Classic

Waiting for Godot

2 Apr 2009

CLASSIC The prospect of Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen sharing a stage as the leads in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot is both thrilling and slightly intimidating. The two thesps have known each other since the mid-1970s when they were members…

Suddenly Last Summer

30 Oct 2008

Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer is the theatrical equivalent of a shot in the arm from a hypodermic needle, a visceral cocktail of madness, repressed sexuality and cannibalism all played out against the sweltering New Orleans heat. It’s also…

Mary Rose

30 Oct 2008

Fans of Lost will be familiar with the supernatural powers a (seemingly) deserted island can possess. However, it seems the US TV show’s creator JJ Abrams had an unlikely forerunner – Scottish playwright JM Barrie. While Barrie is more commonly…

The Caretaker

16 Oct 2008

CLASSIC Directing a classic Harold Pinter play is, says Philip Breen, like staging an opera, so exactly is it written. ‘Every pause is written for a reason and he’s always right,’ says the director, returning to the Citz after his successes with…

Romeo and Juliet

16 Oct 2008

CLASSIC Shakespeare’s enduring tale of star-crossed lovers and warring families has benefited from numerous treatments down the centuries, from faithful period settings to the gland-snapping musical adaptation of West Side Story and the exhilarating…

Don Juan

2 Oct 2008

CLASSIC John D is a 21st century mover and shaker. He sets up meetings with celebrities, has his photograph on billboards and indulges in high-profile charity work. He is all ego and, as played by Mark Springer, both charismatic and…

Mother Courage And Her Children

18 Sep 2008

CLASSIC It’s an austere landscape through which Ann Louise Ross drags her cart, scratching a living in the title role of Bertolt Brecht’s epic. Naomi Wilkinson’s set is a wall of grim metal panels, the stage a carpet of grey. Even the iconic cart is…

Macbeth

18 Sep 2008

CLASSIC On the surface, Lucy Pitman-Wallace’s Macbeth is set up brilliantly. Set in medieval Scotland – as opposed to modern gun-slinging versions – we see a wild, desolate land; large wooden beams rising into the air, creating a fortress around…

The Importance of Being Earnest

24 Apr 2008

CLASSIC Dundee Rep, Tue 29 Apr–Sat 3 May There are times when we all wish we had a legitimate excuse to avoid that dreaded visitor, awkward social engagement, or stifling family party. We continue to stay in touch with people we really don’t like…

Educating Agnes

10 Apr 2008

CLASSIC Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow, Wed 23 Apr–Sat 3 May Take a step back and it’s easy enough to see the vanity and self deception of those around you. A second step back might well reveal them in yourself. It’s this semi-conscious awareness that…

Romeo and Juliet

27 Mar 2008

CLASSIC Dundee Rep until Sat 29 Mar Is Romeo and Juliet really ‘the greatest love story ever told’? The breathy publicity for Dundee Rep’s latest production, featuring young, beautiful, talented actors Hannah Donaldson and Kevin Lennon as the…

Six Characters in Search of an Author

13 Mar 2008

Mark Thomson’s production of Luigi Pirandello’s classic sees some strong performances in the leads. David Harrower’s version explores many a philosophical paradox in life and art. Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 29 Mar.

6 Characters In Search Of An Author

28 Feb 2008

CLASSIC Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh, until Sat 8 Mar, then touring We’ve all heard the stories about soap actors being approached and abused in the street, not for what they’ve done, but for the misdeeds of their characters. While we might chastise the…

It's a Wonderful Life

(U) 130min

13 Dec 2007

You know Christmas has arrived when Frank Capra’s perennial festive season favourite receives its annual reissue. The 1947 classic is one of the most inspirational films of all time, as well as being a fine romance, a terrific comedy and genuine…

Blade Runner: Final Cut

29 Nov 2007

Some filmmakers just love to fiddle, and Ridley Scott is one of the worst fiddlers in the business. This is (allegedly) the final, definitive cut of his already near iconic 1982 sci fi classic. In any version this great movie is well worth catching on…

