Love is in the air! The four bittersweet theatre romances we recommend at the Edinburgh Fringe, writes PATRICK MARMION By Patrick Marnham For The Daily Mail Published: 04:01 BST, 9 August 2024 | Updated: 04:05 BST, 9 August 2024 e-mail View comments With more than 3,000 shows jostling for attention at this year's Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe, it's a foolish man who would attempt to find a particular theme. And yet, dear reader..
. that man is me. Without seeking any particular type of entertainment, I accidentally struck a rich seam of tragi-comic love stories which may well have a second life beyond Edinburgh.
Star-crossed lovers: Jessica Whitehurst as Roxanne and Virginia Gay as Cyrano Gay's Cyrano (the writer takes the lead role) taps into universal feelings of inadequacy that strike us all in the presence of the object of our desire. She cuts a strapping figure: aloof, astonished, scheming, charming and, of course, messing up royally Cyrano (Traverse Theatre) Rating: Few are more famous than Edmond Rostand's tale of Cyrano de Bergerac, the 17th-century French wit, writer and swordsman inhibited in love by the length of his nose. His tale has been taken on film by Gerard Depardieu and Steve Martin ; and more recently on stage by James McAvoy.
Now it's the turn of Aussie actor-writer Virginia Gay, with a cunning new spin of her own in Cyrano. Gay's ruse is to turn Cyrano into a lovelorn lesbian, who is pining for the beautiful, clever Roxanne — who has in tu.