Lavinia Draper would have reminded me of Carol Channing – an exaggerated show biz blonde with a theatrically raspy, half-spoken singing voice – if Channing had been a full-on floozy whose career highlight was understudying (but never getting to perform) in CATS. A character written and performed by New York-based solo artist Susan Companaro for more than a quarter century, Lavinia is spending fifty minutes “doing time” in a Florida lock-up for an audience in Edinburgh. She tells her life story of being exploited and debauched, punctuated by songs written for the show by Lynn Portas. “As long as I’m working, I’m happy,” Lavinia sings. “On behalf of the users, abusers, we all thank you Betty Ford,” she sings later, more believably (having told us she was a recent graduate of the Betty Ford clinic.)
Lavinia is meant to be outrageously entertaining, rather than merely pathetic. I can’t say “Doing Time With Lavinia” would normally have been one of the few shows in the Edinburgh Festival Fringe I would have chosen to write about this year. But it’s one of the few shows that’s being presented both in person in Scotland, and also online. It deserves credit for at least partially solving a widespread problem for New York theatergoers, one the trendy editors at places like New York Magazine would call FOMO.
The first Edinburgh Fringe shows I ever reviewed were works of digital theater; it was during the pandemic, and the festival made the smart choice to “Keep the Fringe spirit alive” by encouraging theater companies to put the shows online – a practice that, unfortunately, largely stopped with the end of the pandemic lockdown — largely, but not completely.
I didn’t get to Edinburgh in person until last year, and I am eager – impatient — to return there next week. In the meantime, I got a Fringe fix with “Doing Time with Lavinia,” which was available online and also performed in person. Here are nine other 2026 Edinburgh Fringe shows, all from the C ARTS hub (which also presented “Lavinia”) that you can see without leaving home. (These are all only “on demand” and not in person. )
Beyond Time – Othello Part II
Han Theatre Company (Korea)
After death, Othello and Desdemona meet again. In a quiet, intimate dialogue, love, doubt and memory collide revealing what remains after the tragedy, and what was never understood
Dreams of Peace and Freedom
Scottish-born lawyer David Maxwell Fyfe was a leading prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials, who went on to become the British artisan of the European Convention on Human Rights. For him this was all One Story. A new generation of his family bring this story to life.
Fires on the Plain
Setagaya-Silk (Japan)
A solo performance that adapts Ooka Shohei’s classic novel about the harrowing journey of a soldier lost in the chaos of World War II
Hiding Behind the Mask: Jesters, Jokers and Clowns
A talk by Professor Rosemary George about the dual nature of identity.
Mina Liccione: Arabized
United Arab Emirates
New York comedian and STOMP veteran Mina Liccione recalls her adventures living in the Middle East, embracing the same Arab world she was once taught to fear.
PeoplePeople
tarinainanika (Japan)
Corporeal Mime involving a professor, a punk, a pierrot, a patient and a pupil.
SICK
TF Dance Co
A dance theatre work exploring one man’s internal battle with depression, loss and memory
The Forever Wave
Estrella Suerte Productions (USA)
an audio experience set in drowned San Francisco, circa 2070 inspired by Dylan Thomas’ iconic play for voices, Under Milk Wood.
Vines, the Golden Dome and the Duck
Limpid Theatre with Zoooii Studio (UK/China)
Grimm’s fairytale, Foundling Bird, is reimagined from the perspective of the young girl, Lina, in this five-minute multimedia theater piece.
