Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: Bellringers / Suitcase Show

EDIINBURGH FRINGE 2024 ★★★★ Bellringers / ★★★ Suitcase Show

A troubling take on the climate emergency and a pile of suitcases containing tall tales in two intimate shows at Summerhall

Bellringers, Roundabout @ Summerhall  

Edinburgh Fringe 2024 reviews: The Mosinee Project / Gwyneth Goes Skiing

Two strong Fringe shows merge truth with fiction - to very different ends

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.

P!nk, Hampden Park, Glasgow review - a high-wire act with bravado and bombast

★★★★ P!NK, HAMPDEN PARK, GLASGOW A high-wire act with bravado and bombast

The singer was dynamic in a show heavy on both spectacle and emotion.

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.

Smashing Pumpkins / Weezer, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - double-bill of unlikely bedfellows makes a racket

Both 90s favourites went hard and heavy, if occasionally too bludgeoning

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.

Girls Aloud, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - pop queens return with poignant hit parade

★★★★ GIRLS ALOUD, OVO HYDRO Pop queens return with poignant hit parade

The girl group's reunion showed their songs remain gloriously euphoric

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.