Theatre, Reviews

Stonewall

9 Aug 2007

Doubtless huge progress has been made regarding gay rights in recent decades but there are still reports of gay people being persecuted across the world.

Disney's High School Musical

28 Feb 2008

MUSICAL Playhouse, Edinburgh, until Sat 1 Mar If the cast-iron chastity, remarkable level of racial harmony and general abstemiousness of the teenagers represented in this stage version of the hit Disney Channel film don’t seem to ring true of the…

Debbie Does Dallas - The Musical

23 Aug 2007

There’s a very fine line between a send-up of a ropey cultural item and something that’s just plain ropey. Almost from its shrill opening bars it becomes crystal clear that Debbie Does Dallas – The Musical has crossed the line. The fundamental…

A Conversation with Edith Head

9 Aug 2007

Hollywood costume designer Edith Head worked on almost 500 films in her 54-year career. She dressed Mae West, Dorothy Lamour and Barbara Stanwyck in their most iconic outfits. She played with the big boys at Paramount (and later Universal) and her onyx…

Risk

Tron Theatre, Glasgow. Now touring

12 Feb 2007

NEW PLAY Whether we’re crossing on red or skydiving for kicks, we live in a world of calculated risk. If we stopped to think about it, we’d rarely leave the house for fear of the consequences. Actually, to stay in the house would only expose us to…

Romeo and Juliet

16 Aug 2007

Having finally got over Baz Luhrmann’s version, it feels like we can move on to a new approach to this popular, if flawed, old Shakespearean standby. If Peter Meineck’s version for Aquila doesn’t quite make for a new ‘standard’, it certainly…

The Last South: Pursuit of the Pole

9 Aug 2007

Between 1910 and 1912 two competing teams, one British one Norwegian, set out to become the first men to reach the South Pole. Only one managed to return home to tell the tale. Constructed from the diaries kept by the British explorer Captain Robert…

Mamma Mia!

10 Apr 2008

MUSICAL SECC, Glasgow, until Sat 27 Apr Truly global phenomena are becoming something of a cliché: there’s a McDonald’s on every street corner, a Nestlé product in every home, and a production of Mamma Mia! running in every country in the world…

Hamlet Solo

16 Aug 2007

To do justice to Hamlet is no easy task, but to render the Danish play as a one man performance is almost laughable in its ambition. There is, of course, the obvious novelty value to witnessing Hamlet being performed by one man. But Hamlet Solo is far…

A Glance at New York

9 Aug 2007

Another year, another excellent off-Broadway New York company debuts on the Fringe. Unlike their predecessors The Riot Group and T.E.A.M, however, Axis Theatre Company aren’t blazing trails with their original scripts. They’ve managed to create one of…

The Merchant of Venice

3 Jul 2008

OUTDOOR THEATRE Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, until Sat 12 Jul Don’t be put off by Glasgow’s unpredictable weather and miss this summer’s Bard in the Botanics. Cheerful and casual in its approach to theatre, the outdoor play season is a big hit with…

Scottish Ballet's Romeo and Juliet

22 May 2008

NARRATIVE BALLET Theatre Royal Glasgow, Wed 4–Sat 7 Jun Big narrative ballets are filled with opulent sets and long drawn-out scenes – right? Not this time. Scottish Ballet has taken a different approach to Shakespeare’s tragic love story. Gone is the…

Sleeping Beauty (King's Theatre, Glasgow)

13 Dec 2007

The pitch It’s time for Princess Beauty to put away childish things, say goodbye to her childhood friend Chester the Jester (aaawwww!) and get ready for some right royal action. Carrion the witch and Norval her son (or is he?) have other ideas, however…

Peer Gynt

4 Oct 2007

For as long as people question their identity, pondering who they are and what role they play in the world, Peer Gynt will occupy a prominent place in the culture. It would, indeed become still more notable were all productions of Ibsen’s classic of…

Follow Me

16 Aug 2007

While the recent executions in Iraq shone a light, briefly, on the issue of capital punishment, there hasn’t been much public discussion of the matter since Mrs Thatcher lost her free vote on the subject in the late 80s. This, along with the relative…

Strangers, Babies

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat 17 Mar

13 Mar 2007

NEW WORK Does our behaviour depend upon where we’re from, or where we are now? That hoary old chestnut, the nature versus nurture debate still rages on in every field of human knowledge. So it is that while it emerges quite plainly that the woman at…

