Theatre and David Pollock

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…

Hot 100 2011 - No. 49 to 1

The definitive list of Scottish creative talent

16 Dec 2011

The Hot 100 is the definitive list of Scottish creative talent. From fashion designers to performance artists, everyone who has made a sizeable splash in 2011 has a place in this countdown. It’s for people who’ve created a buzz, but it’s also about…

Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off

Lyceum and Dundee Rep co-production of Liz Lochhead's classic

24 Aug 2011

For director Tony Cownie and the cast of the Lyceum and Dundee Rep Ensemble’s new co-production of Liz Lochhead’s 1987 Scots classic, the Edinburgh Festival is over. Already they’ve had Lochhead in to give advice on pronunciations and, in the middle of…

Chris Larner - An Instinct for Kindness

True-life assisted suicide tale at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2011

26 Jul 2011

Having earned her third major Fringe award for last year’s forensic, verbatim one-man show Lockerbie: Unfinished Business, director Hannah Eidinow moves one step closer to her subject matter here. With An Instinct For Kindness, solo performer Chris…

English-language version The Golden Dragon set for Edinburgh 2011

Rabble rouser that isn’t afraid to shake-up convention

26 Jul 2011

‘It’s really sexy! It’s got naked women and lots of blood!’ Director Ramin Gray has his tongue planted firmly in his cheek as he attempts to sell his English-language version of celebrated contemporary German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig’s The…

Liz Lochead translation Educating Agnes explores universal themes

Scotland's Makar translates Moliere's The School for Wives into Scots

24 Mar 2011

Following on from the success of Tartuffe in 1985 and Miseryguts (nee The Misanthrope) in 2002, Scotland’s new makar Liz Lochhead will return once more here to translating the work of the 17th century French satirist Moliere into Scots, with the…

Six Black Candles revives adaptation of Des Dillon novel

Revenge story from writer of Singin’ I’m No’ a Billy, He’s a Tim

18 Mar 2011

'I see myself as the Bruce Springsteen of Scottish writers,’ says Des Dillon with a smile. ‘I write about a certain class of people – white trash, basically – and I write about them in simple language, using hardly any words to create powerful images.

The Hot 100 2010 - Mark Millar, Kevin Bridges and Alasdair Gray take top 3 spots

Our annual chart of the people from Scotland being interesting, successful and creative

16 Dec 2010

The Hot 100 is a list of Scots who’ve made a sizeable creative splash in 2010. It includes musicians, artists, writers, actors, fashion designers, technological innovators, shop owners, festival directors, record label heads and one mad cyclist.

Reel-to-Real: The Movies Musical aims for a spectacular show of the best of the genre

Show promises intense live multi-media entertainment

27 Jul 2010

Producer Simone Genatt Haft is utterly convincing in selling Reel-to-Real, the show she and business partner Marc Routh are bringing to this year’s Fringe, and it sounds like she has every reason to be. ‘This is probably the most intense live…

Hot Mess takes modern angst theatre into the nightclub

Experimental look at contemporary relationships from hot young playwright

27 Jul 2010

Despite feeling increasing pressure to give in and follow every other hot young thing to London, playwright Ella Hickson doesn’t want to leave Edinburgh behind. A graduate of Edinburgh University, Hickson wrote and directed her breakthrough Fringe play…

Edinburgh Fringe show based on 7th July 2005 London bombings

Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think of You addresses 7/7 London attacks

16 Jul 2010

Molly Naylor is nervous, she doesn’t mind admitting. That’s partly because her first ever one-woman Edinburgh Fringe show is nearing the end of its rehearsal period when I speak to her, and is about to be unleashed upon preview audiences within a matter…

George’s Marvellous Medicine and enduring appeal of Roald Dahl’s work

14 Jul 2010

As a brand new adaptation of George’s Marvellous Medicine arrives in Glasgow David Pollock talks to director Neal Foster about the enduring appeal of Roald Dahl’s work ‘The main secret to adapting Roald Dahl is that he doesn’t censor himself and he…

King Lear

Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, until Sat 10 Jul

2 Jul 2010

As is so often the case with outdoor performances, an audience’s ultimate enjoyment of this first show in Bard in the Botanics’ 2010 season might be more a matter of projection than performance. While some of the parts require – and are afforded – a…

Dundee Rep bring Stephen Sondheim Sweeney Todd's musical to the stage

4 May 2010

There’s little heroism to be found in a tale of murder and cannibalism, but Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street at least attempts to find some rationale for the actions of the titular killer in tragedy and…

A Microfestival by Forest Fringe

15 Apr 2010

Although its appearance on this coming year’s Edinburgh Fringe will be its fourth, 2009 was year zero for the Forest Fringe in many respects. Picked up on by numerous wings of the Scottish and UK press, the organisers’ commitment to new, challenging and…

The Goat, Or Who Is Sylvia?

15 Apr 2010

‘It’s a drawing room comedy,’ says the Traverse Theatre’s artistic director Dominic Hill, ‘about a man who has an affair with a goat.’ This description doesn’t tell you everything you need to know of this play about the vagaries of sexuality and social…

Little Red Riding Hood

9 Dec 2009

It’s perhaps understandable, given the venue, that this version of the classic fairy tale comes across as a very Glasgow indie Christmas show. Alasdair Macrae, Mary Gapinski and Ewan Donald narrate the story in soft Jackanory-style accents, while…

The Hot 100 2008

11 Dec 2008

It’s been a helluva year. 2008 has been a time of significant global change, socially, politically and culturally, with Scotland no exception. So here, for your delectation, is The List’s pick of the 100 people, places and things that rocked our world…

Blue

16 Oct 2008

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE While its existence in any sort of visual medium is an artistic victory, the ambition of Derek Jarman’s Blue becomes most apparent when you discover that he drummed up money for the film by staging it as a series of live…

Only the brave

Arches Live!

4 Sep 2008

As Arches Live! returns to Glasgow for its sixth year, David Pollock talks to new artistic director Jackie Wylie about her vision for the annual celebration of experimental theatre and performance art

Stage Oddities

31 Jul 2008

Death By Chocolate ‘Interview the suspects, sample the chocolates, solve the crime’ is the pitch for this interactive murder mystery night. The setting is a chocolate-themed singles’ night; the audience are given notepads and pens and encouraged to…

Clubbing onstage

Chemical Romance

31 Jul 2008

As an experience that thrives on the spontaneity of the moment, and, often, some kind of altered state of consciousness, clubbing is a difficult subject to translate into drama. Since the mid-90s, the much-trumpeted drug movie or novel has largely…

Yasser

Provocative character study with political overtones

31 Jul 2008

‘This is a play which is political, without becoming partisan political,’ says director Teunkie van der Sluijs. ‘It was written just before 9/11, so it doesn’t have that lamenting post-9/11 outlook that now occurs in all forms of writing which deal with…