Latest news with #Kanpur:1857
Scotsman
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Four and Five Star Edinburgh Fringe Theatre 2025: Here are 13 shows the Scotman critics have loved you can still get tickets for this weekend
It's approaching the end of the first week of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the reviews have been pouring in. With the physical programme containing over 3,350 shows across 265 venues, it can be a daunting task to work out what exactly you are going to see. At The Scotsman we review hundreds of shows every year, with the best receiving a sought-after four or five star rating. This year we have only awarded two theatre shows the perfect five stars so far, but there have been many more that have earned four stars. More importantly, several of those still have ticket availability for this weekend (August 8-10) so you can go and see what all the fuss is all about. Here are 13 five and four star theatre shows our team of critics would recommend you see this weekend. 1 . A Brief History of Neurodivergence You'll have to be quick to see the first theatre show The Scotsman awarded five stars to this year. A Brief History of Neurodivergence ends its run on Sunday, August 10. There are still tickets left for the show at C alto at 1.50pm. What we said: "A Brief History of Neurodivergence is a performance that everyone should see." | Contributed Photo Sales 2 . JEEZUS! There are still tickets left for every show of JEEZUS!, running until August 24 at the Underbelly Cowgate at 6.50pm each day. It's the other theatre show we've awarded the rare perfect five stars. What we said: "Yes, JEEZUS! will shock and offend, and it sets out to do just that. In the end, though, its joyful, even sentimental celebration of love beyond ecclesiastical trappings of power might bring a tear to the eye of even the most devout." | Contributed Photo Sales 3 . Red Like Fruit Moving onto the theatre shows that have been awarded four stars by The Scotsman's review team and Red Like Fruit. The play, which this week won a Scotsman Fringe First Award, is on at various times at the Traverse until August 24 - and has ticket availability for every date. What we said: "Michelle Monteith as Lauren, and David Patrick Flemming as the actor-reader, deliver two performances so beautifully pitched and timed that Moscovitch's words shine through with a magnificent clarity." | Contributed Photo Sales 4 . Kanpur: 1857 You can still get tickets for every performance of Kanpur: 1857 at the Pleasance Courtyard each day at 3.40pm - running until August 24. What we said: "With a little light-touch historical information projected behind the action, and powerful live accompaniment from brilliant Scottish tabla musician Sodhi, the show emerges as a fascinating hour of reflection on the psychology of colonialism, and the related politics of gender." | Canva/Getty Images Photo Sales
Scotsman
04-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: Kanpur: 1857
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... THEATRE Kanpur: 1857 ★★★★☆ Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 24 August Monstering the Rocketman ★★★★☆ Pleasance Dome (Venue 23) until 24 August NORTH INDIA, 1857; and in the aftermath of the rebellion against British rule that imperial history calls the Indian Mutiny, a man stands strapped to the mouth of a cannon, awaiting the horrible and mutilating death prescribed by the British as punishment for rebels and their allies. The British officer in charge of the public execution sees himself as a civilised man, though, perhaps willing to free his prisoner, if he will give up information about rebel leaders; and so he probes and interrogates, demanding that the prisoner both inform and entertain, in the face of death. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Kanpur: 1857 by Niall Moorjani | Contributed This is the situation around which Scottish-Indian writer Niall Moorjani builds the powerful new one-hour play Kanpur: 1857, winner of this year's Pleasance Theatre Charlie Hartill Award. With a little light-touch historical information projected behind the action, and powerful live accompaniment from brilliant Scottish tabla musician Sodhi, the show emerges as a fascinating hour of reflection on the psychology of colonialism, and the related politics of gender. The prisoner, it emerges, is a peaceful storyteller who rests being defined as a 'man', and is deeply in love with a famous hijra or non-binary courtier turned rebel leader; and the storyteller questions not only the rigid sexual intolerance increasingly imposed by the British in India, but also the mentality of empire which responds to one angry and horribly violent act of rebellion, costing the lives of dozens of British women and children, with a vast war of retribution, killing hundreds of thousands. Moorjani's play is beautifully written, full of a lyrical sense of the beauty of India and its culture, and of those moments when Indian and British cultures can share their poetry and music; both Moorjani himself, as the prisoner, and co-director Jonathan Oldfield, as the all-too-charming officer, deliver richly complicated performances. And when, in the end, the prisoner asks 'How many Indian lives can one British life be worth?', the question echoes down the ages to the present tragedy in Gaza; in what seems like one of the most important political dramas on this year's Edinburgh Fringe, and one with strong and challenging Scottish resonances. Growing homophobia and sexual intolerance is also the theme of Henry Naylor's latest play Monstering the Rocketman, a brilliantly entertaining and rivetingly well-told monologue about The Sun newspaper of the early 1980s, and its vicious campaign of vilification against gay rock star Elton John, whom it accused – on very slender evidence – of a series of hideously exploitative relationships with young boys. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Henry Naylor in Monstering the Rocketman | Contributed Against a projected backdrop of shrieking 1980s headlines, Naylor tells the story of Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie's campaign in tremendous style, focusing on the figure of a naive but ambitious young reporter recently recruited by The Sun, but never hesitating to sketch the monstrous characters who dominated 1980s newsrooms in the vivid detail that also pervades the whole narrative, brilliantly evoking the atmosphere of that era in London and the UK. It's an ugly story, but one that, exhilaratingly, ends on a far more hopeful note than many at the time expected. It stands as both a vital historical record and a warning, as new waves of intolerance begin to target groups even more vulnerable than gay men were, back in those days of Section 28, and the early years of the Aids epidemic. JOYCE MCMILLAN THEATRE Luke Wright: Pub Grub Pleasance Dome (Venue 23) until 12 August ★★★☆☆ Performance poet Luke Wright loves words, every bit of them: the letters they start with, the vowels in the middle, the taste of them on your tongue. Despite its title, his latest show (in his 27th year as a writer/performer) is not specifically about food, though Jay Rayner does take a knock in his opening paean to pub grub, which celebrates the comfort of beige nosh. Words are all the sweeter to Wright, as he bounces back from six months of writer's block last year. Pub Grub – dig that assonance – is brought to you by the letters 'D', 'O' and 'A' with separate odes restricted to one vowel. These are more than literary exercises, they are proper witty snapshots. Turns out there is a whole world of obscenities unlocked by the letter 'O'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Family is a recurring theme – mum, childhood friends and his son are all in his thoughts. Some of his connecting material doesn't quite land, even as a thread to keep picking. Wright's favourite pub joke is just OK but, retold throughout the show in different styles, it becomes another linguistic comfort blanket and certainly makes a jolly good punk sonnet to end on. FIONA SHEPHERD THEATRE Dropped Easter Road Stadium (Venue 518) until 10 August ★★★☆☆ There's a bruising authenticity to this monologue from debut writer-actor Alfie Cain that sets it apart from other plays dealing with the beautiful game. Cain was a trainee at Chelsea's football academy until he was unceremoniously dropped by the age of 18. Alfie took the opportunity to retrain as an actor but the rejection he suffered clearly still stings and while autobiographical to an extent this play presents a fictionalised account that documents the pressures faced by young players. Although informed by a love of the game — at least initially — this quickly becomes a cautionary tale. Academy players have a one in thousands chance of going on to enjoy a professional career. Cain's young footballer ploughs on against the odds, desperate for affirmation from his father and success in the face of verbal and physical abuse — both on and off the pitch. It offers some insight into how toxic masculinity takes root and looks at the fallout of filling young boys with unrealistic dreams. While necessarily bleak, Cain's powerful performance holds your attention and it's to Hibs' credit that they would host such an unflinching look at the challenges facing young players — for whom it should be required viewing. RORY FORD Make sure you keep up to date with Arts and Culture news from across Scotland by signing up to our free newsletter here. THEATRE Some Masterchef Sh*t Greenside @ George Street (Venue 236) until 9 August ★★★☆☆ Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Proving the well-known truism that any sensational news story can provide inspiration for a show in Edinburgh, here's a comedy with echoes of that unforgettably gruesome true tale from 2003 about strangers meeting on the internet and one allowing the other to kill and eat him. It's an even more shocking backdrop than the current scandal surrounding the TV show in the title, to which it bears no connection. Playwright Luke High's script plays it cagey at first, laying out his pair of characters' first coffee shop meeting through an internet advertisement, as though this were a story of two men looking for love or at least a quick hook-up. Married vascular surgeon Adam is professional and uptight, while Luke, a waiter at a well-known Italian restaurant chain, is an easy-going waster. The dance around what they're planning to get up to – and Adam has a very particular cut of meat in mind – is delivered in a skilful and just about believable way, with the characters' nerves and heightened self-awareness coming together in some rich dark comedy, which is well sold by the actors. There's a stated homoerotic edge which takes the play into queer comedy territory, although once it delves deeper into the pair's very different but somehow compatible motivations it becomes inevitably more serious and over-described, and a bit less fun. DAVID POLLOCK THEATRE Becoming Maverick theSpace @ Surgeons Hall (Venue 53) until 9 August ★★★☆☆ Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca, the housekeeper Mrs Danvers is a formidable enemy for Maximillian de Winter's new wife. This one-woman play, written and performed by Heather Alexander, purports to tell Mrs Danvers' story: a orphan abandoned in a trunk on the quay at Southampton, raised in a cruel orphanage where she learns that she must 'do what she must' to survive. It's a colourful story vividly told, even if the language is sometimes over-elaborate. It says much about Alexander's delivery that the rhyming structure is not more intrusive. When a tragedy in the orphanage causes her to run away, she musters all her wits to land on her feet and talk her way into a job as tutor and companion to the precocious young Rebecca. Together, as partners in crime, they plan seductions for Rebecca's lovers and execute revenge on her abusive father. But, as twist follows twist, it turns out that Alexander has a bigger point to make about childhood trauma. The daring final surprise, which forces the audience to re-evaluate everything we've heard so far, will be a step too far for some.
Scotsman
28-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Kanpur: 1857 preview: Fringe show about Indian rebellion has 'unavoidable' parallels with Gaza
It may be set in mid-19th century India, but Niall Moorjani's play Kanpur: 1857 has plenty of contemporary resonance, writes Joyce McMillan 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... In the old colonial history British people were taught at school, it was always called the 'Indian Mutiny'. In Indian history, though, it is known as the Kanpur Uprising of 1857, one of the first stirrings of the movement against British colonial rule that would eventually, in 1947, lead to Indian independence; and Scottish-Indian theatre-maker Niall Moorjani – raised in Dundee, now based in London – was already working on the story when that period of colonial history began to take on a whole new contemporary meaning. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'It's the story of a people suddenly rising up in a violent insurrection against a brutal colonial power,' explains Moorjani, 'an insurrection that involved some atrocious acts of violence against British women and children; and then of the hugely disproportionate and violent response to that outrage, in which at least 100,000 people are thought to have died. The parallels to the current situation in Gaza were unavoidable; and it made me think even more deeply about how the colonial mindset never changes, through the ages.' Niall Moorjani and Jonathan Oldfield, stars of Kanpur: 1857 The result was Moorjani's play Kanpur: 1857, this year's winner of the Pleasance Theatre's £10,000 Charlie Hartill award, designed to encourage the presentation of significant new plays on the Edinburgh Fringe. Working with fellow performer and co-director Jonathan Oldfield – rising star of BBC comedy, and director of four other comedy shows on this year's Fringe – and the Scottish-Indian musician Sodhi, known as Talking Tabla, Moorjani has created a tense one-hour two-handed drama, backed by Sodhi's music, in which Moorjani's character – an Indian rebel strapped to a cannon, and about to be blown to pieces for his role in the rising – is interrogated by a British officer, played by Oldfield. 'That was a punishment widely used by the British in suppressing the rebellion,' explains Moorjani, 'so the whole thing is closely based on the history of the event. It is a fictional story, though, and it has other elements – one theme of the play is how colonial attitudes appear both at the macro level, in major political events, and at the micro level, in people's personal lives. 'So there is also a love story here, and it's one that involves a relationship between the Indian rebel and a hijra, a member of India's traditional 'third sex', neither male nor female, whose position in Indian society was always respected until the British passed a law against hijras and their culture, a few years after the events in this play. As a non-binary person myself, I'm fascinated by this aspect of Indian culture, and by how the British in India increasingly saw it as incompatible with their colonial rule.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Publicity image for Kanpur: 1857 Despite its fiercely serious themes, though, Moorjani is clear that Kanpur: 1857 is not a solemn show, to be endured rather than enjoyed. 'In fact it's quite a strongly comedic show,' says Moorjani, 'because I think that when you encounter oppressive forms of power, laughing at them is one of the best ways of opposing and challenging them. The truth is that however much pain and horror they inflict, colonial attitudes are ridiculous - they're based on a laughable set of assumptions about superiority, and so on. So why not laugh at them? 'And I should also say how wonderful it has been to win the Charlie Hartill award, and to have that support in bringing this show to the Fringe – it just transforms the Fringe from an unaffordable festival to one where you can pay people, and do the show you want to do. 'The Pleasance have been absolutely fantastic – they've given us all the support they promised and more, and without this award we simply couldn't have done a full run of this show in this form. So it's a wonderful thing that the Pleasance does every year, and there should be more of it. I know other venues also have their own schemes for supporting new work; but the more the better, because with costs soaring every year, it's desperately needed.'
The National
27-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
Gaza war crimes echo in new play about Britain's brutality in India
Niall Moorjani's Kanpur: 1857 heads to the Edinburgh Fringe later this week and tells the story of the Britain Empire's brutal reprisal after the Indian Rebellion, known in India as the First War of Independence. After a mutiny in Meerut on May 10, 1857, the revolt spread across parts of the country under the rule of the British East India Company. The empire's retaliation was merciless: 6000 British were killed, but it is believed the subsequent crackdown resulted in the deaths of around 800,000 Indians. Moorjani, who was born in Arbroath and raised in Dundee, told the Sunday National they wanted to speak up about the genocide in [[Gaza]] and saw the similarities in Britain's brutal repression of the rebellion. But it was a chance encounter at Edinburgh Castle that crystallised their vision. Outside the medieval fort, there is a monument featuring an elephant, commemorating Scottish soldiers killed in the campaign. They said: 'It stands outside our castle, probably our most famous landmark; there's this monument which has an elephant on it and if you don't know about it, you don't know. I had no idea until I stumbled across it and I was like, 'Why is there an elephant there?'' Moorjani said they were struck by 'the parallels of a colonial oppressor collectively punishing a group of people on the back of violent resistance', adding: 'I think that deepening of historical understanding and the fact that this isn't new, this is a really old story; all of those things combined together to make me want to write something and make something about it.' Moorjani said they'd learnt the story of the Indian Rebellion in university and it 'got under my skin in a really deep way'. They were also moved by the Black Lives Matter movement which reached a fever pitch after the murder of George Floyd – a black man murdered by a white police officer in 2020 – which forced them to reckon with the 'racism I grew up with and our role as Scots in colonial history that we're not very good at acknowledging or educating ourselves about', Moorjani said. Moorjani said that their work as a storyteller and writer gave them the tools to 'further raise awareness of British-Indian history, especially from a Scottish perspective'. Their play, co-directed with Jonathan Oldfield, features an Indian rebel strapped to a cannon who is forced to answer for the 'crimes of Kanpur' – an important British garrison at the time of the time of the rebellion which fell to the Indians only to be retaken by imperial forces. Moorjani said this conceit allowed them to get inside the head of the British forces, helping to shine a light on the imperial mindset. 'This character really fascinated me, this guy who genuinely believes doing something right and doing something good,' they said. 'He genuinely believes he's on the right side of history and putting across all of these colonial views – what an amazing way to satirise and interrogate, in a reverse, meta sense, colonial theory and the ideas that underpin colonial hierarchy.' Kanpur: 1857 runs from July 30 to August 24 – excluding August 12 and 13 – at the Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh at 3.40pm. For more information, including ticket prices, visit
