Liam Rudden's Must See Theatre this month
As Edinburgh theatres fall into their usual pre-Fringe slumber this month, there's only one big touring production heading to town in July and that is Dear Evan Hansen at The Playhouse (1-5 July).
The Olivier, Tony and Grammy Award-winning musical is packed with some of the biggest musical theatre songs of the last decade. All his life, Evan Hansen has felt invisible. But when a tragic event shocks the community and thrusts him into the centre of a rapidly evolving controversy, he is given the opportunity of a lifetime – the chance to be somebody else.
With a score by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, the Oscar-winning composers for The Greatest Showman, book by Steven Levenson and direction by Adam Penford, the Artistic Director at Nottingham Playhouse, this brand-new production marks the first time the Broadway and West End phenomenon has toured the UK. It stars Scottish musical theatre star Ryan Kopel in the title role, with Sonny Monaghan appearing as Alternative Evan at matinee performances.
I caught up with both Ryan and Sonny as they prepared to take Dear Evan Hansen on the road, you can meet them here.
Running time 2 hours 40 minutes including interval, tickets here.
https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/dear-evan-hansen/edinburgh-playhouse
With a dearth of shows in the Capital, you could do worse than planning a theatre break this month, and if that means a trip to London, get in early as there's still time to catch the final week of London Theatre Direct's Big Summer Theatre.
Now in its second year, the event, which runs until Monday 7 July (keep your eyes peeled though as it was extended by a further week last year), allows you to choose from more than 40 musicals and plays, including The Devil Wears Prada, Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, Back to the Future the Musical, Clueless the Musical, Matilda the Musical, and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and save up to 50% off, with tickets from just £15.
This year, however, don't just see the on stage magic, experience it with a series of exclusive photo experiences. Now you can step onto the stage after seeing Hadestown, Titanique, Starlight Express, Fiddler on the Roof and The Great Gatsby, to pose for a professional photo moment – have your photo taken on stage after seeing Hadestown at the Lyric Theatre, snap a pic with a Titanique cast member on the Criterion Theatre stage, toast your West End debut with a complimentary drink and photo op at Fiddler on the Roof, feel like a winner when you race onto the Troubadour Wembley Park Theatre stage for a Starlight Express photo op – no skates required, but a complimentary drink is a must – or join the roaring 20's party with an old sport from the The Great Gatsby cast, as you pose on stage with them at the London Coliseum.
Ready to make your summer unforgettable? Explore all participating shows and secure your seat at the hottest event of the season here.
Back in Edinburgh, there's a chance for little ones to get their introduction to theatre at The Playhouse when, for one day only, The Dinosaur That Pooped – A Rock Show (24 July) comes to the Greenside Place venue for two performances at 1.30pm and 4.30pm.
When Danny and Dino's favourite rock band are playing their last ever concert, they go on a quest to get the last two tickets. But with a villainous band manager lurking, nothing goes to plan. Will the band perform? Will Danny rock out? Or will Dino's rumbling tummy save the day?
Adapted from the No1 best-selling books by Tom Fletcher and Dougie Poynter, the whole family will have a poopy good time enjoying a brand, new story for the stage. Featuring new songs by the McFly favourites Fletcher and Pointer, a lot of laughs and a whole lot of poo.
Running time 1 hour with no interval. Tickets here. https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/the-dinosaur-that-pooped/edinburgh-playhouse/
Now if ever a venue was made to host a production of the work of Transporting author Irvine Welsh, it surely has to be the old Leith Town Hall Theatre, now better known as Leith Theatre, and that's exactly what the venue is set to do when it brings Porno (18 & 19 July), to 28 Ferry Road.
Adapted by Davie Carswell from Welsh's novel of the same name, the stage production of Porno started life as 50 minute one-act play at The Pleasance as part of the 2022 Fringe, however, it's the full-length version that comes to Leith Theatre, one that has already sold out runs at the Liverpool Olympia, Crewe Lyceum, Manchester Waterside as well as a seven week season at the Art's Theatre in London's West End.