A Midsummer Night's Dream

1 Nov 2007

CLASSIC King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, run ended Since its premiere in New Delhi in April 2006, Tim Supple’s multilingual Dream seems to have conquered the resistance of every audience it has played to. Its first (though surely not last) appearance in…

A Midsummer Night's Dream

18 Oct 2007

CLASSIC King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, Tue 23–Sat 27 Oct Okay, let me fess up. The prospect of another production of the Dream will, generally, fail to fill me with the joys of life, despite the great text’s best intentions in that direction. Like…

Cyrano

18 Oct 2007

CLASSIC Dundee Rep, Fri 19 & Sat 20 Oct Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac is not obvious source material for a children’s show. Yes, the big nose is funny, but the story is shot through with brutal death and a mean streak of self-loathing; the…

Antigone

18 Oct 2007

CLASSIC Tron Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 27 Oct In March 2003, 41% of British people were opposed to the Iraq war, taking to the streets in protest, however this did little to break Blair’s resolve. Over four years later and with Iraq still in…

Hughie

The Arches, Glasgow, until Sat 17 Mar

13 Mar 2007

NEGLECTED CLASSIC An ageing New York gambler lords it over a luckless hotel night clerk, spinning unlikely tails of his continuing prowess in gambling and womanising. Both the gambler and the hotel have seen better days. Such is the scene in this…

Mrs Warren's Profession

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Fri 16 Feb-Sat 10

12 Feb 2007

CLASSIC Much of what passes for love these days is really about economics. Which of us hasn’t heard a man or woman criticise their loved one’s ‘lack of ambition’ in lieu, in fact, of a shortage of cash. In a society where so much of our emotional…

Casablanca

(U) 102min

12 Feb 2007

NEW PRINT/CLASSIC Michael Curtiz’s superb 1942 classic re-emerges from the evergreen bush in a sparkling new print (both celluloid and digital depending where you see it). Nothing much has changed - it’s war time in Algeria and cynical nightclub…

EC Segar - comic review

EC Segar

19 Dec 2006

CLASSIC COMIC STRIPS Mainly remembered for his eating habits rather than his comic prowess, Popeye has been about since 1929, as a character in the cast of Thimble Theatre, EC Segar’s farcical, vaudevillian comic saga that was initially published in…

The Wizard of Oz

7 Dec 2006

The Wizard of Oz is about a girl called Dorothy (Judy Garland) whose neighbour, Miss Gulch, threatens to take away her dog, Toto, but they run away. A hurricane hits the house and the house gets blown away. Suddenly the hurricane stops and she lands in…

Shadow of a Gunman, The

The Shadow of a Gunman

13 Nov 2006

CLASSIC The temptation with Sean O’Casey’s celebrated Dublin trilogy, which began with The Shadow of a Gunman (1923) and continued with Juno and the Paycock (1924) and The Plough and the Stars (1926), is to present them as knock-about Oirish comedies…

Merchant of Venice, The

The Merchant of Venice

2 Oct 2006

CLASSIC It’s easy enough to see, in Britain’s current climate of religious intolerance, why Mark Thomson should wish to open the Lyceum’s new season with Shakespeare’s tale of money and racism. It is one of Shakespeare’s trickiest pieces. Our 21st…

Merchant of Venice, The

The Merchant of Venice

18 Sep 2006

CLASSIC Shakespeare’s great commentary on the unease between Christians and Jews has suffered, over the years, with some of the most tortured attempts to make it conform to one thesis or another imaginable. All of his work, of course, has been…

Julie

Touring

18 Sep 2006

CLASSIC Each of those cases we read of in the newspapers, where bosses fall in love with their secretaries, teachers with their students and politicians with their junior aides, reinforce our fear of the disruption of hierarchy. Yet, as the…