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Edinburgh Reporter
4 hours ago
- Edinburgh Reporter
Popcorn Writing Awards 2025 highlighting the best new writing
Popcorn Group, a film, television and theatre production company founded by filmmaker Charlotte Colbert, has once again joined forces with ten renowned Edinburgh theatre venues to spotlight the best new writing at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe. There are 26 diverse and compelling plays, each a testament to the power of storytelling on the shortlist – all still available for audiences to enjoy this month – and could be taken as a good guide for anyone looking for a Fringe show this week. In this year's selection, identity and expression take centre stage, with characters fighting for agency in unexpected ways: from the empowering drag persona in KING to the vibrant dual- heritage tensions of LEI-LDN and In The Black's satirical exploration of race, capitalism and the cost of success in corporate America. Joining them is Ohio: The Bengsons, a true story from a real-life folk duo, exploring what it means to live joyfully in the face of loss. Migration and memory echo through in The Land of Eagles, a lyrical reflection on Albanian identity, while Refuse portrays a Ukrainian neighbourhood on the brink of war through the eyes of the local bin man. Consumed brings four generations of Northern Irish women together to clear out the skeletons in the closet. These are stories that honour the weight of the past while questioning who gets to carry it forward. Inequality features sharply across the list, including Trouble, Struggle, Bubble and Squeak, which highlights housing inequality through a comedic retelling of a community's journey to stage a historical reenactment. Meanwhile, Brainsluts offers a hilarious yet quiet critique of what lengths we take to find stability in today's landscape of financial precarity. And in true Fringe tradition, some pieces gloriously refuse to be boxed in: HOLE! turns cult dogma into an apocalyptic musical romp through queer discovery, and Hot Mess stages the climate disaster as a messy, millennia-long breakup musical between Earth and Humanity. Unpredictable, political and deeply human, this year's shortlist is a thrilling snapshot of writers redefining what theatre can do. Popcorn Group's founder and filmmaker Charlotte Colbert said: The shortlist this year is exhilarating in its breadth and bravery. These plays interrogate power, challenge societal blind spots, and do so with extraordinary craft and humour. This award has always been about giving writers the space to be unapologetically bold. Now in its seventh year, the Popcorn Writing Award continues to spotlight fearless writers and contribute to a culture of engaged storytelling. Past winners and finalists have transferred their work to major stages including Soho Theatre and The Royal Court and have been commissioned by leading broadcasters. The 2024 Popcorn Writing Award was jointly awarded to VL by Kieran Hurley and Gary McNair, and Weather Girl by Brian Watkins, which recently concluded a successful transfer run at Soho Theatre. Finalists included The Book of Mountains and Seas by Yilong Liu and Knock on the Roof by Khawla Ibraheem, which transferred to the Royal Court Theatre. A special mention was given to Pop Off, Michelangelo! by Dylan MarcAurele, which recently enjoyed an extended run at Underbelly Boulevard Soho. All shortlisted writers receive one-to-one meetings with both Popcorn Group and BBC and Irish longlistees are invited to submit work to the BBC Writers portal for consideration in BBC Writers Voices 2026. A committee of diverse industry voices, assembled by the Popcorn Group in consultation with BBC Writers, will be announced shortly. This committee will be responsible for selecting this year's finalists and overall winner, with awards presented at the Popcorn Writing Award ceremony on Wednesday 20th August at 11am, taking place at the Pleasance Courtyard Cabaret Bar. This year's ten partner venues are Assembly, Gilded Balloon, Pleasance, Summerhall Arts, theSpaceUK, Traverse, Underbelly, Greenside, ZOO Venues and new for 2024, Paradise Green. The winner of the 2025 Popcorn Writing Award will be announced on 20 August. The Popcorn Award 2025 shortlisted plays are (in alphabetical order): Body Count by Issy Knowles, Pleasance In a time when all it takes to become a millionaire porn star is an iPhone and a dream, Body Count zeroes in on this cultural shift to explore whether it's ever truly possible to separate emotion from sex. Bog Body by Jen Tucker, Paradise Green Love, death, decay and desire. As the grieving Petra begins to trawl through the lonely marshes of Lindow Moss, she finds more than she bargained for. She finds him. An experimental and bizarre dark comedy, Bog Body is a solo piece about a young woman's marriage to the Lindow Man. Brainsluts by Dan Bishop, Pleasance Five Sundays. Five strangers. One mystery drug. Oversharing ensues, secrets emerge and the stresses of their precarious lives are laid bare. This may not be the dream, but if the participants listen to each other, they might just learn something. Or maybe they won't. Cara and Kelly Are Best Friends Forever For Life by Mojola Akinyemi, Pleasance Cara and Kelly are best friends, soulmates even. It's 2013, they're 14 and in their prime! But when a strange new face