Previews, Mark Fisher

Ivan and the Dogs explores notion of feral children

Theatre piece based on true story of Ivan Mishukov

You wait 18 months for a play about feral children, then two come along at once. Not since NIE’s My Life with the Dogs in the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe have we heard the true story of Ivan Mishukov, a four-year old boy from Moscow who lived with a pack of…

Preview: Dennis Kelly's After the End to be staged by both the Citz and Dundee Rep

When actors Jonathan Dunn and Nicola Daley take their final curtain call in June, they will say goodbye to After the End. But fear not. After the end of that After the End, it will be time for another After the End. That’s because, in a rare moment…

Five theatre shows from the continent at the Edinburgh Fringe

More Light Please Polish actor Natalia Kostrzewa stars in her own one-woman play (co-written by Jerzy Lach) about economic migration. The production by Teatr Praga is in English and features music by the Tiger Lillies. New Town Theatre, George…

The National Review of Live Art 30th anniversary

It all seems wrong. The National Review of Live Art has built its reputation on change. It never looks back and never stays still. The annual bonanza of what used to be called the avant garde has doggedly embraced the disconcerting, the deviant and the…

Davey Anderson discusses the upcoming New Plays from China strand

The world premiere performances showcase the talents of three Chinese playwrights

It’s not often that Scotland gets to see a Chinese world premiere before China does, but it’s about to happen three times. Joining forces with the National Theatre of Scotland, Glasgow’s lunchtime theatre season A Play, A Pie and a Pint is presenting a…

Preview of 2012 - King Lear

New Citizens Theatre boss Dominic Hill brushes up his Shakespeare

Take on the Citizens Theatre and you take on the past. Any artistic director of the Glasgow institution can only be aware of the building’s history. Opened as the Royal Princess’s Theatre in 1848, it became home to James Bridie’s Citizens’ company in…

Theatre director Vicky Featherstone discusses Abi Morgan-penned drama 27

The play examines themes of aging, loneliness, faith and science

‘You’re such a journalist,’ says Vicky Featherstone when I ask her whether 27 is going to ruffle feathers among scientists and Christians. The play is, after all, about a crisis of faith in a convent provoked by a scientist’s request to study the nuns…

Liz Lochhead discusses her new play, Edwin Morgan's Dreams – and Other Nightmares

The new production will premiere at this year's Glasgay! festival

It’s a sprightly Liz Lochhead who comes into Edinburgh’s Urban Angel for a breakfast coffee – latte with an extra shot – in the midst of a typically whirlwind calendar of deadlines, poetry readings and confabs with theatre directors. This summer she had…

Saturday Night

Matthew Lenton and Vanishing Point further explore the themes of 2009's Interiors

In 2009, one play dominated the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland. Picking up the gongs for best director, ensemble and production, Interiors by Glasgow’s Vanishing Point was a performance of startling originality. Inspired by a play by Maurice…

A Day in the Death of Joe Egg

Theatre director Phillip Breen discusses forthcoming adaptation of Peter Nichols' play

Phillip Breen is only 32, but already he has the honour of straddling three regimes at the Citz. Straight out of university in 2003, he was taken on by Philip Prowse to direct The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, returning at the invitation of Jeremy…

Theatre, music and dance highlights from the 2011 Edinburgh International Festival

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Semiramide and King Lear among picks

The Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) has been a benchmark for quality and innovation in the performing arts since its inauguration nearly 65 years ago. This year artistic director Jonathan Mills builds his programme around the multi-faceted…

Just Checking charts bride-to-be whose OCD is getting the better of her

Very physical piece from Taggart actor

For an actor, no job is for life. Not even when you’re the star of Britain’s longest running cop show. So when Blythe Duff (aka DI Jackie Reid) found herself in between series of Taggart in 2009, she thought it would be prudent to have another string to…

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice set for Dundee Rep

Classic Ugly Duckling story of a young person overcoming life’s obstacles

It was good news for Helen Darbyshire when she checked in with the voice doctor. Before committing to the part of Little Voice in Jim Cartwright’s play, she wanted to be sure her vocal chords were up to the task. This is a character whose pathological…