Porno, the follow up novel to Trainspotting, reveals what has become of Renton, Sickboy, Spud and Begbie some 15 years on from their original exploits. It goes without saying, sure that swearing, drug use and language of a sexual nature are the order of the day, which makes the 13+ advisory seem quite liberal.
Running time 2 Hours including interval. Tickets here
Next month, of course, we'll be spoiled for choice as the Festival and Fringe comes around once again.
The Edinburgh Reporter will once again exclusive carry my Fringe Hot Ticket hit lists, in the meantime you can keep up to date with the shows coming to Edinburgh in August that are catching my eye by visiting www.mustseetheatre.com
And please do keep an eye out for the three shows I'm directing. If you like a supernatural tale or two, Fallen Angel, my new one-man play, and The Omega Factor: By The Pricking Of My Thumbs, by Natasha Gerson and myself, might be right up your street. If it's comedy you're looking for, check out Hingin' Oan Fir Googsie, by John McColl, starring River City's Jimmy Chisholm, will definitely be worth a look. Tickets here.
Until August, happy theatre going,
Liam
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BBC News
2 days ago
- BBC News
'It makes me feel strong': Burlesque is back - but is it empowering or degrading to women?
As burlesque queen Dita Von Teese puts on a new London show, the art form, which blends glamour, striptease and humour, is having a moment again – but the debate around it continues. Grab your nipple pasties and tip your bowler hat: burlesque is back. The art form, which blends vintage glamour, coquettish striptease, and a winking knowingness, is one that seems to blow in-and-out of fashion: it was huge in the 2000s, then faded from view. "When it's needed as a discursive form, it comes up," says Jacki Wilson, associate professor of performance and gender at the University of Leeds. And while in recent years, in the UK at least, drag has replaced burlesque as the trending cabaret act de jour, a couple of big new shows suggest burlesque might just be slinking back into the spotlight. "I think it's having a true renaissance, actually – all over the world," burlesque performer Tosca Rivola tells the BBC. She'd know: her show Diamonds and Dust, a "narrative" burlesque show starring Dita Von Teese, has just opened in London. And while Von Teese may be the enduring queen of the art form, even she benefited from the Taylor Swift effect recently, being introduced to a new audience when she starred as a fairy godmother in the video for the singer's 2022 single Bejeweled. Also about to open in the West End is Burlesque the Musical – a stage version of the Christina Aguilera and Cher-starring 2010 film, while at Edinburgh's globally-renowned Fringe Festival this summer, a new International Burlesque Festival is set to run across five venues for the whole month, in response to a "major increase in burlesque productions staged at the Fringe" last year, according to organisers. And if an ultra-glam version of burlesque has endured more in the US than the UK over the last 15 years, it's also enjoying something of a renaissance there. When a Met Gala after-party centres around a burlesque performance by Teyana Taylor and FKA Twigs, as it did this year, it's clearly more hot ticket than old hat. Or is it? Many of these offerings feel doubly retro: a throwback 20 years to the last mainstream period of an art form that was already harking back to a different era. Is the revival of interest in burlesque actually part of a broader wave of specifically millennial nostalgia? Burlesque the Musical is clearly targeting the same millennial audiences who have flocked to other movie-to-musical adaptations such as Cruel Intentions, Mean Girls, Legally Blonde and Clueless. And the fact that Von Teese is still the big draw for Diamonds and Dust suggests a looking back rather than any great leap forward. Glancing at social media, there is plenty of burlesque on Instagram and TikTok, but not too much evidence of Gen Z rediscovering or reinventing it just yet. A short history of burlesque Before we get lost in such layered timelines, here's a brief history. Burlesque's origins are in Victorian Britain: it grew out of music hall and vaudeville. When Lydia Thompson's troupe The British Blondes visited New York in 1868, their combination of parody, humour, singing, dancing and revealing costumes caused a sensation. "Burlesque is foundationally revolutionary feminist – a reclaiming of female sexuality," Kay Siebler, assistant professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha, tells the BBC. "The root, 'burle', is Italian, and means satire, and burlesque was originally created by women's suffrage performers whose whole objective was taking up public space, and not being confined by patriarchal ideas of what it means to be a woman." But from there, American burlesque developed into its own thing, the emphasis gradually moving towards striptease. There's also, it should