Gerry Mulgrew

The Tree of Knowledge

David Hume and Adam Smith point out obvious pitfalls of 21st century life

12 Dec 2011

The central conceit of Jo Clifford’s new play is an interesting one. Two influential figures from 18th century Scotland find themselves in early 21st century Edinburgh, surveying the world they helped create. The witty lines flow thick and fast, as…

Calum’s Road - Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Wed 5 Oct

Generally strong but with clunky direction and heavy-handed message

21 Oct 2011

Calum MacLeod claims not to remember when he started the road. Exasperated at the council’s refusal to connect his home, in the hamlet of Arnish on the Isle of Raasay, with the rest of the island, he picked up a shovel and did it himself. It could have…

Calum’s Road

Real life-inspired drama about road-building on Raasay

21 Sep 2011

It’s been nearly 40 years since Calum MacLeod single-handedly built a much-needed stretch of road on Northern Raasay, after decades of unsuccessfully campaigning the local council to do so themselves. Now, this inspirational islander is the subject of a…

Mayfesto 2011 programme revealed

Tron artistic director Andy Arnold discusses the politically-edged theatre festival

7 Mar 2011

To say The Tron’s artistic director Andy Arnold has big hopes for this year’s Mayfesto would be an understatement. Launched in 2010, Arnold’s plan was to bring Glasgow a new, socially and politically engaged theatre festival – and that’s just what he…

The Government Inspector

4 Mar 2010

The prescience of Gogol’s comedy of political corruption, avarice and ineptness goes without saying. What’s remarkable about Communicado’s revival of The Government Inspector is that it manages to be riotously funny and entertaining while never losing…

The Government Inspector

26 Jan 2010

Back in the 1980s, Scottish theatre audiences could count on the likes of Communicado, Wildcat and 7:84 to maintain a live, lively commentary on contemporary events, often by drawing analogies sourced from Scottish history. It’s perhaps a force that’s…

Plan B: A Wee Home From Home

29 Oct 2009

The more things change the more they stay the same, as the old saying goes. Twenty-one years ago, when A Wee Home From Home was first staged, it was an astute reflection on the social and political landscape in Scotland. Dancer Frank McConnell, musician…

Peer Gynt

14 May 2009

Colin Teevan’s irreverent adaptation of Ibsen’s classic play returns to the scene of its original triumph with a brief run at Dundee Rep before embarking on a tour of Scottish cities over the next couple of months. This thrilling, energetic…

The Hot 100 2008

11 Dec 2008

It’s been a helluva year. 2008 has been a time of significant global change, socially, politically and culturally, with Scotland no exception. So here, for your delectation, is The List’s pick of the 100 people, places and things that rocked our world…

The Lesson

16 Oct 2008

MODERN CLASSIC Ionesco’s absurdist classic continues to feel relevant because it chips away at our feeling that something of ourselves remains unexpressed beneath the world of manners, and the arcane language that surrounds it. In Gerry Mulgrew’s…

Gerry Mulgrew - The Lesson

2 Oct 2008

Gerry Mulgrew is a smart director, but when he’s in the rehearsal room he prefers to work from instinct. ‘I respond to Peter Stein when he says a director should have unlimited enthusiasm and absolutely no idea of what he’s going to do,’ says the man…

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…

Mother Courage and Her Children

4 Sep 2008

One of the neglected aspects of Mother Courage and Her Children, Brecht's great condemnation of capitalism as it is manifested in war, is its humour. There's a certain dark perversity to Brecht's story, which depicts a mother inadvertently sacrificing…

Nova Scotia

8 May 2008

NEW WORK Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat 24 May Next time you’re trapped behind an oldie trying to use a cash point, quietly contemplating the benefits of euthanasia, you might want to reflect on Phil and Spanky, and buy yourself some patience.

Waiting For Godot

28 Feb 2008

MODERN CLASSIC Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 8 Mar Our thirst for enquiry may be waning in an age when answers are so readily available at the click of a mouse. But the Citizens’ company’s production of Beckett’s masterpiece, perhaps the least…