Theatre

Vicky Featherstone to step down from National Theatre of Scotland

Artistic Director to take new post at London's Royal Court

11 May 2012

The National Theatre of Scotland announced today that Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone is leaving to join the Royal Court at the end of 2012. Featherstone joined to help establish the theatre company in 2004 and has presided over a string of hits.

Enquirer

3 May 2012

Whether by luck or incredible foresight, the National Theatre of Scotland’s exploration of the demise of the newspaper industry couldn’t be playing at a more auspicious time. Entering the top floor of the Hub at Pacific Quay, the first thing that draws…

King Lear

David Hayman heads an impressive ensemble cast in a gripping production of Shakespeare's play

26 Apr 2012

Incredibly, it’s 33 years since David Hayman appeared in a Shakespeare play at the Citz, and his casting here, as the Bard’s aged monarch, raging against the dying of the light, provides a link to that spell in the 1970s-1990s when the Glasgow…

Could You Please Look into the Camera

Clunky, unengaging and under-rehearsed piece on Syria

17 Apr 2012

Great theatre will, at some point, emerge from the Arab Spring. This is not it. As rough and raw as a piece about Syria would have to be in the face of unfolding events, Mohammed Al Attar’s patchwork of real people’s experiences of detention is also…

NTS tackles phone-hacking with Enquirer

New site-specific work relies on verbatim transcripts from journalists

16 Apr 2012

Into the pristine, empty top floor of the Hub, a media office block between the Clyde, Film City and the BBC, has come the clutter of a newspaper office. The mismatched chairs, the cardboard coffee trays, the piles of paper are all present and correct.

For Once

Poignancy and lyricism in play exploring fragility of family unit

7 Apr 2012

The sight of a hyper-realistic kitchen set, complete with fridge, cluttered shelves and fully functional sink usually portends an hour or two of domestic desolation of the kind favoured by the Angry Young Men of 50s/60s British drama. And when the…

Moonlight and Magnolias

Ron Hutchinson's comedy explores the story behind the making of a Hollywood epic

2 Apr 2012

The strange alchemy that sorts screen hits from cinematic turkeys is energetically explored in Ron Hutchinson’s play about the events leading up to the shooting of Hollywood blockbuster, Gone with the Wind. The story behind the filming of Margaret…

The Marriage of Figaro

DC Jackson breathes new life into Beaumarchais’ 18th-century original

28 Mar 2012

With this energetic adaptation of Beaumarchais’ 18th-century original, DC Jackson has breathed fresh life into a classic. It’s a good-humoured, good-time show, with just enough emotional power up its sleeve (plus a few other surprises) to make you feel…

Cirque du Soleil take Alegria on UK tour

Mix of acrobatics, dance and music explores carnival themes

26 Mar 2012

Expect a heady mix of high-energy acrobatics, dance and music when Cirque du Soleil return north of the border this month. Alegria, Spanish for ‘joy’, has been delighting audiences across the globe for 17 years, as artistic director Bruno Darmagnac…

Dundee Rep revives Further Than the Furthest Thing

James Brining adapts Zinnie Harris's first play

14 Mar 2012

James Brining, artistic director of Dundee Rep, has a rule of thumb about choosing plays. ‘When you have a strong sense of how to do it and how it should look,’ he says, then it’s time. And if this coincides with the members of the repertory company…

Five things you might not know about Spamalot

Eric Idle and John Du Prez's Monty Python-inspired musical tours UK

27 Feb 2012

1 The multi award-winning musical production from Eric Idle and John Du Prez, Spamalot was ‘lovingly ripped off from the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail.’ I guess Idle can do whatever he wants but an eyebrow was raised by the inclusion of…

Interview: David Nixon - choreographer and costume designer

Northern Ballet production of Beauty and the Beast

27 Feb 2012

What made you want to be a choreographer? I became interested in choreography while I was at the National Ballet School of Canada, and started choreographing while I was still a dancer, but became more serious when I took over my first company. I…