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

17 Jan 2008

MUSICAL Playhouse, Edinburgh, until Sat 19 Jan Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s enduring piece of theatrical bubblegum may have started life as a modest school production, but the atmosphere in the packed Playhouse auditorium is as feverish as a…

White Christmas

29 Nov 2007

MUSICAL Edinburgh Playhouse, until Sat 8 Dec Starring in a soap opera can leave you typecast forever. So it’s testament to Craig McLachlan’s ability that in White Christmas he’s most definitely Bob Wallace, ex-soldier turned performer – and not…

The Producers

15 Nov 2007

MUSICAL King’s Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 17 November It’s a rule of thumb that celebrities cast in touring musicals to pull in floating punters will require some degree of propping up by the singing/dancing pros in the company. Certainly…

They Make These Noises

15 Nov 2007

NEW PLAY Arches, Glasgow, until Fri 16 Nov The noises in question emanate from the rumbling stomachs of the old boys living in a godforsaken hostel where the theft of a splash of milk can lead to a bloody stabbing. This is where Brian Ferguson’s…

Desire Under The Elms

1 Nov 2007

MODERN CLASSIC Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 17 Nov O’Neill’s 1925 experiment in modern tragedy has been acclaimed as a powerful, elemental drama, so it might ill-behove me to question its status. But Jeremy Raison’s production at the Citz…

Ae Fond Kiss

Greer Ogston

23 Aug 2007

Not to be confused with the 2004 film of the same name, Anne-Marie di Mambro’s play focuses on an awkward teen, Zed, who arrives for his birthday present – an hour with Lola. But Lola is not quite what he expected, in more ways than one. This tender…

Breaker Morant

23 Aug 2007

Kenneth Ross’ great Australian tale of official injustice still feels powerful in the telling. In it, three Australian officers are put on trial for the murder of prisoners in the dog days of the second Boer War. Great courage is shown in the face of…

Dogfight

23 Aug 2007

Serial streaker, Mark Roberts, narrowly avoided an Asbo for his ‘performance’ at the Ryder cup. Thankfully, a judge with a sense of humour and an ounce of brain power dismissed the case but it’s this legislating against the insignificant things while…

Apollo/Dionysus

16 Aug 2007

‘Naked’, is the first word that springs to mind but prurience is slowly replaced by curiosity as philosophical questions are posed; about right and wrong, good and bad, religion, love and family. This piece examines the age-old relationship between man…

Johnson and Boswell – Late But Live

16 Aug 2007

We’re presented with a modern day chat show starring James Boswell, whose guest is none other than his revered Dr Johnson. He gives an account of the pair’s Highland tour of 1773 quite at variance with Boswell’s. We might speculate about the question of…

Venus as a Boy

9 Aug 2007

In this intriguing and highly emotional adaptation of Luke Sutherland’s award winning novel, adaptor and actor Tam Dean Burn plays a dying rent boy who claims he is turning to gold. Burn, accompanied by Sutherland, who provides a riveting electrical…

Arlecchino’s Revenge

Tramway, Glasgow, Fri 13 - Sat 14 Apr

9 Apr 2007

DEVISED WORK The arrival of buccaneering Aussie practitioner Clark Crystal has reinvigorated Lung Ha’s, Scotland’s leading company for people with learning disabilities, with a creative and collaborative spirit that many a more auspicious company…

All My Sons

Sons and slaughters

16 Jan 2007

A brilliant, but profoundly uneasy evening awaits the ‘Well, Saddam was a son of a bitch, so the war was justified’ school of thought at the Lyceum. So, too, the ‘we can only vote for the Tories in power or those awaiting power’ mindset will face some…

Cinderella - Perth Theatre

Cinderella

13 Dec 2006

The Pitch Pity poor Baron Hardup, as feeble as a bowl of watery broth with a dicky ticker to boot, blitz-fully wedded to arch shrew Dodda Mutton, stepfather to a pair of hideous harpies who could give Lucrezia Borgia a run for her money in the…

Sweet Bird of Youth

Dundee Rep, until Sat 11 Nov

26 Oct 2006

CLASSIC Ladies, step this way. If you’re up for a sexual thrill, just check out the opening act of Tennessee Williams’ magnificent Sweet Bird of Youth and see Alan Turkington preening around in his pyjama bottoms, flexing his clean shaven chest and…

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…

Educating Agnes

8 May 2008

NEW TRANSLATION Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow, run ended; Perth Theatre until Fri 9 May When Molière’s L’école des femmes was translated as Let Wives Tak Tent by Robert Kemp in 1948, it set in motion a half-century tradition of Scottish reworkings of…

