Edinburgh Children's Festival reviews: Boys Don't Dance | Cringe | In Time

Boys Don’t Dance, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh ★★★★

Cringe, Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh ★★★★★

In Time, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh ★★★★

One of the joys of the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival is to see brilliant new work by Scottish-based theatre-makers taking its place alongside the best of international children’s theatre; and this year, the festival opened with three fine shows that fully demonstrate the power of that connection.

Marc Brew is an Australian dancer and choreographer based in Scotland; and the opening show of EICF 2026 was his new movement theatre piece Boys Don’t Dance, a short and powerful reworking for audiences aged 8-12 of the personal story told in his 2024 show An Accident/A Life - the story of how he grew up in a small, macho outback town, struggled to become a dancer, and then saw his hard-won career snatched from him, by a shocking car crash which left him paraplegic.

Boys Don’t Dance begins in vividly entertaining style with the young boy’s touchingly fragmented but brilliant efforts to teach himself to dance, simply from the snippets of dance and movement he can see on 1990s Australian television.

Then the story moves sharply forward, to the post-crash moment when the boy is joined by his older self; still dancing, although now in a wheelchair, and creating the most poignant, thoughtful and beautiful pas de deux with his younger self. And if Ross Malloy as the younger boy is simply a joy to watch, Piotr Iwanicki as his older self demonstrates magnificently how the beauty and expressiveness of movement speaks for itself, through every kind of damage and change.

Ross MacKay’s new play Cringe first appeared as an acclaimed rehearsed reading at last year’s EICF. Now, the show moves on to a full production; and the result is an exceptionally bold and moving 60-minute drama for young people aged 10-15, and particularly for those facing the difficult transition from primary to secondary school.

Our hero Reid is a quiet lad who only wants to blend in, at his new high school. No chance of that, though, after a hideously embarrassing sports kit malfunction makes him the butt of serial bullying by the worst gang of “gorgons” in his year.

READ MORE: Theatre reviews: Educating Rita | Breathtaking Roads

All of this starts off entertainingly enough, in Joe Douglas’s beautifully-shaped production; but soon, Reid sinks into serious depression, until, desperate to escape his role as class laughing-stock, he commits a horrible act of cruelty from which there seems to be no way back.

Scott Fletcher and Scott Hoatson deliver two memorable and moving performances as Reid and his best friend Graham, strongly supported by Kirsty McDuff as many other characters. And the whole show comes as a brilliantly crafted reminder of how tempting it is, for young adolescents desperately seeking their identity and their tribe, to define that group through cruel acts of “othering”; acts that can make the lives of some of their classmates a living hell.

There’s no real discord, by contrast, in the gorgeous 40-minute cameo In Time, made for audiences aged 3-7 by Scottish-based theatre artist Andy Manley, with Danish companies Teater Reflexion and De Rode Heste. Here, two men in short work-coats, exquisitely played by Andy Manley and Claus Mandoe - gardeners, caretakers, perhaps partners? - find themselves in charge of a precious seed, which they have to nurse to maturity.

Like proud new parents, they at first seem almost overwhelmed by the task. The lovely, multi-faceted wooden turret at the centre of Amanda Axelsen Sigaard’s set, though, provides them with everything they need for the job. And it’s a measure of the perfect pitch, pace and skill of this wordless show that the young audience are instantly captivated; living every moment with the two anxious carers, through to the show’s triumphant end.

Boys Don’t Dance (5-6 June) and Cringe (8 June) are both at the Lemon Tree, Aberdeen this weekend. Boys Don’t Dance is also at Dancebase, Edinburgh, 7-23 August. Cringe is also at Paisley Arts Centre, 5 June. In Time, run ended.

The Scotsman’s arts newsletter is now sent twice a week - subscribe today

Want the latest Scottish headlines sent directly to your phone? Sign up to our new WhatsApp channel here