Interview: DC Jackson - playwright

Retelling of The Marriage of Figaro set in world of banking comes to Lyceum

27 Feb 2012

I love the original play, which I think it’s fair to say is less well known than the opera. So I’ve always thought that’s a shame. It’s genuinely hilarious with strikingly modern characters and jokes. It’s got all the cross-dressing and duplicity and…

New Junction 25 production Anoesis

Teenage company one of Scotland’s most lauded theatre groups

27 Feb 2012

Junction 25 may be made up of teenagers, aged between 12 and 18, but it’s also one of Scotland’s most lauded theatre groups. The company has been making its own brand of innovative, improvisational plays since 2005 and last year won a Herald Angel Award…

Interview: Zach Braff, writer, director and star of All New People

The Scrubs and Garden State star discusses his new theatre production

2 Feb 2012

‘I’m still Jenny from the block,’ says Zach Braff after a moment’s reflection. ‘Even now I feel a bit underground in the acting world.’ For those who enjoyed Braff (and 20 million viewers around the world did) as the lovable JD in US comedy drama…

Jemima Levick on Steel Magnolias revival

The theatre director aims to retain the humour and tenderness of Robert Harling's original script

1 Feb 2012

‘I would rather have 30 minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special,’ says Dolly Parton as brassy hairdresser Truvy in the 1989 film adaptation of Steel Magnolias. The country singer led a cast of big name Hollywood hitters that included…

Interview: Simon Hart, artistic director of the Manipulate Visual Theatre Festival

Highlights of the 2012 theatre and puppetry festival programme

19 Dec 2011

What can we expect from this year’s Manipulate programme? A great festival with an eclectic international mix: of stylish and sophisticated object theatre, digital projections, animations – and lots of water – in the Theatre Sans Soucis’ Hamletmachine…

The Hot 100 2011: 100-50

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

16 Dec 2011

100: Gordon Ferris. Kilmarnock crime author makes good. The already packed Scottish crime writing field has finally found a bit of elbow room for another burgeoning talent. Joining the likes of Rankin, Brookmyre, McDermid and co is this Ayrshire-born…

Cinderella (Dundee Rep)

Witty script, excellent performances and bold lack of concern for tradition

12 Dec 2011

Writer Phil Porter has taken perhaps the best-loved of all festive tales, pulled it apart and reassembled it with a bold lack of concern for tradition. Yes, folks, this is Cinderella but not as we know it. For starters, this version is set on a…

Hansel and Gretel (Citizens Theatre, Glasgow)

Musical theatre of dry ice, flashing lights and belting numbers

9 Dec 2011

The Citz, of recent years, have taken their festive shows down a musical theatre route and Alan McHugh’s Hansel and Gretel ticks all the genre’s boxes. Older audience members may prefer a quirkier Christmas production but the dry ice, flashing lights…

Mister Merlin

The Weegie-centric Tron panto continues to entertain despite uncertain future

7 Dec 2011

Renowned for their particularly weegie take on a festive tale, the Tron may sadly be unable to continue their affordable Christmas shows due to the loss of their corporate sponsor. Unless they find another, the theatre will need to raise £20,000 a year…

Jackie and the Beanstalk

Johnny McKnight's panto manages to entertain while challenging traditional gender roles

7 Dec 2011

According to panto dame Dott Von Trott, things have got so bad in the austerity-stricken pantosphere that ‘parents in Bridge of Allan have started firing their nannies and learning their own kids’ names’. Serious times indeed, and there’s something…

Writer Donna Rutherford on KIN, an exploration of parent-child relations

Change in family dynamics as children reach middle age

28 Oct 2011

In a project started in 2010 as a collaboration between the CCA and NHS in Glasgow Clyde, ‘listening posts’ were placed in doctors’ waiting rooms, which played soundbites of conversations between parents and their older children. The snippets are taken…

One-woman theatremaker Lisa Nicoll returns with Home Run

The play deals with the drug addiction and recovery of Scottish women

20 Oct 2011

‘You train as an actress, writer, director or producer for years, but meeting real people and telling real stories is what makes really great theatre,’ says Lisa Nicoll, the one-woman theatre-making machine behind 2008’s Acceptance and short film ‘Truth…

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

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

21 Sep 2011

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…