Tony Cownie

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…

Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off

Timely revival of Liz Lochhead's seminal allegorical play

21 Sep 2011

Liz Lochhead’s powerful, playful dissection of a key chapter in Scotland’s history may have debuted at the height of the Thatcherite 80s, but the play’s central themes – the pernicious effects of sectarianism, the Scots’ complex relationship with our…

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…

Tony Cownie's production of Liz Lochhead's Educating Agnes bubbles with wit and charm

Peter Forbes, Mark Prendergast and Nicola Roy star

28 Apr 2011

There’s lots to enjoy in this revival of Liz Lochhead’s translation of Moliere’s L’ecole des femmes, but perhaps the greatest pleasure comes from the wit and dynamism offered by the text itself. A palpable sense of anticipation grips the audience as we…

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…

New Lyceum production of The Importance of Being Earnest

Production follows on from Romeo and Juliet

27 Oct 2010

The Importance of Being Earnest arrives hot on the heels of the Lyceum’s recent production of Romeo and Juliet, and is employing virtually the same cast and the same set. Director Mark Thomson is excited at the prospect of getting his teeth into Wilde’s…

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 Cherry Orchard

29 Apr 2010

What’s immediately striking about John Byrne’s bold new adaptation of Chekhov’s swansong is how sympathetically it translates to its new setting – the north-east of Scotland on the eve of Mrs Thatcher’s first election victory in 1979 – with very little…

The Cherry Orchard

15 Apr 2010

It’s commonplace to see productions of Chekhov concentrate on the business of love and loss that so underpins his great dramas. Yet what is neglected, particularly in British productions, is the urgent sense of social change and economic disaster that…

Copenhagen

30 Apr 2009

Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen is that rarest of beasts: a fictionalised account of real-life events, dense in historical research, that manages not to lose sight of the human dilemma at its centre. Springing from a fascinating premise (a meeting between…

Copenhagen: Quantum leap

16 Apr 2009

One of the hallmarks of success in almost any profession is precision. It is this attention to detail that first strikes me about Tom Mannion. Forgetting the tram-inspired chaos of Princes Street, I arrive late at Edinburgh’s Blue Blazer and meet him…

Halloween Special - Mary Rose

16 Oct 2008

It’s often seen as an ill omen if a play of some antiquity is seldom revived. Yet, in the case of JM Barrie’s seldom seen play Mary Rose, this suspicion might not be justified. Certainly, in the year of its release, the play was well received…

Trumpets and Raspberries

24 Apr 2008

FARCE Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat 10 May Farce is a form that seems to thrive on dangerous times. From the great war disillusionment and depression that saw Travers and Coward at their peaks, on to the social revolution of the 60s that…

Trumpets and Raspberries

10 Apr 2008

REVIVAL Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Fri 18 Apr–Sat 10 May Even winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature have bad days at work. It might surprise you to know that Dario Fo felt he’d had one of these after the first preview of what, subsequently…

Vanity Fair

27 Mar 2008

ADAPTATION Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat 12 Apr Anyone watching the difficulties of our formerly all powerful financial sector over the last few months could not fail to be struck by some echoes in this production at the Lyceum. If you’re…

Sleeping Beauty (King's Theatre, Glasgow)

13 Dec 2007

The pitch It’s time for Princess Beauty to put away childish things, say goodbye to her childhood friend Chester the Jester (aaawwww!) and get ready for some right royal action. Carrion the witch and Norval her son (or is he?) have other ideas, however…

Mrs Warren's Profession

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, Fri 16 Feb-Sat 10

12 Feb 2007

CLASSIC Much of what passes for love these days is really about economics. Which of us hasn’t heard a man or woman criticise their loved one’s ‘lack of ambition’ in lieu, in fact, of a shortage of cash. In a society where so much of our emotional…

Tutti Frutti - feature

Cult fiction

12 Sep 2006

Steve Cramer talks to John Byrne about history, our relationship with the past and his new stage adaptation of his cult television hit, Tutti Frutti.