arrives, unprecedented chaos ensues. Things that once seemed certain are no longer clear, forcing the girls into action… Consumed by Karis Kelly, Traverse Four generations of Northern Irish women, reunited at the family home, celebrating a 90th birthday party that no-one seems to want. A house full of hungry ghosts, with more than one skeleton in the closet. Make sure you turn your phones off at dinner. Don't Tell Dad About Diana by Conor Murray & Hannah Power, Underbelly Dublin, 1997. Two friends prepare a Princess Diana drag act for Alternative Miss Ireland, hiding it from their hardline nationalist families. As Diana's death rocks the world, secrets unravel, friendships strain, and escape plans falter in this fast-paced two-hander packed with comedy, courage, and coming-of-age chaos. Fuselage by Annie Lareau, Pleasance 21st December 1988: Annie Lareau was meant to be on Pan Am 103 with 35 of her classmates, heading home for Christmas. The lives of a tight-knit group of friends intertwine with the voices of Lockerbie locals – set against a ticking clock of prophetic nightmares and a terrorist plot. HOLE! by Jake Brasch & Nadja Leonhard-Hooper, Underbelly HOLE! is a musical about a religious sect in Nebraska who think they must wear butt plugs at all times, or they'll be sucked up to burn on the sun. Turns out, they're right. Two young men who are definitely not in love venture out to discover life outside their cult. Hot Mess by Jack Godfrey & Ellie Coote, Pleasance Hot Mess: a new musical. After a billion years of bad dates, Earth's finally found the one… Humanity. Sparks fly. Wheat is harvested. Technology flourishes. But what begins as a passionate love affair between the universe's most iconic couple quickly descends into a Hot Mess. From the creative duo behind 42 Balloons comes a new pop musical about love, hope, and the ultimate break up. I Dream in Colour by Jasmine Thien, Underbelly Sophie has a choice: surgically remove her one remaining eye, or keep it and risk eye cancer. Again. As her world and relationships collapse around her, Sophie is forced to confront past memories and present-day experiences that have taught her to believe she has no agency over her own body. In the Black by Quaz Degraft, theSpaceUK In The Black is a dark comedic solo show about Kofi, a first-generation Ghanaian American navigating Wall Street. Caught between ambition and family pressure, he begins to question how far he'll go to succeed. The play explores identity and ambition in a world that was never built for him to win. In the Land of Eagles by Alexandra Reynolds, Pleasance Her and Grandpa are different and not the same. She's got MySpace, he's got his bench by the back gate. When Grandpa asks to go home, he doesn't mean next door. Albania is far, he can't go alone. Soon they'll journey together, into the heart of a place unknown. JACKIE!!! A New Musical by Max Alexander-Taylor, Nancy Edwards & Joe McNeice, Gilded Balloon Jacqueline Bouvier dreams of becoming the first American Royal, but discovers that life atop the throne might not be worth the curse that hangs over it. This new musical comedy blends shocking history with punchy jokes and an original score to shine a light on Jackie's tenure as First Lady. KING by Jo Tan, Summerhall Arts Geok Yen is a public relations executive whose safe stable life gets upturned when on impulse, she attends the party in the guise of a man, Stirling da Silva. Emboldened by the alter ego, Yen discovers a newfound confidence to be whatever she could be without self-judgement. LEI – LDN by Na-keisha Pebody, Pleasance A vibrant exploration of identity, culture, and belonging. Set between Leicester and South London, LEI-LDN follows Chardaye, a mixed-race teen with opinions, attitude, and no clue where she fits in. This isn't a smooth coming-of-age tale—it's loud, funny, and full of culture shocks. Lovett by Lucy Roslyn, Pleasance Newly widowed, Mrs Lovett 'recalibrates' her relationship with God. The scales of social justice may be tipped against her, but Eleanor has counterweights of her own: creativity, a can-do spirit, and a dream of joys to come. A darkly comic tale of a young woman before she meets Sweeney Todd. MILES. by Oliver Kaderbhai, Summerhall Arts MILES. delves into the life of Miles Davis, creator of the influential jazz album – Kind of Blue. Charting his life as a black musician in pre-civil-rights America, heroin addiction and obsession with music, MILES. explores what it takes to be an artist in a world designed to hold you back. Ohio: The Bengsons by Shaun and Abigail Bengson, Assembly When Shaun turned his back on the church, he found a new home in music. Confronted now with acute degenerative hearing loss, he's choosing to live joyfully in the face of life's unanswerable questions. An exhilarating and celebratory true story by real-life folk musician couple Shaun and Abigail Bengson. Ordinary Decent Criminal by Ed Edwards, Summerhall Arts Set in the years following the Strangeways Prison Riot, meet recovering addict Frankie, as he enters the new world of a liberal prison experiment. None of Frankie's fellow convicts are what they seem. In the most unexpected of places, he discovers that the revolution is not dead. It's just sleeping. PEOPLE WE BURY ALIVE by Anna Krauze, Zoo Rita, a Polish immigrant and mortuary worker, runs a support group for people who have been buried alive. But can