The 10 Best Shows coming to Edinburgh this Winter
MOUTHPIECE
Traverse Theatre
SALISBURY Crags. Twilight. A woman takes a step forward into the air. A teenage boy pulls her back. Two lives are changed forever.
The latest full-length play from Kieran Hurley tells the story of two unlikely lives intertwined; Libby, a one time writer who whiles away her days in trendy cafes, and Declan, a talented young man struggling with a volatile home life defined by poverty.
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Hide AdAs they form an uneasy friendship, Libby spots an opportunity to put her writing career back on track...
Surprising, darkly comic and at times shocking, Mouthpiece takes a deeply personal look at the different Edinburghs that often exist side by side.
1-22 December, 8pm (matinees 2.30pm), £10-£15, 0131-228 1404
REBUS: LONG SHADOWS
The King’s
DI Rebus is retired but the shadows of his former life still follow him through the streets of the Capital.
Whisky helped but now he’s denying himself that pleasure - when the daughter of a murder victim appears outside his flat, he’s back on the case and off the wagon...
Ian Rankin’s beloved creation comes to the stage for the very first time with Charles Lawson, Corrie’s Jim McDonald in the title role. (Ages 12+)
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Hide Ad8-13 October, 7.30pm (matinees 2.30pm), £18-£31.50, 0131-529 6000
MADAGASCAR
The Playhouse
ONE for all the family. The smash hit musical features all the favourite crack-a-lackin’ creatures as they escape from their home in New York’s Central Park Zoo and embark on an unexpected journey to the madcap world of King Julien’s Madagascar.
Stars X Factor winner Matt Terry. (Ages 3+)
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Hide Ad2-6 October, 7.30pm (matinees 2.30pm), £16.90-£49.40, 0844-871 3014
FAME
The King’s
DALKEITH’S Keith Jack comes home to star in the 30th anniversary tour of Fame alongside Mica Paris and Hollyoaks’ Jorgie Porter.
Based on the 1980 film, the musical following the lives of students at New York’s High School For The Performing Arts as they navigate their way through the highs and lows of their training in the hope they will live forever...
23-27 October, 7.30pm (2.30pm), £18.50-£33.50, 0131-529 6000
MATTHEW BOURNE’S SWAN LAKE
Festival Theatre
THE ground-breaking production returns with a fresh look for the 21st century.
Retaining the iconic elements of the original, Matthew Bourne and award-winning designers Lez Brotherston and Paule Constable create an exciting re-imagining of the classic production - thrilling, audacious, witty and emotive.
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Hide Ad16-20 October, 7.30pm (matinees 2.30pm), £19-£48.50, 0131-529 6000
VULCAN 7
The King’s
WRITTEN by and starring Comic Strips’ Adrian Edmondson and Nigel Planer, best remembered as Vyvyan and Neil in The Young Ones, this new comedy charts the lives of two actors.
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Hide AdGary Savage and Hugh Delavois were students at RADA together.
Now in their sixties, they meet in an Icelandic wasteland, on the set of a fantasy movie.
Hugh has had a plodding career but has landed the small but regular role of Vulcan’s butler and is making his seventh film for the franchise.
Gary, a one-time Hollywood A-lister, has fallen on lean times and is playing a guest monster with four hours in make-up and one word in the script.
Sparks fly as old wounds are opened, then the director goes AWOL, the catering truck’s on the wrong side of a ravine, and the volcanic activity is growing more and more lively by the minute...
5-10 November, 7.30pm (matinees 2.30pm), £19-£32.50, 0131-529 6000
KINKY BOOTS
The Playhouse
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Hide AdWITH songs by pop icon Cyndi Lauper and a book by Broadway legend Harvey Fierstein, Kinky Boots takes you from the factory floor to the glamorous catwalks of Milan.
Charlie Price is struggling to live up to his father’s expectations and continue the family business of Price & Son.
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Hide AdWith the shoe factory’s future hanging in the balance, help arrives in the unlikely but spectacular form of Lola - a fabulous performer in need of some sturdy new stilettos.
10 December 2018-5 January 2019, various times, £19.50-£73.50, 0131-529 6000
RAIN MAN
The King’s
BASED on the Oscar winning film, Matthew Horne stars in the role made famous by Dustin Hoffman.
When self-centred salesman Charlie Babbitt discovers that his long-lost brother Raymond, an autistic savant with a genius for numbers, has inherited the family fortune, he sets out to get ‘his half’...
1-6 October, 7.30pm (matinees 2.30pm), £18-£31.50, 0131-529 6000
CALENDAR GIRLS
Festival Theatre
GARY BARLOW and Tim Firth’s new musical charting the true story of a group of ordinary ladies who achieved something extraordinary stars Fern Britton, Anna-Jane Casey, Sara Crowe, Karen Dunbar, Ruth Madoc, Rebecca Storm and Denise Welch.
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Hide Ad2-13 October, 7.30pm (matinees 2.30pm), £20-£45, 0131- 529 6000
SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER
The Playhouse
FORTY years on from its UK cinema release, Saturday Night Fever is reimagined and revitalised in a big new music and dance spectacular.
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Hide AdWhilst paying homage to the 1977 John Travolta classic, this new stage version starring Casualty’s Richard Winsor, promises more drama, more music and new choreography.
23-27 October, 7.30pm (matinees 2.30pm), £26.90-£72.90, 0844-871 3014