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Alex Johnston

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Anne Boleyn from playwright Howard Brenton examines Tudor dynasty

Anne Boleyn from playwright Howard Brenton examines Tudor dynasty

Play promises unexpected take on history

17 Apr 2012

TS Eliot may have been weirder than an ultraviolet raccoon, but he had some good lines. One of them was that civil wars never really end. It might explain our enduring fascination with the Tudors: Henry VIII’s decision to divorce his first wife and…

Tim Price discusses his new play, For Once

Tim Price discusses his new play, For Once

The Pentabus production examines the impact of a car crash on the sole survivor

14 Mar 2012

Shropshire’s Pentabus Theatre has earned a shelfload of awards for its imaginative and challenging productions of stories set in rural areas. Television writer Tim Price’s debut play, For Once, is a case in point. Set in Wales, it’s about the impact of…

Betrayal is one of Harold Pinter's subtlest and most honest plays

Betrayal is one of Harold Pinter's subtlest and most honest plays

Dominic Hill directs work examining an affair

27 Feb 2012

There were many Harold Pinters: the gruff scourge of political hypocrisy; the resourceful screenwriter; the mesmerising actor, heroically playing Beckett when terminally ill; the not terribly good poet. Pinter the playwright, however, looms over them…

Paul McCartney - Kisses on the Bottom

Paul McCartney - Kisses on the Bottom

Macca covers 1920s and 1930s standards, with vanilla results

(3 stars)3 Feb 2012

Paul McCartney has the weirdest back catalogue of any Beatle. This is an album of the 20s and 30s standards his dad used to play and it's less weird than perplexing, thanks to the unfortunate choice of Tommy 'Mainstream' LiPuma as producer. After his…

Melmoth The Wanderer

Melmoth The Wanderer

Stage adaptation of Charles Maturin’s 1820 epic, sardonic shaggy dog

1 Feb 2012

The Northern Irish company Big Telly Productions has a taste for adapting unruly texts such as Spike Milligan’s manic novel Puckoon. Their latest production is an adaptation by Nicola McCartney of Charles Maturin’s 1820 novel Melmoth the Wanderer. An…

The Hot 100 2011: 100-40

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 - 49 to 1

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…

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast

Stuart Paterson's 'children's play' is enjoyable but lacks the energy of true panto

(3 stars)6 Dec 2011

The basic story is so simple it’s mythic: girl meets beast, they fall in love, beast turns into boy. Stuart Paterson’s venerable adaptation is a tad more complicated. There are ugly sisters (as if a titular ugly character weren’t enough), played with…

Pass the Spoon

Pass the Spoon

Shrigley's food-based opera aims for pure entertainment and succeeds

(4 stars)21 Nov 2011

The most David Shrigley has claimed of Pass the Spoon is that it's meant to be entertaining. It’s mock-modesty, but in Shrigley & Co's defence, they've succeeded. The plot, for there is one, is like a mash-up of Ready Steady Cook and Terry & June…

Dr Marigold & Mr Chops

Dr Marigold & Mr Chops

Great but high-cholesterol fun starring Simon Callow

(3 stars)2 Nov 2011

There's an old Yiddish showtune called ‘What can you mach? S'is Amerika’ (‘What can you do? It's America’), which comes to mind during this entertaining but frustrating show. It's not Simon Callow's fault. Performing two monologues by Charles Dickens…

Constantinople

Constantinople

Completely ridiculous and unexpectedly educational

(4 stars)23 Aug 2011

Theatre Beating’s lunatic dramatisation of the rise and fall of Constantinople is like a great pop song; it thrives on the tension between being completely brilliant and also very, very stupid. The jokes are consistently from the daft end of the street…

Phantasmagoria

Phantasmagoria

Depressing, lazy and naïvely acted

(1 star)23 Aug 2011

This glum story about friendship betrayed aims for something moving and grown-up, but isn’t helped by performances that vary from winsome to teeth-grindingly awful (it takes more than pouting, stomping and shouting to represent a child). The lazily…

Cutting the Cord

Cutting the Cord

Tragicomedy exploring immigration via young Japanese woman in London

(3 stars)11 Aug 2011

Audience members queueing to enter Cutting the Cord are invited to tell a small wooden box where they’re coming from and where they’re going to. What seems like gratuitous cuteness pays off at the end of this engaging and skilful exploration of the…

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