Yasmin Sulaiman

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My Shrinking Life - Alison Peebles' MS-themed show

21 Aug 2012

Alison Peebles' first MS theatre piece will feature dancers and is directed by Belgian Lies Pauwels

Scotland has the highest levels of multiple sclerosis in the world, and one of the country’s most high profile sufferers is lauded actress, writer and director Alison Peebles. Peebles, who’s won acclaim in the past for her portrayal of Lady Macbeth and…

Hector MacMillan’s 40-year-old play The Sash remains relevant

15 May 20133 stars

Scottish revival of MacMillan's play reminds us that sectarianism still survives

This revival of Hector MacMillan’s 40-year-old play feels bittersweet. While most playwrights might revel in the enduring appeal of their work, MacMillan has recently commented that he’d be happier if the sectarianism portrayed in The Sash was no longer…

Let the Right One In re-written for stage by Dundee Rep

10 May 2013

John Tiffany and Steven Hoggett adapt Swedish vampire romance

Their screen-to-stage adaptation of Once won eight Tony Awards in 2012. Now, John Tiffany and Steven Hoggett are giving another cult film a theatrical makeover: Swedish vampire romance Let the Right One In. Adapted by John Ajvide Lindqvist from his own…

Stage production of Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong tours UK

18 Mar 2013

Rachel Wagstaff’s stage adaptation of celebrated novel

It’s twenty years since the release of Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks’ most celebrated novel. Now, the Original Theatre Company have revived playwright Rachel Wagstaff’s stage adaptation of the book, though it’s been substantially restructured from its 2010…

2013 Manipulate festival of puppetry and animation

22 Jan 2013

Programme includes work by TIP Connection, Will Anderson, Ainslie Henderson and The Paper Cinema

Now in its sixth year, the Manipulate Festival has evolved into a highlight of Scotland’s cultural calendar. In 2013, the puppetry and animation festival returns to the Traverse but adds Summerhall to its list of Edinburgh venues too and boasts its…

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Theatremakers Damir Todorovic and Kirsty Housley discuss Mayfesto 2013

17 Apr 2013

The political theatre fest will also feature plays from Jenna Watt, Daniel Bye and the Tron Studio

Mayfesto, the Tron’s annual festival of political theatre, takes truth and identity as its focus in 2013. Programme highlights include Flâneurs, Jenna Watt’s Fringe First-winning look at urban violence; The Price of Everything, Daniel Bye’s performance…

Julia Donaldson's Running on the Cracks adapted for the stage

23 Jan 2013

Tron artistic director Andy Arnold discusses his upcoming Julia Donaldson teen fiction adap

Although best known for The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson has also written fiction for teenagers. In her 2009 teen novel, Running on the Cracks, Leo, an orphaned half-English half-Chinese girl, flees her suspicious uncle’s home in Bristol for Glasgow, where…

Scottish poets choose a line of poetry from a compatriot’s work

2 Nov 2012

Brian Whittingham, Liz Niven, Kevin MacNeil, Tessa Ransford and Alistair Findlay

Brian Whittingham. ‘Granda, A miss yer voice, A miss yer han’ from ‘First Gemme’ by Derek Ross. The poem recaptures a boy’s association with his grandfather who was taking him to his first football game. It is evocative of a special relationship and…

Zinnie Harris' update of Ibsen's A Doll House puts fresh political spin on a proto-feminist classic

17 Apr 2013

'It’s all about how we look at the political couple behind the doors'

In 2009, playwright Zinnie Harris gave Henrik Ibsen’s masterful 19th century dissection of corruption and power a timely update. The acclaimed writer of The Wheel and Further than the Furthest Thing transposed the action from Norway’s financial world in…

Theatremaker Amanda Monfrooe on the award-winning Poke and Wuthering Heights double bill

17 Apr 2013

The Platform 18 double bill partners Poke with the all-male Wuthering Heights, by Peter McMaster

With its prize of a fully-funded production at the Arches and the Traverse, the Arches Platform 18 Award is one of Scottish theatre’s most coveted accolades. Former recipients include Nic Green and Cora Bissett, and 2012 winners Amanda Monfrooe and…

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Production of April in Paris from Perth Theatre and the Tron

18 Mar 2013

John Godber's bittersweet comedy was written 21 years ago

It’s been 21 years since acclaimed playwright John Godber wrote April in Paris, his bittersweet comedy about Bet and Al, a frustrated married couple from Hull who win a trip to the French capital. But the play still feels relevant today. ‘I got a real…

JB Priestley’s Time and the Conways revived by Royal Lyceum and Dundee Rep

20 Feb 2013

The play, directed by Jemima Levick, depicts a Yorkshire family at two points in the 20th century

An Inspector Calls may be JB Priestley’s most performed work but Time and the Conways is widely regarded as his best -- and this year, it’s been revived in a co-production between the Royal Lyceum and Dundee Rep. One of Priestley’s ‘time plays’, it…

