The Real Chrisparkle meets Alex Hill (starring in The Jolly Fisherman at the Edinburgh Fringe 2026)

Posted on August 4, 2026 by therealchrisparkle

©Finlay Bourke

The Edinburgh Fringe is almost upon us for another year, and one of the most hotly anticipated shows for 2026 is The Jolly Fisherman, a new play by John Dinneen starring Alex Hill and Jonny Khan. It’s about two childhood best friends, Alan and Amir, and how their worlds try to pull them apart as they get older. Alex, of course, had huge personal success recently with Why I Stuck a Flare up my Arse for England. In between rehearsals, I was lucky to get a few minutes with Alex to ask him some questions about his new show – and life as an actor. Hope you enjoy our chat!

Real Chris Sparkle: Hi Alex, great to have the opportunity to ask you some questions! First, I must ask you about Why I Stuck a Flare… Three years ago, you brought Billy’s story to the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time – could you ever have imagined it would become the success that it did?

Alex Hill

Alex Hill: Thank you Chris for the thoughtful questions! Yeah, those three years have flown by. That first Edinburgh was such a scary period of time for me. The show was on at half 10 at night (not a traditional theatre slot), it had a ridiculous title, and it was the first thing I’d ever done out of drama school. It was a bit of a lottery really, in many ways I had so much to lose but also, it was kind of a free hit. Thankfully people responded positively and I was lucky enough to keep getting asked to do it. But no, when I started that play, it was just about getting to the end of that initial Fringe! What came next was a bit of a dream really.

RCS: You’re playing Alan in The Jolly Fisherman – what was it about the role that attracted you? Are there similarities to Billy?

AH: I was ready for a year off the Fringe after doing it for three years. But then John Dinneen put this amazing script in front of me and I knew instantly that I wanted to do it. It has all the makings of a brilliant play and whilst it has similarities to the work I’ve done previously, it feels fresh and like a totally new challenge. Alan and Billy are similar in that they are both young men trying to put their best foot forward in an ever-changing world, but their journeys and personalities are totally different. I think it’s cool to see a character like Alan on stage, who feels completely realistic and like someone you’d definitely meet down the pub.

©Finlay Bourke

RCS: Theatre has the power to change the way people think. Is Alan going to change our thoughts and preconceptions – and can you sense it as an actor when an audience is confronted with uncomfortable truths?

AH: I mean, I hope so! The play is full of conflict and definitely challenges Alan and Amir’s world views. I’m hoping that by watching these two young men on stage trying to figure it all out, people will also be able to confront and challenge some of their own opinions and ideas.

RCS: Taking you back to your early days, was there a moment as a teenager, or as a child, when you knew you wanted to become an actor? And if you weren’t an actor, what would you like to be?

AH: I had an amazing drama teacher at school that made me believe it could be a possibility. Although, I don’t think I was brave enough to admit that I wanted to give it a go until I was forced to make a decision of what I wanted to do next. All my mates were finalising their UCAS applications and I sheepishly walked into her office and said I think I wanted to give drama school a go. There was never any pressure from her, but she laughed as if to say ‘you took your time!’ I’d missed the application windows so I took a year out and went for it the following year but I’m so glad I did.

RCS: You’re coming back to Edinburgh again for the Fringe – what are you looking forward to on your return to the city? Will you have time to see other shows, or do some exploring?

Jonny Khan, Layla Madanat (director) and Alex Hill
©Finlay Bourke

AH: Yeah definitely! Because we have an early slot at 12:45, it means we’ll have the rest of the day for exploring and seeing shows. As always, lots of amazing artists are up there. Just some of the shows I’m looking forward to seeing are ‘You and Me (and Whoever Come’s Next)’ at Summerhall, Philip Stokes’ new play ‘This is Not America’ at Pleasance and ‘An Ode to the Casting Director’ by Sophie Fisher at Gilded Balloon.

RCS: And after the Fringe, what’s next for Alex?

AH: Nothing in the diary at the moment… hopefully something though!

RCS: Thanks for giving me your time Alex and I wish you all the best for this year’s Fringe!

AH: Thanks Chris!

The Jolly Fisherman plays at the Buttercup venue at Edinburgh’s Underbelly George Square from 5^th to 31^st August (except 17^th) Some dates are already sold out so don’t hesitate to book via Underbelly or at the Edinburgh Fringe website here.

Review – The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon, 30th August 2025

Posted on September 1, 2025 by therealchrisparkle

The Two Gentlemen of Verona never seems much of an attraction for theatre makers. In my fifty-five plus years of theatregoing, I’ve only seen it performed once before, in a 2011 highly modernised version where Valentine and Proteus were rock guitarists, and the director couldn’t decide whether to reveal the unseemly aspects of the play or just do it for laughs. Fast forward fourteen years to Joanna Bowman’s production of the play for the RSC, in another highly modernised version where all the actors are musicians and they deal with the unseemly aspects of the play by removing them completely.

That’s possibly just as well, as this (now closed) production was very much aimed at introducing young people to Shakespeare, with musical numbers, broad comedy and a real live dog. Already one of Shakespeare’s shortest plays, the cuts to the text brought the show in at just around an hour and half with no interval. On the face of it, it sounds like a decent experiment in modernising, shortening and adjusting the emphasis of the play to make it meaningful and entertaining to a family audience.

However, regrettably there was so much that was wrong with this production that it failed to spark any interest in the plot, and those 90 minutes or so felt interminably long. Basics first: the staging. The Other Place is a marvellous acting space that can be configured differently every time it’s used. For this production, it wasn’t so much performed in the round as in the square, and there were too many sequences where the actors simply had their backs to half the audience, and did not move around sufficiently to keep themselves properly visible to the whole auditorium. In addition, there was a huge metal walkway suspended over the acting space, linking two opposite corners, which allowed for actors to walk from one end to the other or indeed to suspend in the middle. This walkway was directly in front of the upstairs seats, so any actors who were performing at the far end of the stage were obscured; to be honest, it looked like they had their heads cut off. Not a great experience for the upstairs audience.

The main purpose of a theatre production must be to tell its story as clearly as possible. Sadly, I found this production very difficult to follow, certainly due in part to the machete that they’d taken to the original text. For example, it wasn’t until the final scene where the Duke pardons the outlaws that it was obvious that they were outlaws because he had banished them. There also seemed to be no explanation as to why Julia became Sebastian – it just sort of happened. The musical numbers came across as noisy and unclear – a very muddy reverberating sound that made the words difficult to hear, individual instruments doing solos could not be distinguished above the general noise; and two of the lead actors seemed to me to be overacting alarmingly. I don’t know if this was an attempt to make their words clearer to younger ears, but I’m afraid I found it rather hard to take them seriously.

They do say, never work with children or animals; nevertheless, here we had Lossi the lurcher, playing the role of Crab, Launce’s dog. I’m sure he’s a good dog and a lovely chap, but he added very little to the proceedings – there were a couple of instances where I think he was meant to do some kind of trick or endearing action, but he just sat there and looked bored. Maybe he took his cue from the audience, because sadly I found this a very dull production, with very little to entertain.

Of course, it wasn’t all bad. The scene where the Duke (Darrell Brockis) catches Valentine (Jonny Khan) hiding the rope ladder in order to rescue and escape with Silvia was very amusingly done, and the production gave us a fairly good understanding of the character of Proteus (Lance West) and his far from gentlemanly ways. But unfortunately, the good aspects weren’t enough to redeem this disappointing production.

Production photos by Helen Murray

Two Disappointing for More!