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 

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...

Rating: ★★★★ Having been thoroughly impressed by previous shows put on by The University of Edinburgh's Theatre Paradok, I went into...

Rating: ★★★★ I wasn’t sure what to expect walking into Peter Sawkin’s debut Fringe Show. A bit of family-friendly fun from the youngest...

Rating: ★★ SPOILER-FREE BITESIZE: Nothing itches my brain like a new take on dystopia, or using dystopia as a means for new ideas, but...