Kampur: 1857 has interesting points to make about the nature of colonialism, reminding us that, during the conflict there have been acts of barbarism on both sides – though these observations come from Oldfield’s character, speaking from the more comfortable point of view of somebody who isn’t about to be evenly distributed across the landscape, and whose side’s reaction to the mutiny has been massively disproportionate.

The piece, which lies somewhere in that strange no-man’s-land between storytelling and drama is at its best when the two characters are exchanging views, bickering, joking, vainly trying to bring each other around to some shared worldview. Oldfield gets the best of it, his sneering superiority played at full-throttle, while Moojani’s dialogue is more reserved and contemplative. Meanwhile, tabla player Hardeep Deerhe provides a rhythmic accompaniment to his words.

It’s impossible not to feel swept up in the play’s final moments, as the victim waits, helpless and silent, their final seconds ticking inexorably away…

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney