News, reviews, features and podcast on theatre across the UK
The British Theatre Guide Newsletter
No 1226: 24 August 2025
Editorial
The final English Bank Holiday before Christmas means the closing weekend of the Edinburgh International, Book and Fringe Festivals. Our team of reviewers has been hard at work for the last three weeks, and with 36 five-star reviews up so far, there is plenty to choose from if you’re still there and looking for something to fill your last day.
For our latest podcast episode, I spoke to the creator and performer of a solo show that follows on from a show she performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 32 years ago.
Emily Woof is probably most famous for her performances in films including The Full Monty and Velvet Goldmine, but she was creating avant-garde physical theatre performances before any of her screen appearances, including Revolver, named after the 1966 album by The Beatles. This year, she returns with a show that she said she should really have called Revolver 2 as it covers some of the same subjects as the original but is really a different show.
Her show is about “adolescent sexuality in a way, and how it was quite vulnerable and quite exploited in the 1960s” and “being obsessed with John Lennon and the Beatles” with the real-life character “Valerie Solanas right in the heart of it, who is just a tower of anger and bad mouthing everybody and she's great fun”, told through a modern-day woman who is getting over a divorce and the death of her mother.
It is directed by her husband, Hamish McColl, who was in one of the first shows I ever saw in Edinburgh more than a quarter of a century ago, Do You Come Here Often?, as half of the theatre company The Right Size, which I still remember as one of the funniest and most inventive pieces of theatre I’ve ever seen. Paul Hunter of Told by an Idiot agreed with that assessment when I mentioned this show in my interview with him for the podcast in 2020 (“that show for me is one of my top 10 shows of all time. Masterpiece”). Hamish also wrote the first (and best) of the Paddington films.
Edinburgh may be the ultimate festival experience for theatre and comedy, but, as we have discussed plenty of times before—and discussed in an podcast episode earlier this month with Thom Tuck and Jenny Ryan—the cost of staying there in August has become prohibitive for many people (including me), and even the cost of tickets makes taking a chance on something you don’t already know you’ll like less affordable than it was perhaps only a decade ago.
But, as Philip Fisher discusses in his feature this week, there are plenty of alternatives around these days. For instance, Brighton, Manchester and Buxton have their curated international festivals, as well as open-access fringe festivals alongside them, each with a larger programme than its ‘posh’ cousin—in fact, the annual Greater Manchester Fringe Festival runs twice as often as the biennial MIF.
Book Festivals also seem to be springing up everywhere now. Edinburgh and Hay are still the big ones, but a brochure for the Manchester Literature Festival dropped onto my doormat the other day (running 11–26 October), and we have a news article this week about three others opening shortly in the North East and Yorkshire: Ilkley Literature Festival, Durham Book Festival and Whitby Lit Fest, the latter featuring an interview with playwright Sir Alan Ayckbourn.
I said last week that we seem to be getting a lot more non-Edinburgh reviews in than we used to in August, and the same is true this week, but as we move into September (yes, already!), autumn seasons will begin to open at regional theatres around the country.
Festivals in Ilkley, Durham and Whitby will feature events with Alan Ayckbourn, Hugh Bonneville, Miriam Margolyes, Alan Davies, Tony Robinson and Michael Palin.
Festivals in Ilkley, Durham and Whitby will feature events with Alan Ayckbourn, Hugh Bonneville, Miriam Margolyes, Alan Davies, Tony Robinson and Michael Palin.
Festivals in Ilkley, Durham and Whitby will feature events with Alan Ayckbourn, Hugh Bonneville, Miriam Margolyes, Alan Davies, Tony Robinson and Michael Palin.
The Addams Family, The Musical Comedy (Katy Lipson for Aria Entertainment, John Stalker Productions and Bill Kenwright Ltd) - Opera House, Blackpool, –
The Business of Murder (Tabs Productions) - Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, –
The Koala Who Could (Nicoll Entertainment present a Rose Theatre, Lowry, Northern Stage, Unicorn Theatre and MAST Mayflower Studios production) - New Theatre Royal, Lincoln, –
Hi-De-Hi Eric (David Graham Productions) - New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme, –
The Boy With Wings (Polka Theatre) - Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Birmingham, –
Fat Ham (Royal Shakespeare Company with No Guarantees Productions, Public Theater Productions and Rashad V. Chambers) - The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, –
Fiddler on the Roof (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre) - Bristol Hippodrome Theatre, Bristol, –
Only Human (Vaudeville Productions, Michael Vine, Andrew O’Connor, Paul Sandler and Derren Brown for Only Human Productions Ltd) - Hall For Cornwall, Truro, –
As You Like It - Theatre Royal Bath / Ustinov Studio / the egg, Bath, –
Tina – The Tina Turner Musical (Stage Entertainment, Joop van den Ende and Tali Pelman, in association with Tina Turner) - Cliffs Pavilion, Southend-on-Sea, –