be said, a parallel story of the art form's development across Europe, notably in the cabaret clubs of Paris and Berlin, towards the end of the 19th Century. Fast-forward to the 1990s, and neo-burlesque was born in the US. By the mid-2000s, hastened by films such as Moulin Rouge and Chicago, burlesque helped drive a wider trend for vintage glamour, and dominated the stages of cabaret clubs across the globe – as an art form made by women, for women. "Throughout the 90s, I was very much under the hetero male gaze," Dita Von Teese tells the BBC, as she reflects on a career which started in strip clubs. "But I'd say around 2002 my fan base shifted to very female… I think because [burlesque] resonated with people, and they felt like they had some kind of permission to indulge in glamour and embrace their sensuality." As an elder millennial, I remember this era well; long strings of pearls, fishnet stockings, corsets and feathery headbands still shriek mid-2000s as much as they evoke the belle epoque to me. By 2007, burlesque was mainstream enough that one of the first pieces I ever wrote for a newspaper was covering an amateur burlesque night in a small town in Wales that had faintly scandalised the locals. Because the more popular burlesque got, the more it was scrutinised, with increasing debate over whether it was a really an art form or mere titillation. Some argued: weren't women prancing around in corsets, stockings and suspenders just embodying old, patriarchal norms – stripping with pretensions? It's worth restating Von Teese's point that neo-burlesque was created and performed by women, for audiences of women and gay men; it might have been using the language of classic heterosexual desire, but it became a safe space for embodying and playing with that. And a really significant strand of neo-burlesque took that further – or rather, went back to its radical roots. There's always been this more punk version, from the likes of legendary New York performance artist Penny Arcade through to the Australian collective of women of colour Hot Brown Honey – where the work may be subversive, satiric, grotesque, experimental, or deeply political, and the performance of femininity is also a critique of how all femininity is really a performance. Is burlesque becoming more regressive? That version feels much more relevant to 2025 – in step with drag and queer culture, and in line with the broader movement towards diversity and inclusivity that we've seen in the last decade. Yet what's surprising about some of the new burlesque offerings is how old-fashioned they seem. Burlesque the Musical has not yet officially opened, so I can't speak to how writer Steve Antin has updated it. But early reports from a preview run in Manchester suggest it's retained its hetero love story and a pretty uncomplicated attitude towards the joy of shimmying in a bejewelled thong. But I have seen Diamonds and Dust – and found it to be a perplexingly retrograde offering. The dancers may be from different ethnic backgrounds, but otherwise it offers a terribly narrow range of Barbie-doll beauty: slim, leggy, busty, long-hair, lashings of pink and glitter. While they're all undeniably fantastic performers – some of the circus skills made my jaw drop – it also all feels boringly straight and sanitised, about as subversive as a Victoria's Secret show. Which is interesting, because there's certainly a broader revival in what we might term an old-fashioned form of femininity currently, notably in the Trad Wives phenomenon. More like this:• How erotic novel All Fours captured the zeitgeist• The controversial clubs that kept women out• How "dollar princesses" brought flair to the UK Siebler argues that "the original burlesque was a social commentary about what it meant to be a woman, and that is absolutely absent from this very repressive, passive and disempowered version of female sexuality". Such pretty, teasing femininity is, she suggests, "a patriarchal script that women have internalised to say, my power is my sexual power. But are we able to think about how limited this power is?" Wilson has a different perspective: she suggests that, far from just making a comeback now, burlesque has actually continued to bubble away in an underground form – within community spaces, where words like "empowering" do feel more relevant. "Burlesque has opened up now to include queer people, older women, younger men, the transgender community, working-class women," says Wilson. "It's inclusive of different people who want to reflect on what sexiness means, what these tropes and stereotypes mean." This grassroots burlesque, performed by amateurs, is of course a world away from polished, palatable commercial shows – which Wilson sees as distracting from the art form's more radical potential. "I really see the feminist value of burlesque," she says. "It's an incredibly important safe space for women to think about what their bodies mean." -- For more Culture stories from the BBC, follow us on Facebook, X and Instagram.
