Theatre

Youthful, multicultural urban drama Playback a success despite contrivance

Narrative remains immersive despite gang culture themes being overplayed

27 Oct 2010

This youthful, multicultural urban drama by Davey Anderson and Ankur Productions – the culmination of the PANGAA urban arts project – proves an impressive advertisement for the sort of large-scale play a bold and ambitious company can stage in the…

Nic Green’s Trilogy and David Leddy’s Sussurus among highlights of IETM

Umbrella group assembles Glasgow theatre festival bill

27 Oct 2010

At a time when the threat of cutbacks hangs over Scottish theatre, it might be wise to take a good look at this theatre arts conference, for much of the work being showcased will not – if the auguries are true – be seen again on this scale for some…

Lung Ha’s Chekhov Shorts set for Traverse

Romance with a Double Bass and The Two Volodyas

27 Oct 2010

While Lung Ha’s has long been known for producing groundbreaking work, the success of Huxley’s Lab, its CATS-winning co-production with Grid Iron earlier this year, may well have marked a watershed for the company, which works solely with actors with…

A Band Called Quinn - The Beggar’s Opera

26 Oct 2010

(Tromolo) Theatre and pop music can often make embarrassingly naff bedfellows, but when Louise Quinn and co appeared onstage in Vanishing Point’s audacious sci-fi reimagining of John Gay’s 18th century satire, their live score was vital to the…

Zoë Strachan and Louise Welsh collaborate on Panic Patterns at Glasgay! 2010

First collaboration from writing pair

8 Oct 2010

Award-winning writers Zoë Strachan and Louise Welsh live together and are in a long-term relationship, but until recently they’d never collaborated. Glasgay! director Steven Thomson asked if they’d be prepared to change that by co-penning a play for…

Derek McLuckie and Pauline Goldsmith bring Jean Genet’s The Maids to stage

All-male version of controversial play set for Glasgay!

8 Oct 2010

‘It’s about play acting and status games,’ says Derek McLuckie of Jean Genet’s The Maids, an all-male version of which the Glaswegian actor will star in and co-direct at this year’s Glasgay! ‘It’s about how you’re never one person, you’re lots of…

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform Revelations

1960 piece set for Edinburgh Festival Theatre

6 Oct 2010

A visit from Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater guarantees a number of things. Great dancing, interesting choreography, uplifting music and, of course, Revelations. Choreographed by Ailey in 1960, the piece is a unique calling card performed at the end…

The Bookie is playwright Douglas Maxwell’s first musical

Let down by complex plot despite suitably murky atmosphere

4 Oct 2010

Playwright Douglas Maxwell’s first musical is unlikely to threaten the market dominance of Stephen Sondheim or Rodgers and Hammerstein or even Andrew Lloyd Webber any time soon. Aly Macrae’s songs, which range from catchy to unmemorable, punctuate the…

Jeremy Raison's production of A Clockwork Orange

Swansong show from Citizens Theatre director

29 Sep 2010

Jeremy Raison says one of his favourite films is Brazil. Terry Gilliam’s masterpiece is part of a sub-genre known as ‘retro-futurism’, as if someone in the 1940s had predicted what the 1980s would be like. For Raison, who is directing A Clockwork…

Sea and Land and Sky

New play from Abigail Docherty at Tron Theatre

29 Sep 2010

Almost exactly a year ago Abigail Docherty picked up a flyer in the foyer of the Tron Theatre. Already a playwright with showings of her work at Mayfesto, New Works New Worlds and Imaginate festivals in the pipeline, Docherty was attracted to the…

New Dundee Rep production of Ibsen's A Doll's House

Jemima Levick directs new version of play by Samuel Adamson

29 Sep 2010

In an era where the term ‘banker’ has become disparaging rhyming slang, certain great classics of the theatre can be viewed with a new slant. In Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the profession of husband and implacable patriarch Torvald implies the utmost…

Spamalot musical comes to Edinburgh Playhouse

Monty Python's King Arthur comedy

29 Sep 2010

If ever a man was able to look on the bright side of life it is Eric Idle. Whether jumping out of cakes in a tutu for Prince Charles in a comical re-enactment of Swan Lake, or dressing up in wings, mocking the outfit worn by Emma Thompson in Angels in…