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…

Cinderella (Pavilion Theatre)

13 Dec 2007

The pitch Poor Cinders: Her life sucks — for one thing, her old boy has married the worst thing since C Difficile. Can she break away from her domestic bondage? Only with help from her friend Buttons and some heathen magic from her fairy godmother. Will…

Blood Brothers

18 Oct 2007

MUSICAL Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat 27 Oct There’s no flying car, singing animals or pyrotechnics, yet Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers, which explores class, poverty and unemployment, remains one of our longest running musicals. Just…

Hamlet

4 Oct 2007

The widespread belief that society is in deep moral decline is hardly unique to our age – indeed, there have been few times in history when this wasn’t a preoccupation of the public at large. What makes our society a little more unique, and renders Guy…

Corpus Christi

23 Aug 2007

Terrence McNally’s controversial retelling of the New Testament places Jesus in 50s Texas and involves the son of God in a sexual relationship with Judas, whose consequent jealously results in the betrayal. Despite slick direction and clever ensemble…

Dickens Unplugged

16 Aug 2007

Unless you were brought up in a workhouse, you’ll be familiar with at least one of Dickens’ many tales. Beginning with Oliver Twist, this musical, is not quite as Dickens intended. We embark upon a full speed tour of his books, ending with A Christmas…

I Am My Own Wife

16 Aug 2007

Is it right for us to turn someone’s life, warts and all, into art after their death? When Doug Wright set out to write this play, he intended to create an appreciative portrait of a person he admired, however when he discovered discrepancies in her…

I, Lear

16 Aug 2007

Two bumbling actors (Andrew Jones and Ciaran Murtagh) share their wisdom of the theatre, including tricks of the trade such as Marmite up the nostrils for upset and spray cream foaming at the mouth for anger. They teach us techniques from the likes of…

Macbeth: Who is That Bloodied Man?

Nicola Husband

16 Aug 2007

Macbeth, like most of Will’s plays, has suffered from many strange interpretations, including a film that transposes the action to a 90s rave and an American theatre version that quite literally strips the characters bare. These wacky interpretations…

Phil Jupitus & Andre Vincent: Waiting for Alice

16 Aug 2007

The title tells the more literate everything they need to know about this piece, for its peculiar mix of Beckett and Lewis Carroll makes a link between two different eras of absurdism and surrealism. In it, two performers, Dee and Dum, dressed in…

Popsicle’s Departure, 1989

16 Aug 2007

It's 1989. Seattle’s mighty Sub-Pop label dominates the grunge scene, Dido can’t get hold of her dealer, and tonight Jeremy’s band have totally got a gig supporting the Lemonheads. On film these characters would be played by Matt Dillon and Winona…

Spawn and Die

Steve Cramer

16 Aug 2007

Sometimes we treat the laws of sexuality as if they were written by Derrida. Instead of obeying primal instincts that might lead us to the kind of blissful state that would render conflict redundant, we obey a repressed, materialistic, competitive mind…

The Pitch

16 Aug 2007

As audiences desert the theatre in favour of cinema, could this one-man show provide the answer? A screenwriter has an hour to rewrite his script and plan a pitch before presenting to studio executives. Taking on all the roles, from Catherine Zeta-Jones…

CHAV! IT’S A MUSICAL INNIT

9 Aug 2007

The Debden in which this show is set is the town of David Cameron’s nightmares. Union Jack thongs are flashed, bus stops are vandalised and groups of unemployed teens impregnate each other like Lambrini addled rabbits.

La Femme Est Morte or Why Should I Not Fuck My Son

9 Aug 2007

Britney is in a state of crisis. She split from her husband, shaved her head, drove with her son on her lap and allegedly tried to have his teeth whitened, and of course it’s all the media’s fault, just as they are held responsible for Phaedra’s demise…

Fergus Lamont

Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline, Wed 11 Oct, then touri

9 Apr 2007

ADAPTATION The question of what precisely it means to be Scottish, of where and from whom a nation’s sense of itself derives, are bound to be at the forefront of public discourse over the next few months. Gerry Mulgrew’s production for Communicado…

Scottish Dance Theatre

Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Tue 27 Mar

13 Mar 2007

MODERN DANCE Diversity is fast become the calling card of Scottish Dance Theatre. Visiting Edinburgh as part of its UK tour, the company will perform three works which, although choreographically distinct, have one common factor - an emotional…