Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: Òran / This Town
Two solo shows merge poetry, rap, spoken word and theatre to compelling effect
Òran, Pleasance Courtyard ★★★★
Òran, Pleasance Courtyard ★★★★
Ni Mi Madre, Pleasance Dome ★★★★
Bellringers, Roundabout @ Summerhall ★★★★
The Sound Inside, Traverse Theatre ★★★★★
In Two Minds, Traverse Theatre ★★★★
The Mosinee Project, Underbelly Cowgate ★★★★
In May 1950, a small US town awoke to hammer-and-sickle flags hanging from lamp-posts, its local newspaper transformed into a Soviet propaganda journal, its citizens’ firearms confiscated and handed to loyal communist troops, and – most alarmingly – its mayor detained under armed guard.
Heartbreak Hotel, Summerhall ★★★★
There was a point in this stadium spectacular when P!nk gave her fans two choices. They could either “make out with their partners or go queue for a beer” she suggested, prior to one of the first slow-paced numbers of the evening, but the latter choice was a dangerous one. Few shows, even among big pop jamborees, feature as much going on as Alecia Moore’s current Summer Carnival jaunt.
The current trend for package tours with two headliners appears to be growing, and this jaunt presented somewhat unlikely bedfellows – the theatrical angst of Billy Corgan’s crew and Rivers Cuomo’s indie trendsetters united by a shared love for guitar histrionics, 90s nostalgia for those who remember MTV2 and not much else.
There was a point in this pop revival jaunt where you could feel members of the crowd wince. Not for the performance, but because Nicola Roberts introduced a song by mentioning it was from “the Chemistry album, which came out 19 years ago”. You could almost feel some in the crowd recoil, as if expecting to crumble to dust at that confirmation of the passing of time.