Kiri Pritchard-McLean: Appropriate Adult
Pleasance Courtyard
Building on the success of her 2016 show about sexism in comedy, the no-nonsense Welshwoman delivers a lean and effective set about a year spent volunteering with vulnerable kids. It doesn’t sound funny, but it really is, thanks to her brusque wit and a high quotient of thoughtful, self-lacerating jokes. BL
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Education, Education, Education
Pleasance Dome
It’s 1997 and Tony Blair has just been elected, promising a boost to education funding – not a moment too soon for Wordsworth Comp, where German placement Tobias has just arrived. There is some brilliant Teutonic humour as catastrophic events are seen through his eyes in the Wardrobe Ensemble’s wry piece about how governments consistently botch education policy, leaving pupils and teachers adrift. LG
Mat Ewins Presents Adventureman 7
Heroes @ The Hive
You’ll struggle to find a higher gag count than at Ewins’s show, where they come at you as one-liners, videos, animations, stunts and pranks with the crowd. This is a cracking hour of multimedia comedy, masquerading as an Indiana Jones spoof in which our daft host must recover a lost amulet from an Egyptian tomb. BL
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Adam
Traverse
Frances Poet’s play is based on the journey of Egyptian-born Adam Kashmiry across the borders of gender and geography. A chorus of transgender people from across the globe sing out and swell, spurring him on in the show. It’s a thoughtful, heartfelt production that constantly asks questions about identity and the way language shapes how we view the world. LG
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Rose Matafeo: Sassy Best Friend
Pleasance Courtyard
For her second show on the fringe, the young New Zealander conjures with personality – how you develop one, what (with reference to romcoms) the options are, and what (with reference to the contraceptive pill) might get in the way. She’s a force of neurotic, charismatic nature, and this is a terrific show. BL
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Palmyra
Summerhall
This two-hander by Nasi Voutsas and Bertrand Lesca takes its name from the ancient Syrian city that has changed hands so often during the war. At the end the stage is littered with broken crockery like the destroyed city itself. But how did we get to that point? What begins as a beautiful dance of mutual support turns increasingly violent as the clowning becomes vicious, and comedy turns to tragedy. LG
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