Return2you dance theatre piece from Susanna Curtis

29 Sep 2010

For 22 years, choreographer Susanna Curtis has been journeying between the place of her birth and the land where she carved out a home and career. Born in Glasgow but based in Nuremberg, Curtis has drawn inspiration from those trips for her latest work…

How seven key figures in Scottish culture have fared over 25 years

25 years of The List

23 Sep 2010

Didn’t they do well? Scotland has more than its fair share of talent, finds Kirstin Innes, as she chronicles the highs and lows of some of our finest exports over 25 years, including Peter Capaldi, Carol Ann Duffy, Ian Rankin, Douglas Gordon, Tilda…

Looking back on 25 years of commentary on Scottish culture

25 years of The List

23 Sep 2010

A lot has happened in 25 years of Scottish culture. Niki Boyle gives a blow-by-blow account of the major events

How a bumper programme at the Traverse Theatre in 1985 changed Scottish culture

25 years of The List

23 Sep 2010

1985 was a landmark year for The Traverse theatre. Peter Arnott, Chris Hannan and Jo Clifford recall working there to Mark Fisher

First Scottish solo show by Babette Mangolte explores work with Yvonne Rainer

23 Sep 2010

The first solo show in Scotland by filmmaker Babette Mangolte explores her working relationship with performance artist Yvonne Rainer. Neil Cooper assesses the impact of their collaboration

Alison Peebles on how theatre show Dirty Paradise was inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

23 Sep 2010

Alison Peebles tells Mark Fisher how a Gabriel Garcia Marquez story opened up a world of auditory hallucinations

Theatre adaptation highlights in store for 2010

Orlando, Lark Rise to Candleford and A Clockwork Orange making move from page to stage

22 Sep 2010

Orlando The latest production from Theatre Cryptic is a typically imaginative take on Virginia Woolf’s exuberant masterpiece about a young boy, born during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who lives for centuries and transforms into a woman, going on…

Glasgay! 2010 highlights

Glasgow festival celebrates LGBT relationships

22 Sep 2010

Panic Patterns Award winning Glasgow-based authors Zoé Strachan and Louise Welsh have collaborated on a gripping thriller in which two lovers witness sudden changes in bird migration patterns that herald impending disaster. The suspenseful exploration…

Paperbelle kids show highlights power of imagination

22 Sep 2010

Amazing things happen inside a child’s imagination – an old twig becomes a magic wand, a cardboard box a castle. And, as theatre director Heather Fulton discovered while working with nursery children, a small piece of paper can come alive with all kinds…

The Bookie

22 Sep 2010

‘It’s my first one,’ says playwright Douglas Maxwell of his new production, The Bookie. ‘My Fisher-Price “My First Musical”, it’s a proper learning curve.’ In a script that gives a Scottish flavour to Vegas-style razzle dazzle, a big time casino tycoon…

The Wonderful World of Hugh Hughes

22 Sep 2010

Welsh-born performer Hugh Hughes has won a sizeable following for his imaginative monologues, which combine spoken word, visuals, live music and dance to transport audiences into fantastical worlds. This week-long celebration of his work, includes…

Creator of Trilogy returns with new play Fatherland, Motherland

New play from Nic Green at Arches Live

16 Sep 2010

Ask Nic Green where she thinks of as home and she has an immediate, if surprising, answer. ‘Nowhere,’ she says. ‘This is the problem.’ The creator of the celebrated Trilogy (returning to the Arches in November for a brief run) which prompted feminist…

The Boy With Tape on His Face

16 Sep 2010

Don’t miss this rising star of the comedy scene as he returns to Edinburgh following his five star Fringe show says Brian Donaldson

Tramway celebrates radical career of Yvonne Rainer

10 Sep 2010

Like many artforms, dance underwent a minor revolution in the 1960s – much of it taking place at a church in New York’s Greenwich Village. In 1962, ballet was beginning to lose its stranglehold on the genre as modern dance found its feet. But for some…

Punk Rock

New writing preview

10 Sep 2010

There’s a great tradition in British theatre of using schools, be they the privileged public school system or the local comp, as metaphors for the various ills that have beset the whole country. The latest foray into this territory comes from one of the…

Orlando

A preview of the adaptation

10 Sep 2010

With a composer whose film scores (Moulin Rouge and Romeo and Juliet being but two) have won endless awards, and a director whose vision for music theatre knows no bounds, Cryptic’s new stage version of Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando promises to be an…

The Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival 2010

Bill Douglas Trilogy screening and premiere of David Greig’s Monsters in the Hall

10 Sep 2010

If there’s one thing that Scotland has in spades, it’s a proliferation of some mighty fine smaller scale festivals, and the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival (now in its 4th year) has more than earned the credibility to rub shoulders with…

A Play, a Pie and a Pint

200th anniversary

10 Sep 2010

Since its inception in 2004, Oran Mor has become rather like a mobile phone to the Scottish theatre: you managed to cope fine before you had one, but these days it’s hard to imagine how. Sustaining itself on box office takings, support from the venue…

The Chooky Brae

10 Sep 2010

It’s a little disconcerting to step out of a balmy late summer’s evening into an auditorium filled with festive songs and walk past a stage set whose centrepiece is a Christmas tree. But then playwright DC Jackson was always going to want to round off…

Claire Sawers wins 2010 Allen Wright Award

List assistant editor wins Festival arts journalism award

10 Sep 2010

It’s celebration time at List Towers this fortnight following news that assistant editor Claire Sawers has won this year’s coveted Allen Wright Award for festival writing. The Awards were set up in 1998 to honour the contribution of the former Scotsman…

Roadkill, The Author and 30 Days to Space worthy 2010 festival winners

Steve Cramer's Festival blog

7 Sep 2010

I know it’s not quite over, but with respect to the last couple of shows of the International Festival, now might be the time for the Festival’s final report card. This year’s Festival, if it has shown some good work, still creates the uneasy feeling of…

Romeo and Juliet and The Importance of Being Earnest set for Edinburgh Lyceum

Highlights og autumn theatre season

7 Sep 2010

Two love stories by two playwrights – performed by one cast on one set. In these cash-strapped times, you’d be forgiven for thinking the Royal Lyceum was trying to save a penny or two. In fact, the innovative doubling-up of the first two shows in the…

The Man Who Fed Butterflies

Sporadically phenomenal spectacle lacks magic of theatre

7 Sep 2010

Something Pixar, with their melange of spacemen, rat and sea creature protagonists, seem to have worked out fairly early on in the game is that it’s very difficult to emphathise with a CGI human face. The reason the human characters in the Toy Story…

Meredith Monk: Songs of Ascension

There is so much beauty here

7 Sep 2010

It’s difficult to begin describing Songs of Ascension, a new(ish) work by composer, musician, artist and mercurial force of nature Meredith Monk, because it doesn’t fit cleanly into any of the nice, regular boxes we use to describe different kinds of…

First Word: Simon Callow interview

Shakespearian actor, luvvie and recently-outed Toblerone-eater

7 Sep 2010

First record you ever bought Brahms’ 2nd Symphony conducted by Bruno Walter. First film you saw that really moved you The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Last lie you told Forgot I was meeting someone: said my laptop had been stolen. First…

The Sing-along Glee Club

Hilariously silly, ridiculously twee and delightfully camp

7 Sep 2010

Given the title of this show, one could be forgiven for assuming that its content would be that of the popular television show Glee which recently reached our screens from across the pond. On the contrary, ‘Sing-along Glee club’ provides an insight into…

Darcy’s Dilemma

A must for all Austenites

7 Sep 2010

Darcy paces a lavishly furnished regency chamber clad in dishy regency riding boots; this is a one-man show featuring the gentleman-hero himself. The script moves to and fro between quotations from Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and some original…

Myth of the far-left agenda in Alastair Beaton's Caledonia

Steve Cramer's Festival blog

1 Sep 2010

In my last blog, I accused many of the companies engaging in the Fringe of lacking courage, and I’m sticking by it. You can always tell when there’s a political elephant in the room at a fringe, since invariably the more pusillanimous companies visiting…

Talking Heads

A Chip In The Sugar, Bed Among the Lentils and Her Big Chance

1 Sep 2010

Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads must be the best-known example of a form that receives little attention from either the telly-watching or the theatre-going publics: the dramatic monologue. The reasons for their enduring popularity are perhaps twofold…

Opium Eater

1 Sep 2010

Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is the grandaddy of the junkie philosophy genre and the inspiration behind Andrew Dallmeyer’s biographical play Opium Eater. Now Alasdair McCrone, artistic director of the Mull Theatre, is…

