Theatre and David Laing

The Dogstone/Nasty, Brutish and Short

13 Nov 2008

NEW WRITING DOUBLE BILL The ongoing Debuts season presented by the Traverse both confounds and confirms the expectation invited by the listless opening effort Cockroach and the possibly gloomy subject matter (the darker side of the Scottish family)…

Noises Off

18 Sep 2008

REVIVAL Bringing farce to the fore, Michael Frayn’s 80s parody is touring once again, revealing the merry antics of a second-rate theatre company both on and off stage as it struggles with its ludicrous sex comedy, Nothing On. Nestling at the core…

Sunset Song

4 Sep 2008

Director Kenny Ireland is looking to instil some pride in the nation's literary heritage by bringing Lewis Grassic Gibbon's classic tale of community, national identity and sexual awakening back to the stage. Set in an early 20th century farming…

Fleeto

4 Sep 2008

The perceived increase in knife crimes on the streets of Scotland is steadily raising awareness of a deadly culture creeping through the nation's young population. Knives continue to be used only in around eight percent of violent crimes, but it's the…

The Factory

Vivid Holocaust journey

21 Aug 2008

'They came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.' Attributed to Martin Niemöller, this sentiment comes to mind during Badac Theatre's disturbing and compelling reconstruction of the death journey of so many of Hitler's final…

The Lie-in, the Itch and the Whore's Robe

Ikea-style physical theatre

21 Aug 2008

This comment on the consumerist ideology that holds us all together like a gargantuan supermarket carrier bag, imparts the notion of an overly ordered life with a fairly diverting blend of dance and rhyme. As a shrieking, nagging housewife coerces her…

Shafted

21 Aug 2008

Three men with motives for murder are trapped in a lift. As the lights flicker out, one succumbs to a macabre death in a straightforward thriller that even Stephen King would struggle to twist to life. Two valiant performances are dwarfed an almost…

Blue on Blue

21 Aug 2008

The subject of Afghan ambushes is pushed into the realm of cliché in this three-hander. Suffering after a possible friendly-fire incident, an American servicewoman shacks up with a Mujahedin rebel. An engaging performance from Arran Shanti fail to…

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…

Wanderlust

14 Aug 2008

Sometimes a performance is only as good as the audience that’s watching. This has never been more true than in Wanderlust, in which ten-foot Fraulein Hilda narrates her surreal life story. From her lowly (geddit?) roots, be-stilted Hilda weaves her…

Three Flying Solo

14 Aug 2008

One of three new plays under the ‘Flying Solo’ banner, Annie George’s Noor evokes striking and vivid images in an intimate autobiographical journey. Charting the details of a tempestuous relationship, Noor narrates her miscarriage and despair, each…

Charlie Victor Romeo

Tense slice of cockpit-set verbatim theatre

7 Aug 2008

The cockpit of an aeroplane is one of those intriguing but concealed nooks – like the vestry of a church or the wings of a theatre – generally forbidden to lay people, but which provide endless fodder for the imagination. What exactly is going on behind…

Footsbarn's A Midsummer Night's Dream

Action-packed Big Top Shakespeare

7 Aug 2008

Making their first ever appearance at the Fringe, the travelling company that started life in a Cornish barn succeeds in proving that there's no such thing as too much when it comes to Shakespeare. Firmly entrenching the view of the Bard's comedies as…

The Expert at the Card Table

Biographical trickery

7 Aug 2008

Never play cards with Guy Hollingworth. Concentrate as you may, those hands are too darned quick. As the crafty conjurer exhibits his prodigious talent at card chicanery, he employs an affable Englishness Hugh Grant would be proud of to relay the life…

The Fooligan

Tall tales by candlelight

7 Aug 2008

Al Seed displays an enviable gift for storytelling alongside a physical prowess to rival Max Wall in this one-man show. A vibrant series of clowning tableaux breaks up this atmospheric tale within a tale, as Seed recounts the exploits of one of the…

Plastic

7 Aug 2008

Mehrdad Seyf's exploration of gender identity descends quickly from a damp, fetid and warm ground-level cellar to cool, white vaults as the audience is encouraged to consider how the body we inhabit determines our sexuality. Like an underworld imagined…

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

5 Aug 2008

Dale Wasserman’s adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel, which celebrates one man’s attempt to subvert subtle hegemonic control, is given a treatment here that few texts deserve. Across the clumsy set, which resembles the whitewashed innards of an inside-out…

Outward Bound

5 Aug 2008

Camper than Kenneth Williams in a tent, Dan Hyde and Michele Flatto seize a school excursion as a backdrop for their patchy culture clash comedy. Part coming-of-age drama, part getting-to-understand-each-other buddy movie, this piece’s humour never…

War and Conflict

Theatre of war

31 Jul 2008

There’s always a profit to be made from war. The black market proved lucrative during World War II for the sale of rationed chocolate, coffee and cigarettes, while oil companies such as Halliburton have been kept ticking over nicely by the recent…

Our House

3 Jul 2008

MUSICAL Theatre Royal, Glasgow, until Sat 5 Jul; Playhouse, Edinburgh, Mon 7–Sat 12 Jul Following in the footsteps of popular jukebox musicals Mamma Mia! and We Will Rock You, comes this effort from writer Tim Firth (Calendar Girls), featuring the…

Les Parents Terribles

19 Jun 2008

REVIVAL Dundee Rep, until Sat 21 Jun The repression of our natural sexual urges was, in Freud’s view, a necessary step in the production of a civilised society. Mention this along with his theories on the Oedipus complex, and you can expect…

Blackbird

5 Jun 2008

REVIVAL Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Mon 9–Sat 14 Jun The gruesome ongoing discoveries in the Jersey abuse scandal and the uncovered horrors of Austrian Josef Fritzl’s secret basement have done little to quell the worst nightmares of parents. It is into…

Skin Piel (Without Sin)

8 May 2008

NEW WORK The Arches, Glasgow, Tue 20-Thu 22 May Morally questionable animal testing aside, in vivo research has proven its worth through centuries of scientific study, with experimentation on, or dissection of, entire systems providing valuable…

Abigail’s Party

24 Apr 2008

REVIVAL Brunton Theatre, Edinburgh, Thu 1 & Fri 2 May Neighbourhood cocktail parties, with their inevitable cheese and pineapple sticks, are something of a quaint 70s throwback, but notions of an aspiring middle class have altered little in the past…

The Rise and Fall of Little Voice

24 Apr 2008

REVIVAL Dundee Rep, until Sat 26 Apr, then touring This popular modern fable focuses on introverted songbird Little Voice (Debbie Saloman), who retreats to her bedroom to escape the attentions of her boisterous mother, Mari Hoff (Elaine C Smith).