Siege Perilous production Too Long the Heart tackles the Troubles in Northern Ireland

20 Feb 2013

David Hutchison's play, directed by Andy Corelli, sees a fishing trip turn into hostage situation

Over the last decade, Siege Perilous has cemented itself as one of Edinburgh’s most exciting theatre companies. Their new offering, Too Long the Heart, concerns itself with the burden of the past in Northern Ireland, when a man holidaying in County Cork…

Melvin Burgess - Hunger

13 Dec 20124 stars

Hammer's first book release fits well with the brand's cheesy horror image

Cult horror brand Hammer continues its multi-media reboot with this grizzly, fast-paced novella from Melvin Burgess, best-known for 1996’s Junk. First-year student Beth wakes up one morning covered in bruises and dirt, with no memory of the night…

Fuelfest theatre festival at Glasgow Tramway

16 Nov 2012

Work from David Rosenberg, Lewis Gibson, Inua Ellams and The Simple Things in Life

Since 2004, theatre company Fuel has worked with a range of artists – from the exiled Belarus Free Theatre to Perrier Award winner Will Adamsdale – to produce challenging and exciting theatre for global audiences. And in 2012, the company has brought…

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Actor William Troughton on Graham Linehan's The Ladykillers

18 Oct 2012

The stage adaptation of the Ealing comedy classic also stars Shaun Williamson and Clive Mantle

Fans of The Ladykillers may have been sceptical when Graham Linehan’s stage adaptation of the film premiered last year. But the Father Ted creator’s version of the classic Ealing comedy – in which a gang of petty criminals occupy an old lady’s house as…

Cast member Abby Ford discusses Simon Stephens' London

18 Oct 2012

For ford, the play is about 'ordinary people who share a loss of self in one way or another'

Simon Stephens is fast developing a reputation as Britain’s most prolific playwright, having given us Three Kingdoms and Morning this year already. His latest offering with Paines Plough, London, incorporates two previous plays: Sea Wall, which featured…

Kevin Powers - The Yellow Birds

13 Sep 20124 stars

Intensely poetic war drama set during and after the Iraq conflict

Kevin Powers’ debut novel is imbued with an intensely poetic rhythm. The heavy introspections of its protagonist, Private Bartle, flow hypnotically, like the desert landscape in which much of the book is set. Bartle is a soldier in the US Army, the…

Rising playwright Mike Bartlett talks about his newest adaptation, Medea

7 Sep 2012

The play will star Tipping the Velvet's Rachael Stirling in the title role

Mike Bartlett has gained a reputation as one of Britain’s most exciting young playwrights, with original plays like Love, Love, Love and Cock. But in 2012, he’s been focusing on adapted works: first with his stage version of Chariots of Fire, which…

The Three Englishmen: Squares

15 Aug 20123 stars

Gently amusing sketches could do with more pep to fulfil likeable lads' potential

The Three Englishmen – there’s four of them actually – aren’t blazing a new sketch comedy trail in in this show. But it’s a gently amusing hour with some stand out moments of hilarity, thanks primarily to their musical skills. The boys welcome us…

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Truth

13 Aug 20124 stars

Surreal character comedy from Angus Ecstatic creators

Vachel Spirason tells us multiple times at the beginning of Truth that he is a “storyteller”. For much of this bonkers 60 minutes, his story makes no sense at all – but trust that it all comes together satisfyingly in the end. With the invisible help…

Rhys Darby: This Way to the Spaceship

11 Aug 20124 stars

Conchords star makes stratospheric rise

It’s likely that Rhys Darby has been able to fill this very large venue thanks to his success as hapless band manager Murray Hewitt on Flight of the Conchords. But he proves in This Way to Spaceship that he’s much more than Murray, though he throws out…

The Curious Scrapbook of Josephine Bean

10 Aug 20124 stars

Rediscovering the beauty of scrapbooks

Shona Reppe’s new production is a wonderfully scientific venture that slowly blossoms into a love story. The set is beautiful and intricate, a cross between a science laboratory, an operating theatre and a dark room. Reppe dons a lab coat and becomes…

Knee Deep

10 Aug 20124 stars

Redfining the meaning of headstand

Casus, Australia’s most exciting new circus company, have the audience squealing and gasping within minutes of beginning. The four performers use each other as climbing frames, running up limbs and jumping off shoulders, creating four-person towers and…

Prolific young Nigerian author Chibundu Onuzo to talk at the 2012 Book Festival

9 Aug 2012

Looking to a future beyond books

Chibundu Onuzo’s tale is a heartening one for young writers. The Nigerian-born author began her first novel when she was just 17 and secured a two-book deal with Faber at 19, before being published at 21. Her debut, The Spider King’s Daughter, follows…