The Broad Reviews was launched in Summer 2022. We hope this part of  The Broad's Creatives section will interest anyone wanting to review literature / art / music / festivals and events / films and TV / theatre, in Edinburgh and beyond!

For more information, or to pitch an idea, please get in touch at thebroadcreatives@gmail.com 

EUSC, Romeo and Juliet Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ Putting on a play as iconic as Romeo and Juliet is no mean feat, and I entered Pleasance Theatre wondering how Salvador Kent – directing his debut Shakespeare play – and assistant director Florrie Prichard Jones would handle the four-hundred year-old material. Fortunately, the EUSC’s production was bold and blood-soaked, showcasing imagination while remaining (mostly) reverent towards the text.   Strong actors made up a complimentary cas

Edinburgh University Footlights, Kiss Me, Kate Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★.5 On Thursday night, we were treated to ‘another op’nin’ of another show’ of the Edinburgh University Footlights’ production of Kiss Me, Kate at Church Hill Theatre, and what a show it was! Cole Porter’s 1948 musical based on The Taming of the Shrew  was brought alive by an incredibly talented cast, band and crew, with almost too many standout moments to name. Every aspect of the production delivered, and director

EUSOG, Into The Woods Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★.5 Across four midnights (and a matinee) Edinburgh University Savoy Opera Group (EUSOG) transported audiences Into the Woods . A tapestry of dynamic storylines, complex characters, and intricate musical numbers, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s monumental collaboration poses a challenge for any production. A challenge that this young, student-led team tackles with drive, professionalism, and creativity. As a result, co-directors Tai Rem

Jeanette Winterson, One Aladdin Two Lamps (Penguin Books, 2025) Jeanette Winterson’s new novel is a bold frenzy of interconnected narratives, embracing the  power of imagination and of storytelling amid the age of AI I am not a religious person, but attending Jeanette Winterson’s recent book launch   was perhaps the closest I’ve come to a religious experience. Gathering in St George’s Church on a stormy mid-November evening, I felt once again inspired by the narrative geniu

Lily Allen, West End Girl (2025) Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ In five months’ time, I will be turning 22. These double digits are sold to young women as our most fun and frivolous age, the last hurrah of our girlhoods before reality kicks in. Think Taylor Swift, her girl squad, and that bloody black fedora. It is an image that I aspired to for a long time, an image promising freedom, spontaneity, and messiness. And it was okay to indulge this fantasy because, when the clock struck twelve

Illustrations by Grace McKenna Venue: Edinburgh University Film Society (Upper Hall, Pleasance) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Playtime follows the bumbling Monsieur Hulot—among other characters—as they navigate a hyper-consumerist Paris in a variety of sketches. It is made up of six segments: (1) the airport, (2) the offices, (3) the trade exhibition, (4) the apartments, (5) the restaurant, and (6) the roundabout. Being made up of such a wide range of sketches, it’s difficult to explain the plo

EUTC, Immaculate Rating: ★★★★ The second coming of Christ came to Bedlam Theatre this Halloweekend, and it was so very fun.  Having premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 20 years ago, Immaculate is about Mia (Eve Nugent), a young woman who wakes up six months pregnant. Mia is someone who finds everyday life banal, so she instead became a dominatrix/mistress/sex-worker – whatever you’d like to call it. The catch is, she doesn’t have sex with any of her clients; in fact, s

On Tuesday night at Home Bar, four performers made it their home and graciously welcomed us inside – or down below, I should say. The brainchild of Edinburgh students Daisy Casemore and Sasha Mansfield, the October 21 gig was a magical offering. On descending into the basement club, I was enveloped in an orange glow around the lamps, stage and anticipating guests. The poster did not lie!  Image by Isabel Beiboer The ceiling was low but spirits were high. My eyes were drawn to

EUTC, Little Women Rating: ★★★★★ Since the world was first introduced to the March sisters in 1868, plenty have tried to recapture the unbridled and contagious spirit of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women  in print, on stage, and on screen. Its most recent iteration, Greta Gerwig’s critically acclaimed 2019 film, is the seventh cinematic adaption of the coming-of-age novel.  It seems almost obligatory for Hollywood’s leading female stars to have played Jo, the headstrong second

Rating: ★★ Edinburgh University Shakespeare Company’s Fringe Festival offering this year follows a female surgeon stepping into the shoes...