Mission of Flowers

The life adventures of aviator and dare-devil

1 Sep 2010

A sell out in Soho and an award winning writer and director; Mission of Flowers is a promising choice this Fringe. It’s a one-man show telling the life adventures of aviator and dare-devil Bill Lancaster. Leof Kingford-Smith, as Lancaster, is an…

Big Society: The Musical

27 Aug 2010

It’s actually rather heartening, in the current climate, to watch a London-based company not only tackling the ConDem government’s agenda of cuts head-on, but also managing to set an entire musical in a working class district of Newcastle without…

Twelfth Night

By my troth, an afternoon delight (if you’ve got the energy)

27 Aug 2010

The small cast composing this year’s C Theatre production are really enjoying themselves. They transport Twelfth Night’s faraway kingdom of Illyria to a sexy 1930s London scene, and complete the look with boater hats, black lace, cigarette holders, and…

Following Wendy

Unconventional take on the Peter Pan story

27 Aug 2010

When a young girl Wendy disappears from a house party she has thrown in the absence of her parents, (through an upstairs window and accompanied by a boy with no shadow apparently!?) her friend Sebastian is arrested in connection. Following an argument…

The Diary of a Sentimental Killer

27 Aug 2010

The setting is simple: one man, one chair and one extraordinary story to be told. In the close nit environment of the small venue it is not difficult to become engrossed in the poetic retelling of life as an international hit man. Nearing the end of a…

Alcatraz

27 Aug 2010

On the surface of things, this play sets itself as an exploration of the comings and goings of a lonely hotel bedroom which is doused with minute traces of those who have spent the night; set across the city of Alcatraz, of course, nothing is as it…

Winner By Submission

Self destructive ethos

25 Aug 2010

A play based on the self destructive ethos which seems to be felt by many of the current generation of American youth. With little to no direction in life, including no signifying rituals as right of passage to adult hood, many are finding solace in…

A Midsummer Night's Dream

More hood than wood (but still not good)

25 Aug 2010

This year at the Fringe, the young and award-winning Shed Theatre Company give our favourite Shakespearean rom-com a contemporary twist. Poetic couplets become edgy rap rhythms and an urban dub-step dance-off is choreographed into the fairies’s scene.

His Name Is Tim

A melancholy understanding of first love, lust and desire

25 Aug 2010

The story of the affable young man Tim is a compelling one; we are taken through his early teen years of fantasising about school teachers and falling in love with girls at the supermarket, smartly incorporating this to explain how he now sits at his…

Burns: The Video Diary

Rabbie gets down and dirty in Auld Reekie

25 Aug 2010

Donald Smith’s multimedia dramatisation of Robert Burns’ Edinburgh days is a slick, atmospheric affair. Video sequences and fragments of live delivery combine to provide a shifting, restless picture of the Bard as he arrives in the capital of…

Grimm Tales of the Unexpected

Crudely draws out the latent dark content of the Grimms’ fairytales

25 Aug 2010

Offering precisely what it says on the tin (minus an ‘m’), this piece from Manchester’s Broken Productions crudely draws out the latent dark content of the Grimms’ fairytales, with scenes of incestuous rape, three murders and a suicide cropping up. It…

Tales From a Cabaret

A series of increasingly sinister jokes and songs

25 Aug 2010

In the underground vault of Fingers Piano Bar two actors in white face, bowler hats and shabby suits first give us a history of cabaret culture. They go on to a series of increasingly sinister jokes and songs, reminding us that the history of…

Too Middle Class for Chlamydia

Fairly pedestrian – not to mention misogynist

25 Aug 2010

Curiously, this one-man show in which a young middle class lad recalls the variously difficult girls he’s been romantically involved with is delivered as a comic monologue, though the material is probably better suited to a stand-up routine. A few…

I’m Still Here . . .