she practice what she preaches? Because the thing is, she just buried her ex alive. A dark comedy with slam poetry; exploring immigration, grief and lost connections. r/Conspiracy by Ella Hällgren, Gilded Balloon Alex tumbles headfirst into the rabbit hole when she spots a Reddit thread documenting a mysterious machete man roaming her local park. But the harder she digs, the deeper she falls… Meet your next digital obsession – a virtual mystery romp for 20-somethings, with the weight of the world on their shoulders. Refuse by Lucy McIlgorm, Assembly Week in, week out, Maks collects bins. He knows his neighbours and trusted route like the back of his hand. Set in the run up to the war and inspired by a news story about Ukrainian refuse workers, this play explores how ordinary people refuse to break under unimaginable circumstances. Rodney Black: Who Cares? It's Working by Sadie Pearson, Gilded Balloon Rodney Black is an up-and-coming stand-up. Thanks to a two-fingers-up-to-polite-society approach, and a money-hungry manager, his career is at its peak as he titillates and aggravates with equal measure. But, when a joke of his inspires a violent crime, Rodney must grapple with the ethical implications of his new found spotlight. Trouble, Struggle, Bubble and Squeak by Victoria Melody, Pleasance Victoria Melody joined a historical re-enactment society because we all deal with divorce differently! Ever the obsessive, she uncovered the story of the17th-century Diggers, who occupied common land. This investigation into their modern-day equivalents – community organisers and campaigners uses storytelling and stand-up to explore land, power and working- class resistance. Wanted by Eleanor Higgins, Underbelly Two girls from opposite worlds are fated to meet on the London 2009 queer scene. Bonded by rage, trauma and Tony Soprano, the duo launch a morally dubious revenge spree. But when consequences come knocking, they must decide: double down, or walk away? A darkly funny tale of queer friendship, survival, revenge and just enough chaos to make you wonder if you'd have done the same. Woman in the Arena by Jen DiGiacomo, Greenside A neurodivergent parent discovers a suicide note and unravels under the weight of trauma, nightmares, and secrecy. What better ingredients for a comedy? Woman in the Arena is a raw, darkly funny solo play about shame, survival, and selfhood — and the dangerous cost of silence. Like this: Like Related
Scotsman
5 hours ago
- Scotsman
Two Doors Down at the Gilded Balloon
Gordon (Kieran Hodgson) enrages Cathy (Doon Mackichan) with his impression on her in Two Doors Down (Picture: BBC / Alan Peebles) We've made it to the halfway point of the Fringe at Gilded Balloon, we opened a new venue, supported hundreds of new artists and battled storm Floris. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Alan Davies' superb sell-out run closed on Sunday. It's been a pleasure seeing him return to stand up with a brilliant and very powerful show after a 10 year gap. Jenny Eclair kicked-off our 40 Years of Fringe: In Conversation series last week. It was great to have her back at Gilded Balloon and look back at her wonderful career highlights. Doon Mackichan and Kieran Hodgson of 'Two Doors Down' are doing three shows chatting about the TV series. Then Michelle McManus will interview new Scottish comics on the last weekend. Rosie O'Donnell also finished her sell out run on Sunday with a huge display of four large confetti canons set off in the venue to celebrate her debut show at the Fringe. I have to say that the staff were not too chuffed to have to clear up tons of confetti – but the show was definitely worth it. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad As a run ends, another begins and I'm overjoyed to be welcoming Doon Mackichan, Fiona Allen and Sally Phillips back together with Smack the Pony opening this Sunday 17th. All four shows sold out well in advance of the festival so I can't wait to see what they will get up to. I will try and persuade them to come back together for more shows in future. With funny women at the core of Gilded Balloon's programming each year, it's been a great joy to relaunch our Women in Comedy mixed-bill show from the 90s. Featuring all women and marginalised genders from across the festival, the show runs at 9pm Thursday to Sunday for the next two weekends and is a great way to see some legends of the scene as well as rising talent. A personal highlight for me this year has been the fabulous Gail Watson starring in the moving and hilarious show Faye's Red Lines. A star of Edinburgh's beloved panto, Gail has been charming audiences and has now been shortlisted for a Scottish Theatre Award on the Fringe, alongside some glowing reviews. I'm excited to see all of our new and ongoing shows continue to charm and amaze audiences this year. This includes the Heats for So You Think You're Funny? which started this week. This is our comedy competition for new and exciting comics from across the country, and I can't wait to see the top acts in our grand final next Thursday. It's always a great opportunity for Edinburgh locals to discover and support huge talents before they're household names, so I would absolutely encourage anyone looking for something different to come along to the Gilded Balloon. After 40 years in the business it's a pleasure to bring all these shows to the Fringe!
