Revival

Heartbreak

30 Oct 2008

Stuck between two separate camps of zeitgeist-grabbing greatness, East London based duo Heartbreak are both flag-bearers for the much name-dropped Italo disco revival, and also affiliates of the ever-high quality scene based around Australia’s Modular…

Noises Off

18 Sep 2008

REVIVAL Bringing farce to the fore, Michael Frayn’s 80s parody is touring once again, revealing the merry antics of a second-rate theatre company both on and off stage as it struggles with its ludicrous sex comedy, Nothing On. Nestling at the core…

Humble Boy

18 Sep 2008

REVIVAL Following its 32-week sell-out nationwide tour of Abigail’s Party, London Classic Theatre returns to Musselburgh with Charlotte Jones’ award-winning Humble Boy. Artistic director Michael Cabot has mixed memories of his last visit to Scotland…

Absurd Person Singular

4 Sep 2008

Alan Ayckbourn's decades-long journey through English suburban angst was seldom better exemplified than in Absurd Person Singular. Central to the story is the compulsion of people to consume and accumulate wealth to the detriment of their emotional…

Blackbird

5 Jun 2008

REVIVAL Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Mon 9–Sat 14 Jun The gruesome ongoing discoveries in the Jersey abuse scandal and the uncovered horrors of Austrian Josef Fritzl’s secret basement have done little to quell the worst nightmares of parents. It is into…

Reality

22 May 2008

REVIVAL Tron, Glasgow, Thu 29–Sat 31 May A good three decades have passed since the talking heads of the media first declared masculinity to be in crisis. If at times this idea has been overplayed, there can be little doubt that the role of men in our…

Sleuth

22 May 2008

REVIVAL Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Mon 26–Sat 31 May Since Anthony Shaffer’s Sleuth first appeared in 1970, its countless revivals and two film versions attest to its capacity to intrigue audiences. But will the much-hyped, though ultimately slightly…

The Wasp Factory

8 May 2008

REVIVAL Regal Theatre, Bathgate, Thu 15 May, then touring Our fractured, alienating and individualist society is bound to produce some disquieting anomalies among its youth. In a world where the first priority is self, our capacity to empathise with…

Abigail’s Party

24 Apr 2008

REVIVAL Brunton Theatre, Edinburgh, Thu 1 & Fri 2 May Neighbourhood cocktail parties, with their inevitable cheese and pineapple sticks, are something of a quaint 70s throwback, but notions of an aspiring middle class have altered little in the past…

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice

24 Apr 2008

REVIVAL Dundee Rep, until Sat 26 Apr, then touring This popular modern fable focuses on introverted songbird Little Voice (Debbie Saloman), who retreats to her bedroom to escape the attentions of her boisterous mother, Mari Hoff (Elaine C Smith).

Trumpets and Raspberries

10 Apr 2008

REVIVAL Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Fri 18 Apr–Sat 10 May Even winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature have bad days at work. It might surprise you to know that Dario Fo felt he’d had one of these after the first preview of what, subsequently…

The Wasp Factory

10 Apr 2008

REVIVAL Tron, Glasgow, Thu 17–Sat 26 Apr The remarkable aspect of Iain Banks’ disturbing Grand Guignol first novel is its capacity to continue to fascinate 24 years after its first publication. The story revolves around alienated Frank, a teenager…

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice

27 Mar 2008

REVIVAL Perth Theatre, until Sat 29 Mar, then touring Scotland’s own Terry and June, Elaine C Smith and Andy Gray are brought together for this touring production of Jim Cartwright’s now familiar urban fairytale, which focuses on a young girl who…

The Unconquered

27 Mar 2008

REVIVAL Dundee Rep, Thu 3–Sat 5 Apr then touring Perhaps the greatest education we can receive is a sudden reorientation of perspective, and Torben Betts’ play, here revived by Stellar Quines in preparation for a tour ending in New York, makes this…

Bailegangaire

13 Mar 2008

When an elderly loved one prefers to live in the memories of the past, it often falls to their children and grandchildren to care for them in the present. Such is the case in Andy Arnold’s swansong as artistic director of The Arches, as Tom Murphy’s…

Single Spies

13 Mar 2008

The murky exchanges between the Russian and UK intelligence services that have captured so many column inches over the last year or so were bound to have an impact on the theatre. It might seem an apt time to reappraise two plays about cold war…

The Unconquered

13 Mar 2008

Following its UK tour, Torben Betts’ The Unconquered, an adventurous piece of new work which netted the Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland’s new writing award, will be travelling on to New York for a shot at American audiences. Stellar Quines…

Bailegangaire

14 Feb 2008

Few oral traditions could be as vital in a modern day society as that of Ireland. Storytelling is part of its culture, and, if the work of such writers as Conor MacPherson and Tom Murphy are anything to judge by, very much part of its theatre. In…

Barry

17 Jan 2008

REVIVAL Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow, Tue 22–Sat 26 Jan Feminism in its various guises has been around for many years, but Rowan Tree Theatre Company’s new production of Frederic Mohr’s one woman show Barry hints that women haven’t advanced quite as…

The Blue Room

17 Jan 2008

REVIVAL Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow, Tue 22 Jan–Sat 26 Jan Mention David Hare’s adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde to even the most occasional of theatregoers, and there’ll be instant recollections of its notorious nude scenes, originally…

Molly Sweeney

1 Nov 2007

REVIVAL Dervaig Hall, Fri 9 Nov, then touring For the eponymous middle-aged woman (Cara Kelly) in Brian Friel’s play the rituals of everyday life are suddenly and irreversibly disrupted when, having been blind for her entire life, her sight is…

Meeting Joe Strummer

18 Oct 2007

REVIVAL Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Sat 27 Nov, then touring That hoary old chestnut about when political compromise becomes sell out is at the centre of this amiable little fable, at least as much as the tragic punk rebel of the title. In this…

Living Quarters

18 Oct 2007

REVIVAL Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Fri 26 Oct–Sat 17 Nov In the era of celebrity, we’ve grown accustomed to people of no particular talent becoming famous for being famous. But if these folk have begun to provoke immense and arduous torpor…

Playhouse Creatures

18 Oct 2007

REVIVAL Dundee Rep, Sat 27 Oct–Sat 10 Nov April De Angelis’ Playhouse Creatures focuses on the first women in theatre. According to actress Irene McDougall, who plays Mary Betterton, the play ‘looks at women’s struggle in a male world. There are…

Angels In America, Parts 1 & 2

Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, Tue 1-Sat 12 May

23 Apr 2007

REVIVAL There’s little doubt that in the future, when the great histories of theatre post-1950 are written, Tony Kushner’s classic will take a prominent role. Reckoned by many a critic to be the greatest play of the 1990s, its cultural shockwaves…