Theatre and 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.

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…

Circus Oz: 30th Birthday Bash

Acrobatics with an Aussie accent

7 Aug 2008

Characters in colourful costumes exchange banter with the audience, the live band plays a constant stream of Gogol Bordello-like polka and one act involves a dramatic take on Frankenstein's monster. This isn't your average circus. Far more theatrical…

Fame

22 Jan 2009

MUSICAL Running through the list of musical numbers in the programme your heart slowly starts to sink. Clearly the creators of this stage version of Fame couldn’t afford the copyright to songs from either the film or TV versions. What, no…

Britt Ekland: Britt on Britt

A Swedish sexagenarian’s exploits

14 Aug 2008

‘Who is Britt Ekland?’ So the former Bond girl and one-time wife of Peter Sellers begins her frank and surprisingly funny whistle stop tour of her enchantingly colourful life. Offering glimpses of the young starlet who entranced the likes of Rod Stewart…

Arcadia, by Tom Stoppard, Duke of York’s Theatre, London

27 Jul 2009

David Leveaux’s West End revival of Stoppard’s Arcadia is the first since its 1993 premiere, not because it’s not good (it’s excellent) but because it’s daunting. It is a play of big, basic questions; of eroticism and advanced mathematics; of…

Anne Boleyn

Howard Brenton's iconoclastic historical drama is a hands-down crowd-pleaser

9 May 2012

You can see why the original Globe theatre production of Anne Boleyn sold out, and why Howard Brenton’s iconoclastic re-imagining of Henry VIII’s second wife was subsequently sent on a tour of the UK: the show is a hands down, no-arguments…

All the Queen’s Children

An impressive, unflinching piece of fluid theatre

9 Aug 2010

The teens of Reading Youth Theatre devised this unflinching, impressive piece of fluid theatre themselves around the stories of real-life teenage asylum seekers (some of whom are in the company). Samuel is forced to swim to shore, swaggering, glam Lule…

Faust

Dark, thrilling and unsettling adaptation of Goethe’s classic

20 Aug 2009

Surely one of the Edinburgh International Festival’s most ambitious projects, Silviu Purcarete’s grand adaptation of Faust takes over, and fills, the huge warehouse space at Ingleston’s Royal Highland Centre. Based on Goethe’s treatment of the German…

Ecstasy

MDMA-fuelled love story

7 Aug 2008

Based on ‘The Undefeated’, one of three stories from Irvine Welsh’s 1996 novel Ecstasy, this piece centres around Lloyd (Jack McGowan), an ageing clubber who wants more out of life than living for the weekend. In the meantime, though, he’s content to…

The King and I

This stylish production of the musical classic can't disguise the script's patronising tone

6 Jan 2012

Like most of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s quintet of hit musicals, the deceptively light surface action in The King and I struggles to keep the lid on the problematic themes rumbling away underneath. Where the culture clash between prim, feisty governess…

Leo

Tobias Wegner's vitruoso performance is engaging and imaginative

11 Aug 2011

Leo (played by multi-talented German performer Tobias Wegner) finds himself trapped in a box room. With a charming innocence, he uses his imagination, his hat, his suitcase and a piece of chalk to ease the anxiety and the tedium. As he does so we see…

Pinocchio

Physical comedy and collaborative effort makes for excellent alternative to mainstream panto

15 Dec 2010

The intimate nature of this seasonal production makes for a wholesome take on Carlo Collodi’s boy puppet tale. Seemingly one for the Santa-believing contingent of the population (I am rarely ever the tallest person in any room, but was definitely top…

Equus

9 Mar 2010

Peter Shaffer’s endlessly revived classic about a troubled boy who blinds four horses and the psychiatrist who treats him is an odd mix of compelling mystery and disarming theatricality that frequently runs the risk of getting bogged down in its own…

The Fall of Man

Paradise Lost in a bedsit

12 Aug 2009

An affair between middle-aged, middle-class Peter and his children’s Slavic nanny is told with contemporary dialogue and passages from Paradise Lost. Milton’s long lines feel rushed and therefore unlike real-life musings, but powerful body language…

Nederlands Dans Theater 2

19 Jun 2008

CONTEMPORARY DANCE Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Fri 20 & Sat 21 Jun Given the enormous influence Jirí Kylián has had over Nederlands Dans Theater during the past 30 years, it should come as no surprise that even when he’s not there, his presence is felt.

