Joseph Morpurgo: Highlander 70 review – a dork’s last day at school is one to remember

Assembly @ St Andrew Square, Edinburgh A lusty adaptation by Avenue Q’s co-creator is performed with verve by Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise’s daughter and her fellow students Not every undergraduate Shakespeare show at the Edinburgh fringe makes headlines but this one brings stardust by association. Suri Noelle, the 20-year-old daughter of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, appears with her fellow drama students from Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University. However, it’s a bit of an event regardless – the UK premiere of a “modern translation” of A Midsummer Night’s Dream adapted by Jeff Whitty, a Tony award-winner for the riotous Avenue Q. That show, newly returned to the West End, is populated by some horny puppets and Whitty’s Dream is similarly frisky. Often more lustful than lovestruck, Noelle’s Helena prowls after Demetrius (Logan Yao) on all fours, Puck (Eli Strain) bares his nipples during the “up and down” speech and when Titania (Siahvash Marshall) instructs the fairies to show Bottom some courtesies, it fuels an orgy...

theSpace Triplex, Edinburgh Four skaters enter into feral competition in this darkly funny yet flimsily plotted play about female teenhood The title refers to the figure-skating legend and Olympian who, in the noughties, captivated the US with her performances on ice, winning a total of five world championships. Here, the four teen skaters trying to make it big worship her, quite literally, invoking her for strength on and off the ice. It is a great central idea with moments of frozen action as each girl sends a wish, a fear or prayer up to a godlike, absent Kwan in their most anxious or exhilarated moments. Christie Spessard’s play has verve, capturing the extremes of adolescent life and competitive sport. Energetically directed by Ryan Pangracs, it is full of humour with some zingers and movement that contains a true sense of gliding. At theSpace Triplex, Edinburgh, until 29 August All our Edinburgh festival reviews..

There has been a sharp increase in sales of Homer’s The Odyssey in the UK, with purchases up more than 1,400 percent in the first four weeks of July. Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of the epic may be behind the surge, as the film stormed the global box office, taking in 264 million dollars during its opening weekend. Miles Osgood, from Standford University, joins us for more details.