The Sun
3 days ago
- The Sun
Win the ultimate theatre weekend with Official London Theatre and Sun Club
TO celebrate the return of Official London Theatre's Kids Week, we are giving away the ultimate theatre weekend in London for a family of four. The lucky winner will get a £500 Theatre Token voucher to spend at any theatre in London's West End or at over 300 venues across the UK. 2 If you are coming to London this summer, take your pick from a huge range of Kids Week shows for all ages. And if you are looking for something for the family, don't miss shows like 101 Dalmatians - The Musical, Wicked, Starlight Express, and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. For younger children, they'll love charming productions like The Baddies. The Tiger Who Came To Tea, Fireman Sam: The Great Camping Adventure, and The Elves and the Shoemaker. Teens are in for a treat too, with shows such as Clueless: The Musical, and The Devil Wears Prada. 2 You will also enjoy a show-stopping Afternoon Tea in the Grand Saloon at Theatre Royal Drury Lane. This experience unfolds in two dramatic acts inspired by Regency drama, all while you indulge in a classic afternoon tea. And to top off your trip to London, you will enjoy an overnight stay in a family room with breakfast included at Z Hotels. Located in the heart of the city, Z Hotels offers compact, stylish rooms with unmatched service, all within walking distance of theatres, galleries, and dinner spots. How to enter with Sun Club Sun Club Membership Programme Step 1: To enter our Ultimate Theatre Weekend with Official London Theatre competition join Sun Club now for just £1.99 a month for your first year. Following this, £4.99 a month. Or £12 for an annual subscription for the first 12 months, then £49.99 a year thereafter. Step 2: Then head to the Offers Hub, select the Ultimate Theatre Weekend page and click 'Enter'. Step 3: You will be now be entered into the competition. Do not forget, Official London Theatre's Kids Week is now on sale! Known as 'the longest week in summer', it spans the entire school holidays, from Monday, July 21 to Sunday, August 31. During this time, kids aged 17 and under can see a top London show for FREE when accompanied by an adult paying full price, plus an additional two children can get half-price tickets, and there's no booking fees. Competition is open to UK residents aged 18+ only. Competition ends at 23:59pm on Thursday, July 31 2025. Winners will be notified within 28 days. Full T&Cs apply, see Sun Club Hub.
The Guardian
5 days ago
- The Guardian
Minnie Driver signs up for lead role as Every Brilliant Thing comes to West End
Minnie Driver has joined the list of stars performing Every Brilliant Thing – a play told by one actor with the help of almost the entire audience – in London's West End. The show opens next month at @sohoplace with Lenny Henry in the principal role; later it will be played by Sue Perkins, Ambika Mod and Jonny Donahoe, the comedian who presided over its triumphant run at the Edinburgh fringe in 2014 and far beyond. For Driver it marks a return to the venue where she performed White Rabbit Red Rabbit for one night last November. That theatrical experiment required a different actor to perform the play, sight unseen, each time. Driver, who shot to fame in the 1990s films Circle of Friends and Good Will Hunting, is no stranger to the London stage. In 2003 she starred in the West End alongside Matthew Perry in David Mamet's Sexual Perversity in Chicago. Every Brilliant Thing, written by Duncan Macmillan with Donahoe, is based around a list created by the narrator to remind his mum, after her first suicide attempt, of everything that's worth living for. 'I have wanted to do a play in London again for the longest time,' said Driver. 'I didn't want to take on a big classical role, walk down a well-trodden path. I wanted to find something that would be new to a lot of audiences, that was both funny and sad and unique in its storytelling – something unusual that you'd talk about on the train home, think about the next day at work. I knew how I wanted it to make me feel, I just didn't know what it was. Then I read Duncan's play.' Driver said that 'the thought of doing a one-person show is like staring up at an enormous mountain that you're expected to free solo', but added that the play's 'clarity, humanity and humour struck me really deeply. I am terrified and excited in equal measure to tell this brilliant, beautiful story and to be in such a great company.' The play's run has now been extended to 8 November. It will be directed by Jeremy Herrin and Macmillan, marking the show's West End debut after being performed in more than 80 countries and adapted into a film.