Ably flitting between genres

25 Aug 2010

The West End pro takes a saunter through hits from Sondheim to Mika and Queen to ‘Moon River’ with a connecting thread of drama. His voice holds up well, ably flitting between genres, but a worrying ironic tone starts to creep in until during ‘MacArthur…

Now is the Winter

Confusion abounds

25 Aug 2010

Unless you’re seriously intimate with Shakespeare’s original give this a miss. This one-woman reinterpretation of Richard III retells the story from his ascendancy to the battle of Bosworth through the eyes of a faithful servant. A challenging notion…

Getting Over Milk Wood

Things go from the sub-standard to the ridiculous

25 Aug 2010

This modern reinvention of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood is trying so hard to be ever so clever that it ends up making little sense at all. The attempts at modernisation and characterisation are heavy handed, cast members frequently fluff their lines…

The Night Heron

An interesting watch, but is a bit too broad

25 Aug 2010

A devout young man suffers in a freezing shack, while his geezer-ish roommate plans their escape. It’s a basic plot outline, at which almost everything you’d expect to see at the Fringe is thrown: poetry, religion, comedic touches, earnest drama…

Up to Now

Of limited appeal

25 Aug 2010

Robert Shaw’s monologue takes us through events from the life of his grandfather, the composer Martin Shaw, in fin de siècle Europe. From conducting for Isadora Duncan to meeting with August Strindberg, events that should be illuminating fade into one…

The 2010 Festival in Numbers

Here are some statistics about this year's Festivals

24 Aug 2010

We've very carefully and scientifically gathered some stunning numbers and statistics about this year's festivals.

Another Someone

A quirky and colourful production

24 Aug 2010

‘Welcome to a show all about happiness’. There’s Holly, a geek-turned-lawyer who denies herself happiness; Alicia, a bimbo waitress who thinks happiness is drinking cava in the afternoon; and Jim, a chef who thinks happiness is trading in his career…

Underneath The Lintel

A little treat for Dan Brown fans

24 Aug 2010

Often compared to The Da Vinci Code, Glen Berger’s play takes its librarian protagonist from less than riveting circumstances in a provincial Dutch town to the ends of the earth and back. His aim: to track down the anonymous borrower of a Baedeker’s…

iOTA from Smoke and Mirrors - Five questions

Slightly demented ringmaster in stripey socks

24 Aug 2010

5 words you’d use to describe your show Cerebral, moving, beautiful, intense, entertaining. 4 things you bring on tour Slippers, laptop, clothes, eczema cream. 3 shows you hope to see in Edinburgh Harlekin by Derevo, Jennifer Coolidge and…

Pornography takes centre stage at Fringe 2010

Steve Cramer's Festival blog

23 Aug 2010

There are three steps down into the auditorium at the Traverse St Stephens. It’s not entirely at random that I warn you. As I entered said space I failed to spot this natty architectural folly, and launched myself, instead of into Apples, into thin air.

The Gospel at Colonus

Greek tragedy set in an African-American Pentecostal church

23 Aug 2010

That this is a spectacle worth seeing, there can be no doubt. That the cast consists of an incredible collection of highly talented singers is equally apparent. That the idea of transporting a Greek tragedy to the setting of an African-American…

Caledonia

History repeating itself

23 Aug 2010

There is a moment in Alistair Beaton’s new play that creates a collective audible intake of breath from its audience. It is the point where Paul Higgins’ deluded huckster of a banker announces that his private corporation is now bigger than the state…

Teenage Riot

23 Aug 2010

What’s going through the mind of a teenager? Lovebites? Career prospects? Facebook? Dieting? All of the above, apparently. ‘My shrink doesn’t understand me!’ whines one teenager, in a comedy section where we get an emo blast of adolescent moans. ‘I am…

Vieux Carré

Bold, intelligent and intermittently entertaining play

23 Aug 2010

The Wooster Group pulls apart Tennessee Williams’ late play set in a New Orleans boarding house and painstakingly reassembles it, adding references to the work of Warhol collaborator Paul Morrissey’s avant-garde films of the 60s and 70s and the work of…

Allsopp and Henderson’s The Jinglists

Refreshingly outrageous jingle-based show

23 Aug 2010

Top quality radio jingles are hard to come by, when written well they will stubbornly refuse to leave your immediate head space, you may often find yourself uncontrollably singing along without even realising you knew the words. The two thirty-something…

Of Women and Horses I Have Known

A life in English eccentricity through comedy, theatre and music

23 Aug 2010

The true tale of the formidable Jean Hislop, a true eccentric from the English upper classes. The story charts her life living through the First World War to her days as a prize winning breeder on the horse racing circuit, causing controversy along the…

Mrs. Bang: A Series of Seductions in 55 minutes

An arrogant persona backed up by a powerful and diverse voice

23 Aug 2010

After theatrically conveniently being stood up by her band, Mrs Bang is forced to fly solo and rely on audience participation to make it through her debut cabaret/comedy performance at the Fringe. Playing the part of the slightly bitter performer whose…