Top Hat

Loving tribute to the Fred'n'Ginger classic, starring Tom Chambers and Summer Strallen

24 Nov 2011

According to legend, screen hoofer Fred Astaire was such a perfectionist that, during the 40th take of a scene from Swing Time (1936), his partner Ginger Rogers’ feet started to bleed through her satin slippers. In this stage adaptation of one of…

A Slow Air

Nationhood explored and deplored

8 Aug 2011

In David Harrower’s new play a struggling middle-aged builder (Lewis Howden), haunted by an entirely inadvertent contribution to the Glasgow Airport bombing, is provoked into reflections about his estranged sister (the performer’s real-life sister…

Frances Ruffelle: Beneath the Dress

Cheeky, sexy and surprising cabaret-esque show

23 Aug 2010

Given Ruffelle’s showbiz background – she’s the daughter of London theatre school founder Sylvia Young and a Tony Award-winning star of West End and Broadway musicals such as Les Misérables and Chicago – it’s unsurprising that her cabaret-esque Fringe…

Lovelace: A Rock Musical

Respectful tribute to the Deep Throat porn star

10 Aug 2010

This rock opera goes a long way to rescuing its subject, Linda Boreman, from the ignominy of being forever associated with her screen persona, Linda Lovelace, and the 1972 porn film Deep Throat. The film made history for being the first to become a…

The Grind Show

Carnival slapstick and profound questioning from the TBA Collaborative

19 Aug 2009

A mix of slick physical theatre and naturalistic dialogue, The Grind Show follows wide-eyed ‘Boy’ through a surreal circus. Underworld characters, including the double-bodied Miss Von Ambourg (whose act involves splitting apart to throw daggers at her…

Morecambe

Show-stopping comic tribute

10 Aug 2009

This funny-sad account of the life and death of the man who was dubbed Britain’s ‘comedian of the century’ is already a big hit with Fringe crowds. It’s fair to assume that the prospect of seeing the late, great Eric Morecambe brought back to life on…

The Man Who Lived Twice

Stylish, striking and poignant study of 1930s dramatist Edward Sheldon and actor John Gielgud

28 Mar 2012

For a few years in the early 20th century playwright Edward Sheldon was the toast of Broadway, with melodramas such as Romance notching up lengthy runs and inspiring movies with Garbo and Dietrich. Crippled by rheumatoid arthritis, he withdrew…

Of Mice and Men

Quietly shocking aftertaste of Lyceum Steinbeck adaptation

27 Feb 2012

Director John Dove breaks his run of eminently solid productions of Arthur Miller plays at the Lyceum with this solid adaptation of John Steinbeck. And in a similar style to shows like 2010’s The Price, the sets here are towering, intricate and…

Slavery to Star Trek

Autobiographical show taking in Martin Luther King and Malcolm X

8 Aug 2011

Andreea Kindryd has lived a fascinating life. She knew Martin Luther King, was friends with Malcolm X and worked on the original Star Trek series. She’s an engaging storyteller whose tale starts in the days of her great grandparents and slavery…

Blood Brothers – review

X Factor alumnus Niki Evans a revelation in Willy Russell favourite

17 Mar 2011

Willy Russell’s long-running and popular musical about class, superstition and the nature/nurture debate has featured a host of sparkling chanteuses in the central role of Mrs Johnstone, notably Barbara Dixon, Carole King and four of the Nolan sisters.

Barbershopera: Apocalypse No!

A superb show full of dazzling vocals

7 Sep 2010

In a hilariously funny show - where Satan’s horsemen adopt a jaded primary school teacher as their leader to incite the end of the world - the ‘three guys and a girl’ of Barbershopera tell the tale of Beth, a teacher, who is looking for the venue of one…

Pedestrian

Fishy tale from an engaging performer

12 Aug 2010

Tom Wainwright’s monologue, which he performs with simple but effective animation creates a man haunted by the surreal vision of a giant goldfish. Said Piscean apparition appears in a recurrent dream, while its narrator walks through the shopping…

Of People and Not Things

An examination of break-up as apocalypse

11 Aug 2010

Going into this show without knowing anything about it can be disorientating: the play is set in the aftermath of a world-destroying event (a couple breaking up), although this is only alluded to obliquely. It’s longer than the average Fringe show and…

Poland 3 Iran 2

Merhdad and Chris share the political football

9 Aug 2010

Iran’s narrow defeat at the hands of Poland in the 1978 World Cup serves more as punctuation than as the main text of this lecture-cum-barroom shaggy dog story. Lecture because its main visual element is a slideshow; barroom tale because it’s told in a…

Jessica Ransom

What would you do with a million?

