Danielle Farrow, Author at North West End UK

24Aug

By Danielle FarrowNo Comments

Scotland

EXXY – King’s Theatre

It’s quite something when the safety feature at the start of a show is for the audience’s health rather than the performers, and EXXY from Dan Daw Creative Projects continues to be quite something throughout this highly physically accessible production, with its built in text and sign language throughout, as well as being set up as a relaxed performance, with warning cues for more extreme lighting and sound. EXXY is labelled dance-theatre. It seems more heavily theatre, but with that dance quality which places the work of understanding movement onto the audience itself. Spoken word aspects (live and recorded), along with text and images projected onto the corrugated back wall, and strong soundscapes, all provide context - including Daws’ nan’s backyard and hospital settings - in which h...

10Aug

By Danielle FarrowNo Comments

Scotland

Bog Witch – Traverse Theatre

A few branches and linen-looking sheets, fresh air and husbandry, home produce and homemade felt. How simple! Here’s permaculture, with a touch of children’s story narration, a one-eyed cat and some fine song and dance, all amid the beautiful changing seasons. How sweet! NOT when it is Bryony Kimmings’ take on the reality of uprooting for love, being a mackerel out of water, having a huge personal hole to fill, and a bog calling you to surrender to the witch. Bryony Kimmings’ exploration of life and climate changes makes the sweet saucy and the simple complex. Bog Witch - showing Kimmings’ own reluctant move to the country - is fantastically full of cynical city-slick humour, hilarious and highly adept physicality and wit, and strange rural practices. The unexpected is peppered w...

Up Late with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – The Hub

19Aug

By Danielle FarrowNo Comments

Scotland

Up Late with Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – The Hub

Against the backdrop of an ornately carved wooden pulpit and screen, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith communes with her audience through her music, with Persian rugs below her black modern-tech-laden table, and colourful rib vaulting arching high above her in The Hub’s Main Hall, originally a Church of Scotland debating chamber. This juxtaposition of traditional and contemporary creations is a suitable setting for her distinctive voice and compositions. Smith uses Buchla synthesizers, whose original creator Don Buchla apparently intended his instruments to make new sounds, rather than simply imitating existing instruments and sounds. This marries very well with Smith’s pioneering work, which draws on classical training and a type of synesthesia in which sounds form physical sensations for her. Wat...

Orpheus and Eurydice – Edinburgh Playhouse

18Aug

By Danielle FarrowNo Comments

Scotland

Orpheus and Eurydice – Edinburgh Playhouse

From the lone woman in red descending during the overture to the final full stage that yet starkly reflects the beginning, this multi-company production of the Gluck & Calzabigi Orfeo ed Euridice presents stunning spectacle. Does something so visually focused serve opera? The original 1762 production was part of a reformation of opera which challenged elaborate action and technique centred “extreme sport” opera, as noted in the programme, which also includes Gluck’s own striving for music’s “true office of serving poetry by means of expression and by following the situations of the story, without interrupting the action or stifling it with a useless superfluity or ornaments.” The original opera still included dance, and, for the most part, Yaron Lifschitz - director and set desig...

16Aug

By Danielle FarrowNo Comments

Scotland

Not Without Right – C alto

What right has anyone to claim they know what Shakespeare intended, and which parts come directly from his life, in the works of Shakespeare? What right has anyone to doubt these were written by Shakespeare? And what right has a non-university-educated player to create works still claimed to contain all of humanity, 400 years after they first appeared? If this sounds like a literary or historical treatise, fear not! Will and Company’s play is full of vigour, vim and humour. It has passionate attack and defence which entertains as well as informs, and two strong performances from actors who thrive on bouncing off each other and Shakespeare’s lines, here well understood and dexterously used. These attributes in themselves grant the right to at least explore those first questions and S...

