Theatre

Interview: David Leddy on new show Long Live the Little Knife

Theatremaker on 2013 work taking in themes of authenticity, gender and free market economics

This month, Scots theatremaker David Leddy (Susurrus, Sub Rosa, Untitled Love Story) premieres his new workLong Live the Little Knife in Glasgow ahead of an Edinburgh Fringe run later this year. The List previewed the show – here’s the full transcript…

StAnza, Fife Jazz Festival and other events to continue in wake of Byre Theatre's closure

The St Andrews theatre is set to close on Thu 31 Jan; scheduled shows will go on in new venues

The Byre Theatre, St Andrews, is being forced to shut down because of its financial difficulties. The theatre has struggled to cover its costs in recent years, with problems exacerbated with the withdrawal of funding by the former Scottish Arts Council…

Spring culture preview 2013

Nick Evans: Solar Eyes Evans' forthcoming solo show features a new set of his striking amorphic white plaster sculptures. The most ambitious is a large architectural complex which mimics the geometry of an Aztec temple. Evans' fascination with motifs…

Julia Donaldson's Running on the Cracks adapted for the stage

Tron artistic director Andy Arnold discusses his upcoming Julia Donaldson teen fiction adap

Although best known for The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson has also written fiction for teenagers. In her 2009 teen novel, Running on the Cracks, Leo, an orphaned half-English half-Chinese girl, flees her suspicious uncle’s home in Bristol for Glasgow, where…

Mental health TV drama Takin’ Over the Asylum set for stage adaptation

Donna Franceschild on adapting landmark TV series feat David Tennant and Ken Stott for the stage

Not one for the simple life, Donna Franceschild gave herself what has to be one of the hardest jobs in showbusiness. How do you cut down five hours of your own mid-90s television drama and turn it into a two-hour stageplay set in the here and now? Not…

A Taste of Honey

Much humour and poignancy in production of Shelagh Delaney' seminal kitchen sink play

As one of the first working class British playwrights to write about the world she knew, Shelagh Delaney mined the rhythms and humour of everyday speech to create dialogue that is still fresh to the ear more than 50 years on from the debut of her…

2013 Manipulate festival of puppetry and animation

Programme includes work by TIP Connection, Will Anderson, Ainslie Henderson and The Paper Cinema

Now in its sixth year, the Manipulate Festival has evolved into a highlight of Scotland’s cultural calendar. In 2013, the puppetry and animation festival returns to the Traverse but adds Summerhall to its list of Edinburgh venues too and boasts its…

New David Greig play Found at Sea follows two 50-something men sailing to island

Play features work by Andrew Greig and singer Rachel Newton

David Greig is on an island, but his vista of the Manhattan skyline is a mile away from the deserted setting of his latest production, Found at Sea. ‘In the midst of life there’s a point where you have to cast off,’ he says, ‘and this is about what…

Alan Greig Dance Theatre: Do You Nomi?

Piece themed on vibrant member of 70s New York scene Klaus Nomi

It’s a play on words, but for most people the answer to this show’s title is probably ‘no, I don’t.’ To fill you in, Klaus Nomi was a vibrant member of the New York music and club scene in the late 70s and early 80s. Known for his striking falsetto…

Scottish Dance Theatre make first outing with new artistic director Fleur Darkin

Victor Quijada and Jo Strømgren on bill featuring streetdance and music of Schubert

The bright lights of a big city may not shine particularly brightly on Scottish Dance Theatre, but that’s never stopped it illuminating its own path. And now that new artistic director, Fleur Darkin has moved up from London to run the show, the…

New David Leddy theatre piece Long Live the Little Knife

Playwright's raucous theatrical caper referencing forgery and castration

A few months ago I saw the writer Daniel Jackson in Euston Station,’ says David Leddy, ‘and we got the train back to Glasgow together. We were talking about our projects, and as I described all these avant garde things, Daniel sighed and said, ‘are you…

New theatre piece In an Alien Landscape from Birds of Paradise

Exploration of reasons why a person creates artworks

What makes a person create artworks? For Albie, hero of Danny Start's new play In an Alien Landscape from Birds of Paradise, it's an urgent problem. Awoken from a coma, he finds himself compulsively unable to stop painting. It's an appropriate…

