By The Newsroom

Published 14th Aug 2023, 11:42 BST

André and Dorine *****

Assembly Rooms (Venue 20) until 20 August

First you dislike them, then you warm to them, and by the end they’ve broken your heart. After years of marriage, André and Dorine have built up a caustic edge, begrudging every inch of compromise. She plays her cello, he taps away at his typewriter, both annoyed by the other’s intrusive sound. Even when their son arrives bearing gifts, the chill factor barely raises above zero.

And so the scene is set for Kulunka Teatro’s exceptional non-verbal mask show, with an emotional build so unexpected you hardly see it coming. But come it does, and buying a pack of tissues along with your ticket is advisable. For although the lack of feeling between André and Dorine at the start makes it hard for us to invest in their relationship, all that is about to change.

To begin with, it’s just the son who notices – mum hasn’t buttoned up her dress correctly, and she’s holding her cello bow the wrong way. A trip to the doctor confirms his suspicions of dementia and although his father refuses to accept it at first, eventually they have no choice. What follows is a beautiful testament to love and caring that provokes both laughter and tears. As he struggles to deal with his wife’s confusion, André recalls the magic between them when they first met. Going back in time, we see a budding young writer besotted with a famous cellist, watch them fall in love and start a family.

As André’s level of tenderness increases, so too does our love for this family. The frustrations of looking after somebody with Alzheimer’s aren’t sugar-coated, but this talented company finds humour in unlikely places. And such is the power of mask work, the nuances communicated without a single word being spoken never cease to amaze. Kelly Apter

No One Is Coming ***

André and Dorine at the Edinburgh Fringe

Scottish Storytelling Centre (Venue 30), until 20 August

It takes guts to give a Fringe show the title No One Is Coming, as Irish storyteller Sinéad O’Brian acknowledges in her opening minute, but it doesn’t seem to be having an appreciable effect on her audiences.

The show begins like a classic autobiographical storytelling show: she’s in Dublin, at a gig, when she gets a call from a policeman to tell her that her mother has been arrested under the Mental Health Act. However, no sooner is the ground established for a family story than Sinéad is talking about fairy princes, golden deer, evil druids and a giant phallus made of ice, in other words, the traditional stories of Ireland.

The show proceeds to alternate between the two, offering glimpses of growing up with her mother’s precarious mental health before immersing herself in another lengthy traditional tale. She has a superbly engaging storytelling style, and is adept at using pace, tone and register. However, it isn’t sufficiently clear how the two very different elements connect, and the personal story feels as though it doesn’t get the air time it needs to develop. Susan Mansfield

Stanislaus and James *theSpace @ Niddry Street (Venue 9) until 22 AugustThis rather dusty examination of the relationship between James Joyce and his younger brother Stanislaus features more pauses than a Pinter play. John O'Byrne's script may not be without interest as Stanislaus appears to be a rather pompous figure keen to impress you - as he evidently is - with his influence on his brother's literary success but it's haltingly played by Neil O'Shea who often seems to be searching for his next line. This might afford keen Joyce scholars a few wry chuckles if it were more confidently performed but it doesn’t hold much appeal in its current form. Rory Ford

Wait! ***Summerhall (Venue 26) until 19 AugustThere's a nice, gently interactive element to this inventive children's show from the Republic of Korea. Right at the start you're invited to draw either a fish or a star on a piece of cardboard, decorate it with fluorescent tape and put your name on your mini-masterpiece. Your work will become part of the show later on and you can also pick it up when you leave as a nice souvenir. This flight of fancy from Theatre Haddangse takes place in the mind of a young girl, Bada, as she waits at “the whale rock” for her fisherman dad to return from the sea. To be fair, this isn't entirely clear from the outset but once Bada's imagination takes off it hardly matters. Left with only a baseball glove to amuse herself, Bada plays conjuring some mild peril, a chase, a voyage to sea and ultimately ends up in the belly of a whale. The small troupe use an overhead video camera and rear projection to conjure some innovative effects. At times it's reminiscent of Satoshi Kitamura's comic adventures of Boots the Cat, which also takes a simple idea and extends it to absurd limits. Although the fluorescent skeleton did prove evidently harrowing for a couple of very young members of the audience this is imaginative fun for (nearly) all ages. Rory Ford

iCON ***Summerhall (Venue 26) until 27 August

It’s as much our show as it is hers, Sian Clarke says at the beginning of this lightweight but fun follow-up to The Sian Clarke Experience, a high-octane and frequently horrifying exploration of everyday sexism. You can see why she might want to take things easy this year and just “have a nice time”, as she puts it. So, through entertaining little routines, we’re encouraged to ponder why we’re here in the theatre, what we expect, and then have this turned on its head in a way that’s defiantly pointless while making the point that: isn’t everything?

As Sian gets audience members to read out melodramatic dialogue from sub-standard scripts, clambers around the audience, drinks tea and engages a large man in a thumb war, we get to experience what happens when Nietzschean despair meets absurdist theatre delivered by a still steely-eyed but slightly softer woman (following some feedback from her director) who’s spent too many consecutive days talking about sexual assault and has now locked herself in a suitcase. An audacious ending has audience members both gasping and yawning – the perfect moment in a show that achieves the nice-but-not-too-challenging mood that its owner is so clearly and confidently going for. Sally Stott

Guffy **

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33), until 28 August

Scottish actress Glenna Morrison describes her first play (which she also directs) as “an allegorical tale of the state of our nation”. If that’s what it is, it’s a bleak picture: a young mum (Georgia Blue Ireland) tempted into a boozy night out with tragic consequences for her bedridden adoptive mother (Ceit Kearney) and a baby which may or may not exist. Though both actors give solid perfomances, Guffy feels dangerously like it’s exploiting the lives of disadvantaged women in the service of a weirdly undramatic melodrama which wrongfoots both the audience and the story in its final twist. Susan Mansfield

Super **Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 28 AugustYou either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become a bit tiresome in this new comedy-drama by Matthew Radway. A decent idea for a sketch stretched beyond its natural limits, this charts the relationship between two cosplayers who pose for tourists on Hollywood Boulevard. Max Dowler and Charlie Vero-Martin star as Batman and Catwoman impersonators who - fittingly enough - fall into a relationship even though they never seem particularly keen on each other. Presented as competing "he said/she said" monologues this is only intermittently amusing, the central relationship never really convinces and the script would benefit from an edit. Rory Ford

Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: André and Dorine | No One Is Coming | Stanislaus and James | Wait! | iCON | Guffy | Super