Shakespeare for Breakfast + Shakespeare for Kids – C aurora

13Aug

By Danielle FarrowNo Comments

Scotland

Shakespeare for Breakfast + Shakespeare for Kids – C aurora

Shakespeare for Breakfast has been a staple of the Fringe since the early ’90s and no show can retain the same extremely high standard through all those years. There had been a decline recently, mostly on the script front, but this year is the strongest S4B has been for some time. Shakespeare’s language is back at the heart of the production and the concept - the more-used-to-presenting-panto Sittingbourne All Stars producing the Bard for the first time - allowed for plenty of fun. This included subtle references to topical news and well-known adverts rather than over-reliance on these for the entertainment that wove through an interestingly / controversially blood-less rendition of Macbeth. The cast, shifting characters with skill, clarity and apt costume throughout, made decent us...

11Aug

By Danielle FarrowNo Comments

Scotland

Macbeth @ ZOO Southside

It isn’t really the done thing to start a review by simply quoting from the show’s blurb, but here it is - and why? Because The Barden Party absolutely delivers on what it promises: “A thrilling, saucy rendition of Shakespeare's classic tragedy, Macbeth… with a sassy, sexy bluegrass flair… transforming Macbeth into an unforgettable experience full of music, mischief and magic.” ( Read in full here: www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/macbeth ) The Thane of Fife’s relationship with the throne of Scotland unfolds with all the glorious language, tension and moments of humour that makes “the Scottish play” so popular, augmented by song (something that previous centuries have also seen). Macbeth’s ambition is spurred along by her crown-focused husband and the Wyrd Brothers’ witchcraft - most p...

To Whom Should I Complain – Just the Tonic at the Caves

5Aug

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Scotland

To Whom Should I Complain – Just the Tonic at the Caves

An about-to-be-nun takes to the stage at a comedy club. She just needs to make a point about that last joke. The one about a priest and a nun. Then there’s the friar and the nun. There’s a lot in that one and she really needs some help with processing. She’ll see if she can be edgy. She’s actually really on edge. And there are some very good reasons why… In a Just the Tonic’s Caves space, in classic stand-up comedy style, supplied simply with a stool, a microphone and a drink, Moira McAuliffe delivers on the humour with a cheeky awareness and a whole lot to say about men’s roles in women’s lives, religious indoctrination, and just how far becoming aware of what's going on around you can - or can’t - get you. McAuliffe’s fascinating approach draws parallels between her life and wh...

OSCAR at the Crown – Assembly George Square Gardens

17Aug

By Danielle FarrowNo Comments

Scotland

OSCAR at the Crown – Assembly George Square Gardens

Looking for a fun time, high energy performances, catchy music and something that might have an intriguing concept, but you’re not really invested in what it is? Then check out ‘OSCAR at the Crown’ and enjoy the party! There is plenty to dance along to, laugh along with and yes, there is some depth here to ponder should you so wish. Philosophically, this show touches on identity, presentation, life choices and truthful expression, with a lens of pop culture and party fever, culminating in a beautiful way of questioning its central icon. Oscar Wilde is suitably a flamboyant figure, full of wit and charm, but what we learn of him is given in potted history, and the show could easily be built on any number of iconic / celebrity figures who have met with tragedy after adulation. Ther...

15Aug

By Danielle FarrowNo Comments

Scotland

Ophelia – Greenside @ Riddles Court

Do women still need to fight for space simply to be? As uncomfortable as it is to watch a woman always holding back, are we willing to see her rage? I recommend watching Bristol University Spotlights’ ‘Ophelia’ to help answer such questions with their play based on Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ but very much set in the world of a modern Ophelia. This is a world where we don’t quite learn how Hamlet would come to kill Ophelia’s father, but that is actually in keeping with it being Ophelia’s story and with the narrowness of the space within which she is confined. The play is particularly strong at the start, revealing the young protagonist’s mind: very real, very relatable. Her meeting with Hamlet beautifully demonstrates why she is attracted to him and why he can take such possession of ...