The Love of a Clown

Clever combination of sentimental storytelling and traditional clown

23 Aug 2010

A clever combination of sentimental storytelling and traditional clown performance makes this show, overall, a very pleasant experience. The love struck star of the show is Jacques Raouso, am ageing clown who is reaching the end of his career on the…

It's Like He's Knocking

The magic of coincidence revealed, with free vodka

23 Aug 2010

'Who'd like some vodka?' asks a cheerful Leo Kay at the beginning of his Forest Fringe performance. A fitting intro, as it happens. Kay's bedsit-set show is all about sharing: booze (real not pretend), memories, ambitions and hopes (the audience's as…

Apples

23 Aug 2010

Adam and Eve, in this council estate reinvention of the myth, are two teens struggling (with four friends) to survive their sex, drug and violence-heavy environment. A series of rites of passage, from unwanted babies begat from equally unwelcome sexual…

The Crying Cherry

Oddball legends of Japanese psychological banditry

23 Aug 2010

Using an almost entirely made-up language, whip-crack precise movement and mind-boggling vocal sound effects, this oddball delight, riffing on Japanese samurai movies, tells the story of two brothers separated in childhood after a prophecy. The real joy…

Quality Control

Muddled yet ambitious little play

23 Aug 2010

This ambitious little play attempts to tackle too many issues: self esteem, adultery, closeted homosexuality and, oddly, corporate box-ticking attitudes to multiculturalism. Oh, and it has a violent life-sized crayon. It all ultimately comes out in a…

Barockestra: Rocking the Classics

Enthusiastic rock take on well-known classical pieces

23 Aug 2010

Rock interpretations of well-known classical pieces from Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and the like featuring a full rock band, opera singer and ballerinas to give a foot-tapping tour of the greats. Overlaid with a cheesy humour that you could only…

Miranda

Bollywood meets Shakespeare in this twist on the Tempest

23 Aug 2010

A naïve young actress full of Bollywood sass is recruited to join a British theatre company in their production of The Tempest. What follows is a rather adolescent ghost story of improbable romance and revenge. Ankur Bahl gives an animated performance…

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Critical commentary on mankind's hypocrisy

23 Aug 2010

Writer/actor Pip Utton follows his challenging one-man shows Adolf, Chaplin and Bacon with another deftly scripted and vividly performed drama, this one about Victor Hugo’s deformed Parisian bell-ringer. Taking the form of a monologue delivered by…

Naked Live and Never Again: My Last Discourse on Dramatic Method

Witty monologue about an acting guru

23 Aug 2010

Andrew Hawkins (son of veteran British actor Jack, star of Zulu and Ben Hur) gives a terrific performance in this witty monologue. Hawkins plays an acting guru named Jack Treadwell who, having had enough of coaching celebrities and politicians, is…

Über Hate Gang

Explosive and well executed play on terrorism

23 Aug 2010

The audience become (un)willing members of a terrorist act in this well-executed play, as the Über Hate Gang plan to blow up the theatre. A slightly meandering start gives way to some explosive confrontations as personal rifts and deeply hidden secrets…

The Wake

A nifty, audience-aware caper

23 Aug 2010

Recreating his father’s wake, impressionist David does his whole family, his wife does them differently, and they both do each other in a bid to find out who ‘did’ Alison. Jonathan Brittain’s award-winning student comedy is a nifty, audience-aware caper…

Porgy and Bess

French company take Porgy and Bess to the Deep South

22 Aug 2010

When Opera de Lyon’s Porgy and Bess is remembered, it will be for the extraordinary multimedia staging by the directorial double-act of Jose Montalvo and Dominique Hervieu. It isn’t only that we get 50-odd performers on stage - the dancers giving it…

Take 5: Festival shows getting you tipsy

20 Aug 2010

The Difference Between Gin And Bacardi Presented in the boozy confines of the Hive nightclub, this drama tells the story of three friends approaching a crossroads in their lives as they cope with the trials of adolescence. Which, as we all know…

Bane

Schizo-frenetic film noir parody

20 Aug 2010

Ben Roe walks across the stage, takes a seat, and releases what sounds like a gentle stream of water over the strings of his acoustic guitar. The audience barely has time to admire his fluid virtuosity when Joe Bone’s voice yelps out a prologue from…