Scotsman
5 hours ago
- Scotsman
Fringe theatre reviews Flush Feltman World's First Hot Dog That Show About the Hot Dog
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Flush ★★★★ Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 25 August The wild hen party, the naive underagers, the eager partygoers and the desperate singletons. All people you would expect to see in a nightclub, and all are vividly brought to life in this busy, chaotic piece set in the club toilets. The script is hilariously funny one minute and emotionally raw the next, with an undercurrent of something darker running beneath the lightness and laughter. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Flush Topical references to TikTok trends, Charli XCX, and Chappell Roan keep the mood buoyant, even as more serious themes emerge. Issues like body image and eating disorders are explored through candid conversations, particularly between two of the hens, grounding the piece in relevant, urgent issues. Clear and dynamic direction keeps the energy flowing, capturing the unique atmosphere of a ladies' bathroom in a nightclub - part sanctuary, part stage, part battleground. This, combined with a strong cast of five, allows many different stories to play out simultaneously and convincingly. Even though some characters lean into familiar clubgoing stereotypes, the script and performers flesh them into individuals with real stories, backgrounds, and vulnerabilities. This layered storytelling is a key strength, inviting the audience to eavesdrop on overlapping conversations and glimpse into different lives. April Hope Miller is brilliant as the loud, foul-mouthed maid of honour who takes her role incredibly seriously. Her performance reveals impressive range within a character that could easily have been one-dimensional. Jazz Jenkins delivers a heartbreakingly real portrayal of Billie as she unravels after an encounter she can't process, a moment made even more impactful by its inevitability. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Though the story isn't new, its themes remain relevant. The company has partnered with Ask For Angela, an initiative supporting people who feel vulnerable on a night out, reflecting the ongoing real-world issues the show addresses, and how important it is for theatre like this to exist. Suzanne O'Brien Feltman: World's First Hot Dog ★★★★ Greenside @ George Street (Venue 236) until 23 August That Show About the Hot Dog ★★★★ Greenside @ George Street (Venue 236) until 23 August Glorious Greenside, the multi-stage mega-complex in the New Town, has decided to programme two shows about hot dogs at the same time. It's the kind of thing that you might expect in this quintessentially Fringe venue with a full wall dedicated to its formidable schedule and a foyer that's busier than an airport terminal, through which crocodile chains of audience members are led, sometimes directly into one another, by ushers with lollypop signs in-between shouting show titles through a megaphone. 'Feltman: the World's First Hot Dog! No, not the other one. That's over there.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In Feltman: World's First Hot Dog, actor and entrepreneur Michael Quinn tells the story of Charles Feltman, a German immigrant and New York baker, who is credited with inventing the hotdog after he began selling sausages in buns at his food stand on Coney Island in the mid-1800s. As the business grows, a restaurant, bridge and railway follow, with Quinn capturing the evolution of a much-loved area of the city, as well as the transformation of a sausage and a bun into a design classic. It's an American Dream – or nightmare if you're a competitor – that's repeated over the decades, through a potted Lehman Brothers Trilogy-style structure, that eventually sees Quinn resurrecting Feltmans and to turn his love of its history into something more profitable – so successfully, that he eventually loses control of the company. It's a involving story, told with passion, albeit one that's clearly from someone who has a vested interest in presenting their version of what of events. But like a miniature Lehman Brothers Trilogy (with a Lehman brother briefly featuring), it captures the excitement and challenges of successfully building a business from scratch, as well as the magic and energy of entrepreneurship across the eras. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Less obvious is the go-to-market strategy that has led to it, today, being performed for an audience of one: me. This seems at least party due to its rival, That Show About the Hot Dog, having a more industrialised approach to fliering. I've already been offered two and have a full collection of souvenir badges in my pocket. But while the marketing is focussed, the show is wild. Seemingly framed around the idea that 'All the world's a hot dog and we're just hot dogs in it', it loosely revolves around a search for free will and meaning in a world of sausages, all of which are knitted. With an upbeat avant-garde atmosphere, two deadpan characters, called Wee Wen-nie Wiener (Wee Wee) and She She, accompanied by The Hot Dog Players dance troupe and The Hot Dog Mechanicals jazz band, carry out a series of sketches, parodying theatre, experimental film, contemporary dance, haute couture fashion and the narrative structures of both Hollywood film and Chinese philosophy. And then a giant pickle floats in the sky. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Touching on American politics, although never direct enough to delve too deeply into them, there's a call to 'grow beyond duality', but also a question of how to practically do this when to make a hotdog requires a sausage and a bun – plus also dancing condiments. 'What meaning do you find in this?' the company asks, a fascinatingly diverse collective of artists, performers, costume designers, architects and more. In the middle of their ingenious set of ever separating and reconnecting sausages, they relish the absurdity of 'dressing ourselves up' while brilliantly demonstrating just why it's so fun. Sally Stott Dreamscape ★★★ Gilded Balloon at Appleton Tower (Venue 140) until 24 August In December, 1998, an African American woman called Tyisha Miller was shot dead by police officers in Riverside, California, while lying unconscious in her car at a gas station in the early hours of the morning. She was nineteen years old. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad This 45-minute two-hander from US writer and director Rickerby Hinds is an imaginatively structured retelling of Miller's life and death through remarkable beatboxing, twisting movement, and lyrical hip-hop. Two genial, gentle performers – Natali Micciche and John Merchant, taking over from Jada Evelyn Ramsey and Josiah Alpher, who performed the show earlier in the festival – orbit around each other on a stage that is empty save for two chairs. Merchant doubles as the policeman that shot Miller and the coroner that examined her body, weaving together their emotionally detached reports of her death with impressively versatile beatboxing. Micciche plays Miller as her young life flashes before her eyes, each bullet that enters her young body bringing with it another memory, which Micciche delivers in passages of lively, rhythmic rap and supple, sinuous dance. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Hinds does not dive far into the socio-political resonances of Miller's death and the show consequently feels fairly slight, but it engrosses for what it is: a mellow and melancholic hip-hop exploration of a tragically short life. Fergus Morgan How To Win 5 Grand on the Internet ★★★ ZOO Playground (Venue 186) until 24 August Despite its title, this is far from a guide to online gambling success, but neither is it a searing condemnation of the ills and dangers of internet poker. No, actor/writer Laurence Baker's debut Fringe show is a far more elusive creation, and a much more interesting one as a result. His obsessive online poker playing took him to some pretty dark places, but it also paid his London rent for six months. Does that mean it was even a problem? Is it too simplistic to blame it on Baker not dealing with the death of his father? Or does it come down to more fundamental questions of competition, one-upmanship, even self-belief? From an improvised drinking contest to intentionally intrusive audio interviews with his mother, Baker's show throws its net wide in its explorations. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Not all of his elements come together, and he probably ought to devise a stronger through-line to link them. But there's interesting, self-aware material here that even questions why a Fringe show is the right place to ask some of these questions, and he's a gifted physical performer, communicating so much pent-up emotion in moments where words clearly fail him. At times shining a bright light on Baker's own vulnerabilities, How to Win is a quietly revealing, provocative contemplation of our yearning for success. David Kettle Midnight in Nashville ★★ ZOO Playground (Venue 186) until 24 August Country singer Marcy Aurora has lived a life as melodramatic as any country song. Twenty years ago, she really was stuck in Folsom Prison and now she is steeling herself to make a comeback, knowing she needs to be unimpeachable. Her long-suffering producer is guiding her through a late night recording session and the musical news is not good. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Biz Lyon is credible as the chastened veteran whose singing could be stronger, whose songs could be better, but it's just not that interesting being a fly on the wall of this studio, at least until a twist comes out of the blue. Fiona Shepherd