9 Aug 2010

The bunker that is the Pleasance Cellar has been a launch-pad for several notable Fringe careers. Rhod Gilbert and Jason Manford both performed their debut solo shows in there and last year Jonny Sweet swept to Best Newcomer glory on that stage. Mind…

Wall of Death: A Way of Life

8 Feb 2010

The sound of revving engines is enough to awaken the sleeping serpent coiled at the bottom of your spine, but it is the performance that follows that will pump your adrenal glands to sheer jaw dropping exhilaration. The Ken Fox Troupe ride the Indian…

Othello

Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 21 Nov

10 Nov 2009

Guy Hollands’ production of the Bard’s tragedy of racial hatred, jealousy and betrayal is a stripped-back version, starkly lit, with minimal staging, that returns the focus squarely to Shakespeare’s language. Thus, the most successful moments come about…

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

19 Mar 2009

MODERN CLASSIC Mention Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and most people will recall the 1966 film adaptation starring Taylor and Burton at the peak of their own convoluted marital soap opera. While the movie has achieved iconic status in its own…

Foreskins Lament

21 Aug 2008

This dodgy production of New Zealand playwright Greg McGee's landmark 1980 play is played out in the locker room of a local rugby club changing room. A couple of really appalling performances and some less than inspired direction derail things. Still at…

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…

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…

Sleeping Beauty Insomnia

Israeli War-set play with absorbing characterisation and comedy

15 May 2012

Lebanese playwright Abdelrahim Alawji bounds to the front of the stage. ‘This play is set in a theatre, during the Israeli war, where people used to hide during the...’ Then boom, acrid smoke and the lights go up on two figures clinging on to each…

Roman Bridge

An unflinchingly claustrophobic production with bold performances and muscular dialogue

9 May 2012

There’s a knowing nod to Samuel Beckett in Martin Travers’ Roman Bridge, the first full production in the National Theatre of Scotland’s Reveal 2012 season. The main protagonists are a pair of ragged-trousered hobos, who cling to each other, eat, sleep…

Further Than the Furthest Thing

Haunting, beautifully-designed production of Zinnie Harris' play

30 Apr 2012

From ripping out the seating for a powerful in-the-round production of Peter Shaffer’s Equus to the Mad Men-style two-storey 1950s maisonette of A Doll’s House, Dundee Rep has often impressed with its bold, imaginative use of design. The company’s…

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Abi Morgan explores tensions between faith and science in a fascinating but frustrating new play

3 Nov 2011

The tensions that lie beneath the serene surface of convent life have proved fertile territory for writers and dramatists down the years, from Powell and Pressburger’s psychological horror Black Narcissus to Muriel Spark’s Watergate satire The Abbess of…

If That's All There Is?

Eccentric study of a banal relationship

26 Aug 2011

What happens when you realise the man you're marrying is actually utterly dull? Such is the fate that befalls Frances, no sooner than her new husband Daniel has finished his painfully long wedding speech. In the opening scene, we are the guests and as…

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

Haruki Marukami's novel is given multimedia stage adaptation by Stephen Earnhart

24 Aug 2011

Toru Okada is 29 and shares an apartment with his wife, Kumiko and their cat. When both the wife and cat vanish and don’t come back for several days, Toru tries to work out what’s happened to them, with the help of a spiritualist who doubles as a…

I, Malvolio

Revisiting Shakespeare’s maligned steward

22 Aug 2011

Appearing in the latter half of a Festival that has made its theatre audience work harder than in previous years, Tim Crouch keeps us on the edge of our seats with a show that probes cultural tastes through the figure of Shakespeare’s much maligned…

Dust

Mining a rich seam of anger among Thatcher and coal industry

17 Aug 2011

It’s 2011 and (you might need party hats and a few crates of beer at the ready) Margaret Thatcher has died. Such is the lovely dream (er, I mean ‘fictional scenario’, of course) at the heart of Ade Morris’s Dust, a play set largely in Arthur Scargill’s…

The Table

Puppet show silliness backed up by serious skill

8 Aug 2011

Blind Summit are a company of puppetry geeks, with the triptych of pieces that make up The Table, they’ve made a show that lovingly reflects that. They’re also a company with a great sense of fun, and happily this hour-and-a-bit more than embodies that…

John Peel’s Shed

Intimate musings on the joy of radio

8 Aug 2011

In 2002 author John Osborne won a competition to write the best two-sentence description of John Peel’s radio show and win a box of the DJ’s records. ‘Songs you want to hear. Played by a man who wants you to hear them.’ earned Osborne the prize, and he…

The Oh Fuck Moment

Uneasily entertaining afternoon of reflection on human frailty

8 Aug 2011

We’re ushered into a boardroom where two performers join us in discussing horrifying human errors, from the embarrassingly rude, through the sexually ill-fated, and on to the physically terminal. This is an uneasily entertaining afternoon of reflection…

The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart fuses karaoke with ceilidh music

David Greig play pays homage to Borders legend in pub setting

18 Feb 2011

The legend of the ‘teind’ or tribute paid by the fairy folk to the Devil every seven years is as old as the Southern Uplands and recounted in numerous Scottish Border Ballads, including the eerie ‘Tam Lin’. Playwright David Greig here pays homage to the…

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Mix of contemporary with traditional is glittery, family-oriented and fun

15 Dec 2010

Mixing contemporary tunes with a traditional storyline, the King’s performance of Snow White is suitably glittery, family-oriented and fun. The cast are solid throughout. Darius Campbell (previously Danesh) provides a teeth-clenchingly sincere and…