EDINBURGH FRINGE: The Grand Old Opera House Hotel

Since playing the title role in Wendy and Peter Pan at the Lyceum five years ago, Isabel McArthur has been taking the theatre world by storm – as a playwright!

Her reimages of classic tales, such as Pride and Prejudice and Kidnapped, have proved that she’s a force to be reckoned with, and I always look forward to her productions with a sense of excitement.

Her latest offering is the wackiness yet!

It’s bursting with fun and frolics as the Scomodo Hotel opens its doors on an assorted group of room attendants, unhappy guests, ghosts, and so much more. In fact, it’s jammed packed full of surprises you should discover for yourselves.

The opening set of eight doors immediately brought me in mind of Ray Cooney farces which nearly always have doors opening and closing in gay abandon. Cooney is the king of farce but McArthur and her cast go all out to take that title from him, while each one of them proves to have hidden talents (the clue is in the title) in a show which just keeps on giving on so many levels.

Obviously, when McArthur played Wendy she was liberally sprinkled with Tinkerbell’s magic dust, and it’s still working.

The Grand Old Opera House Hotel is at the Traverse Theatre until Aug 27 at various times (1 hr 30 mins). Tickets: www.traverse.co.uk/whats-on