The Maids

Dynamic reworking of Jean Genet's most famous play from Citizens Theatre

It’s not often that you get to see both the writer and director appearing as themselves in a revival of a classic play – particularly when the playwright has been dead for over 25 years. But Stewart Laing’s reworking of The Maids for Citizens Theatre is…

National Theatre of Scotland receive funding for permanent headquarters

£2m towards Glasgow administrative base in line with organisation's ‘theatre without walls’ ethos

Having launched in 2006 as a ‘theatre without walls’, the National Theatre of Scotland is now set to have its own permanent headquarters in Glasgow. The move follows a £2m cash injection from the Scottish Government. Although the NTS will still…

The Polar Bears Go Wild!

Charming, imaginative show for younger children from Fish and Game

Who says you need a cast of thousands, pyrotechnics, 3D projections and a troupe of dancing local children to create a successful Christmas show? Fish and Game's new piece for under-sixes features just two performers, a few props and a simple set, but…

Black Watch director John Tiffany leaves the National Theatre of Scotland

The Tony award-winning director is leaving to make time for non-NTS projects

Hot on the heels of artistic director Vicky Featherstone stepping down, the National Theatre of Scotland has announced that associate director John Tiffany will also leave, to make time for his directing commitments outside of the NTS. Tiffany has…

Preview of 2013

We look ahead to some of the hottest events in the next 12 months, including GTA V and Lana Del Rey

Massimo Bartolini Magical Italian artist set to take over the Fruitmarket One of the most eagerly anticipated exhibitions to arrive in Scotland in the new year is a show of new sculptural work by the Italian artist, Massimo Bartolini. Bartolini is…

The Arthur Conan Doyle Appreciation Society

Feel-good show mixing broad comedy strokes with narrative tomfoolery

Doyle is the father of arch-rationalist Sherlock Holmes yet he also believed fervently in the supernatural. Peepolykus play these two opposing worldviews against each other in a feel-good show that mixes broad comedy strokes with narrative tomfoolery…

A Taste of Honey

New production of the Shelagh Delaney’s milestone kitchen sink drama

‘We have a lot to be grateful for in Shelagh Delaney,’ muses Tony Cownie, whose new production of the Salford playwright’s kitchen sink drama A Taste of Honey comes to the Lyceum in January. He’s not wrong. Although Delaney was only 18 years old when…

Cinderella

Karen Dunbar, Jenny Douglas, Kieran Brown and Des Clarke head up Glasgow's King’s Theatre panto

For all the conflicting needs of a commercial pantomime show – slapstick and continual visual flair for the kids; just enough of a sense of structure and bite for the adults with them; ropey jokes and song and dance routines (here, to pop hits like…

Aladdin and Wee Jeannie

Excellent banter and hilarious ad-libbing in 2012 Òran Mór panto

It’s A Politicised Panto, A Pint and A Precariously Poised Pie at Òran Mór this Christmas. One’s pastry encrusted comestible is on one’s lap as the tables have been taken down to make way for the additional punters drawn by the promise of Dave Anderson…

The Snow Queen

Dundee Rep’s adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s tale features just the right balance of fun and

After last year’s reimagining of Cinderella, which transported the action of the Grimm fairy tale to a houseboat populated by retired magicians, Dundee Rep ensemble has gone back to basics with a straightforward but nonetheless captivating take on…

Mother Goose

Allan Stewart, Andy Gray and Grant Stott head up 2012 King's Theatre panto

As traditional as turkey, tinsel and forcing a jolly grin to get you through the season, the only festive trio you’ll need this Christmas (three wise men? what three wise men?), Allan Stewart, Andy Gray and Grant Stott, return to the King’s for their…

Puss in Boots

Musselburgh panto ripe with juicily rewritten songs and local references

Puss comes to Musselburgh in a pantomime that has just about everything you could wish for: a genuine sweetie shower (one of the few left); songs ancient and modern; a great dame; and references so local that you won’t get them unless you live in EH21.

The Ugly Duckling

Catherine Wheels 2012 panto is witty, inventive and charming

You start noticing the yellow ducks on the tables in the bar. They follow you down the corridor and are projected on the wall as you enter the theatre. At first you think they’re cute, but when you meet them again in this Catherine Wheels/Arches…