Jeremy Raison's production of A Clockwork Orange

Swansong show from Citizens Theatre director

Jeremy Raison says one of his favourite films is Brazil. Terry Gilliam’s masterpiece is part of a sub-genre known as ‘retro-futurism’, as if someone in the 1940s had predicted what the 1980s would be like. For Raison, who is directing A Clockwork…

Creator of Trilogy returns with new play Fatherland, Motherland

New play from Nic Green at Arches Live

Ask Nic Green where she thinks of as home and she has an immediate, if surprising, answer. ‘Nowhere,’ she says. ‘This is the problem.’ The creator of the celebrated Trilogy (returning to the Arches in November for a brief run) which prompted feminist…

The avant garde planet of Boguslaw Schaeffer

An 80-year-old Polish polymath is set to be the discovery of the Fringe, says Mark Fisher

Boguslaw Schaeffer reckons he’s living in the year 2048. It’s as plausible a claim as anything else you could say about this extraordinary Polish octogenarian. His name might not be widely known, yet he has led a breathtakingly creative life. As a…

More Light Please delivers emotional take on economic migration

One-woman Fringe show drawn from experience of moving from Poland to Ireland

Natalia Kostrzewa is sitting in the courtyard of Warsaw’s Teatr Praga, enjoying the early evening air. She’s just performed her one-woman show, More Light Please, drawn from her experiences of moving to Ireland, and is delighted to have delivered it in…

Diciembre finds dark humour in Chile's Pinochet years

Teatro en el Blanco go back to basics with politically engaging EIF production

The Pinochet years continue to leave a deep scar on the Chilean psyche. Playwright Guillermo Calderón tells Mark Fisher why Diciembre tackles some dark memories but still finds humour in his nation’s tortured past

Peter Brook's 11 and 12 marks director's return to the Glasgow and Tramway he transformed

Let’s start with some history. Throughout the 20th century, Glasgow was as dangerous as it was dreich. You couldn’t leave your tenement slum without being stabbed. It was a bonus if you avoided a head-butting. A trip to the steamie or even to your…

Bourne to be wild - Mark Ravenhill interview

New show based on flamboyant gay theatre icon Bette Bourne

Mark Ravenhill is making a habit of redefining what a Fringe play can be. Two years ago, his Ravenhill for Breakfast offered ever growing crowds a chance to see a daily changing programme of short plays written almost as fast as they could be performed…

Man for all seasons - Phil Nichol at the Fringe

Mark Fisher finds Phil Nichol mining two rich seams of comedy at this year’s Fringe

One is a Restoration farce typically performed by seasoned rep actors on grand proscenium-arch stages. The other is a scabrous heist comedy in which a middle-management executive is kidnapped in a Fife factory.

Naked ambition - Nic Green's 'Trilogy'

Mark Fisher meets the theatre-maker who’s still proud to call herself a feminist

Nic Green was leading a discussion recently when a young man questioned her use of the word ‘feminism’. ‘No one wants to hear that word, can’t you call it womanism?’ he asked.

Ready for take off

He may have branched out in recent times, but Alistair McGowan is returning to his first love.

There can’t be many people for whom the Wimbledon panto is a life-changing event. Not even the gaggle of Gareth Gates fans waiting outside the stage door for an autograph from their very own Prince Charming would go that far. But for Alistair McGowan…

Mercy Madonna of Malawi

Adopting a view of the Material Girl

It’s reasonable to assume Robert Magasa never expected to land his latest stage role. He is tall, male and black and speaks with a distinct Malawian accent, characteristics that should disqualify him from playing Madonna, a pop star famous for being…

The World's Wife

Visceral poetry from the new laureate

You can't fault Linda Marlowe for timing. No sooner had the original Oh! Calcutta star and Berkoff protégé decided to adapt Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife for the stage, than the Glasgow-born Duffy landed the job of poet laureate. An hour or so…