Edinburgh Fringe 2022: the 10 best theatre shows

Age is a Feeling (Summerhall, ★★★★★)

After impressing with I’m Doing This For You (2016) – a tragi-comic surprise party convened for an elusive partner – and The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale (2018), which weighed the value of gifts accrued from exes, Canadian performer Haley McGee delivers her finest work to-date: a tender, wry, wise monologue addressing her 25-year-old self about the years ahead, right to the end. The melancholy of ageing and agony of regret are beautifully articulated – “You’ll find that you’ve designed a life that is one part what you want, and one part a prison of duties and obligation” – and, overall, the bleakness is offset by the line-by-line lyricism, the hour attaining the serenity of acceptance too.

The Receptionists (Summerhall, ★★★★☆)

Part of a mini-season showcasing Finnish work, The Receptionists is a delightful act of finessed near-wordless buffoonery by Inga Björn and Kristiina Tammisalo. Combining putty-like facial expressiveness, unfeigned charm and pin-sharp timing, the pair whisk us into the inane/insane world of two front-desk receptionists at a posh hotel, initially idling away the time with preening, pouting and petty territorialism. Shades of The Office mingle with memories of Fawlty Towers as they fret about answering the phone, try to take bookings, pretend-roam the hotel and stoke anticipation, enlisting audience recruits.

An Evening Without Kate Bush (Assembly George Sq Gardens, ★★★★★)

It might sound like old news to flag up this spellbinding tribute act to the pop goddess by singer-performer Sarah-Louise Young. She staged it on the Fringe in 2019. But with Netflix’s Stranger Things introducing Bush’s work to a new generation, and Young capitalising on the ambience-rich Piccolo tent, there’s a renewed buzz about the show. And it works on every level – honouring the eccentricity and talent of its subject with outlandish costumes, force of nature dancing, and a voice that attains ethereal perfection as it resurrects and reinterprets many of the hits and the odd curio with devotion and irreverence.

Temping (Assembly, George Square Gardens, ★★★★☆)

Presented by NYC company Dutch Kills, this is interactive theatre of a different kind – a case of going it alone, with only emails, phone-calls and plenty of mysterious print-outs for company. Having been ushered into a mock-up office, you’re told you’re covering for an actuary called Sarah Jane, on holiday in Hawaii. Humdrum tasks are assigned you – and there’s a low-level adrenalin thrill to be had as you handle computer spreadsheets and click on voice recordings, getting to know “the team”. Where is this all going you may wonder as you survey your box-like surroundings and your predecessor’s knick-knacks – indeed, where are we all going, you may further muse, as things slide into the macabre and a commentary on the workplace itself.

Truth’s a Dog Must To Kennel (Lyceum Studio, ★★★★☆)

Experimentalist par excellence Tim Crouch pushes at the conventions of representation and presentation, putting theatre on a par with conceptual art. His latest continues a strand of work based on secondary Shakespearean characters. “Truth’s a Dog..” derives from the Fool’s retort to the self-dispossessed King Lear. In a drolly discomforting solo Crouch paces about, his face often obscured by a VR headset, reflecting on the Fool’s vanishing act from the horror while relaying a studied detachment about the wasteland he, Crouch, perceives theatre-making to be in. He motions about the studio auditorium, satirically indicating absurd pricing categories and spectator personality types, conjuring an imagined main-stage production of Lear, and breaking off to ponder this time-honoured ritual of gathering – a dead loss? “No one speaks this language anymore, do they?” That might be over-egging it, but Crouch has turned pandemic-born spasms of anxiety into acute analysis.

Boom (Underbelly, McEwan Hall, ★★★★☆)

What this captivating hour of circus feats and physical theatre lacks in high-wire thrills (though there’s a fair bit of dare-devilry) is amply compensated for by its playful youthful spirit and compelling provenance. It’s the product of two bands of artists coming together as an immediate result of the war in Ukraine – Prague-based Cirk La Putyka and members of the Kyiv Municipal Academy of Variety and Circus Arts. Though there are fleeting allusions to conflict, the mood is set by a background mural of a snowball fight – there’s a theme of mutual co-operation, the ensemble hurtling from one animated vignette to another, easeful muscularity enabling carefree acrobatics and synchronised dance-steps denoting the bold confidence of a new generation. Twelve per cent of the box-office will go to the Disasters Emergency Committee.

Happy Meal (Traverse Theatre, ★★★★☆)

At a time when there’s much heated and toxic debate in the media and elsewhere about trans issues, it’s intensely useful, indeed urgent to step, through drama, into first-hand experience. Written by non-binary performer Tabby Lamb (they/she), Happy Meal introduces us to two young people contending with trans identities and societal pressures, over nine years. It takes place online as Sam Crear’s Alex, a trans male, befriends Allie Daniel’s Bette (“trans femme”) first on “Club Penguin”. Confidences are exchanged, trust is tested and something emotionally substantial flowers. It’s a light, playful show – directed by Jamie Fletcher – but cuts deep into themes of loneliness, alienation and self-acceptance. Suspend any negative preconceptions, and go.

EastEndless (Pleasance Courtyard, ★★★★☆)

Erstwhile “Miranda” regular James Holmes performs a mid-life knock-out little solo by Tim Fountain with potentially huge appeal. With slick élan, he plays bit-part actor Tony Coventry, whose devotee’s obsessive knowledge of EastEnders proves quietly devastating after he lands a small but seemingly significant role on the Square. This is more than an actorly dream come true: he has had “actual dreams of living there. I’m not getting the duff-duffs [the closing credit/cliff-hanger drums], I’m just there, being a tiny part of it all”. Crammed with treasurable one-liners and trivia-steeped asides, the show honours the soap’s value while excavating loneliness in the social media age.

Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going to Happen (Summerhall, ★★★★★)

Former History Boy Samuel Barnett plays a mic-wielding gay stand-up with a rivetingly odd story to tell. In a culture of app-assisted casual sex, this second-tier comic meets a handsome American student who’s not after instant gratification and – shock – doesn’t laugh at his jokes. Can’t. He’s cataplexic. “If you laugh your head falls off?” his enamoured yet ego-deflated boyfriend quips – “Not exactly. But worst-case I could die. Or there is a risk of paralysis.” What’s a besotted comic to do? Big questions about identity and intimacy leap out like jack-in-the-boxes as he talks us, with lashing of northern camp and knowing wit, through this tease of a tale. Barnett delivers a tour de force, combining superb comic timing, chameleonic shifts of tone, and star quality. The writer is Marcelo Dos Santos – watch out for that name, it’s going places.

Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World (Pleasance, ★★★★☆)

The producers of Six are behind this pop-powered tribute to female pioneers and heroines past, adapted from the colourful picture-book by Kate Pankhurst by prolific playwright Chris Bush. Into an out-of-bounds museum gallery stumbles a lost schoolgirl (Kudzai Mangombe’s Jade) who encounters clusters of female high-achievers and male chauvinism over-comers, including Amelia Earhart, Marie Curie, Rosa Parks and the author’s distant relative Emmeline Pankhurst. It’s a bit pat at points, and less of a knock-out than Six, which it at times overtly resembles, but it’s perfect family edutainment for the Fringe.

The Edinburgh Fringe runs until Aug 29; edfringe.com