Bane 2

Slightly less-effective sequel to the classic noir pastiche

20 Aug 2010

You don’t have to have seen the original Bane to appreciate this sequel, but it couldn’t hurt – and when it’s showing down the street, just a few hours beforehand, for only a fiver, there’s very little reason not to. Little winks to the audience, such…

The List Festival Awards 2010

From 'Wettest Venue' to 'Most Transparently Cynical Marketing Ploy'

20 Aug 2010

Hunkiest Ever Bunch of Crusties on a Junkyard The cast of Be-Dom, Udderbelly. Best Use of Glittering Matador Trousers in a STI-themed Performance Art Event: Bryony Kimmings in Sex Idiot, Zoo Roxy. Best Impression of a Garden Gnome: The identical…

Freefall

Take the plunge

20 Aug 2010

Michael West’s new work has already garnered a clutch of accolades in the company’s native Dublin, and richly deserved they are too. This is a piece of startlingly brilliant theatre; the powerful and enthralling tale of ‘a perfectly normal life’ told in…

Delilah Dix and Her Bag of Tricks

Queen Latifah's lovemaking secrets revealed

20 Aug 2010

Desperate, 'never-was starlet' Delilah Dix is a riot. And not just because of the white-trash celebrity anecdotes (which are hilarious) or the songs (gutsy and catchy yet teetering rather thrillingly on the edge of vocal disaster). No, it's character…

Why The Sun Also Rises is the least successful transatlantic crossing since Titanic

Steve Cramer's Festival blog

19 Aug 2010

I suppose the one compensation of sitting through the unforgivable The Sun Also Rises at the Lyceum was that it provided a little relief from the endless prurient sex obsessions of the Traverse next door, where one leaves every other show with the…

The Author

Outstanding show exploring voyeurism in art

19 Aug 2010

In a festival with a good deal of verbatim theatre, Tim Crouch’s new play deals in a timely fashion with the difference between pure reality and authenticity. The tale told is self evidently untrue, yet its truth feels increasingly more believable than…

Showstopper: The Improvised Musical

Our Fringe reviewer explains what it’s like to be part of the show.

19 Aug 2010

As a critic, I favour stealth and subtlety. Get in quickly, do not sit in the front row or anywhere else where the cast can see your notebook, and sneak out the back during the curtain call. I certainly don’t usually sit on stage, with the director…

Five Questions - David Paisley

19 Aug 2010

Scottish actor David Paisley, a well-kent face from Casualty and River City has swapped performing for directing with his latest project: a retelling of Burns’ life from the perspective of the women who knew him, written by David’s mother, the author…

Amy, Fate and Me

Redemption on the open road

19 Aug 2010

From Sausage and Samosa to Busting Out!, there's a lot on at this year's Fringe about the older woman: her life, loves, body and desires. Benchpresser-cum-actress/comedienne Sandra Risser, who readily describes herself as “older than ENIAC”, provides a…

An Evening with Dementia

Solo show raises big questions of our future with intelligence and understated humour

19 Aug 2010

With an ever increasing portion of the British population living longer lives, the unfortunate condition of dementia is an issue which more and more families, as well as society at large, are faced with. Complex, often life altering changes are required…

Pas Perdus

Delightful family-friendly clowning

19 Aug 2010

The booming voiceover that introduces this charming piece of physical theatre is that of a hypnotist inducing the calm of sleep on its audience. What then transpires is the appearance of a dream world, though the night visions we experience are far from…

Reykjavik

Get on the next flight

19 Aug 2010

Not one for the participation-averse, but any production where you get to dress as a Ghostbuster is fine by me. Flippancy aside, this is something a bit special. The unpromising surroundings of the Bongo Club are transformed into an evocative…

The Lasses, O

Scots narrative by the Scottish Bard’s women

19 Aug 2010

Janet Paisley re-animates a spectre from the hearts and minds of all those who were raised in Scotland or study its literary history, Robert Burns. Through the testimonies of five women close to him (midwife, storyteller, mother-in-law, smuggler and…

Little Black Bastard

Moving and shocking story of abuse

19 Aug 2010

Noel Tovey – one of Australia’s most respected performers and choreographers and a leading indigenous and LGBT rights activist – has enough raw material to draw on from his personal and professional experiences to fill several books and umpteen hours of…