Greg Holstead, Author at North West End UK

Tarmac Lullaby – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

30Oct

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Tarmac Lullaby – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

Part of the five-day long Edinburgh Horror Festival, at The Banshee Labyrinth just off Edinburgh’s ghostly Royal Mile. A suitably dark and stormy night saw me head out for a Labyrinthine hat trick of horror. First up, written by Daniel Orejon for his theatre company Crested Fools, this one-woman show looses its way a little by being way too wordy for its own good. Often the simplest stories told well work out the best. A flow chart showing all of the characters featured in the stories and their relationships would have been handy. A chance meeting in a car park brings together two old schoolteacher friends, and soon they are recounting stories from the past, but these are not cosy school stories, these are tales of blood-weeping daughters, abusive relationships, a foul-mouthed mo...

22Oct

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Woman Walking – Traverse Theatre

This two women play by Sylvia Dow ends its three week tour of twelve Scotland venues at the hot and stuffily subterranean Traverse 2. Ironic perhaps, given that the setting is (supposedly) a breezy mist covered mountain top. As solo hill walker Cath, played by Pauline Lockhart, in hiking boots and sporting an infeasible large rucksack stops for a chocolate break, she finds she is not alone. And yet there is no surprise, no shock as she chats with the tweed-clad and grey-streaked Nan Shepherd, played by Fletcher Mathers. At the heart of the problems with this production is the lack of drama, of shock, of revelation. The narrative is linear and pedestrian and with a minimal set you might just as well be overhearing two post menopausal woman moaning about life in a Tesco car park. &n...

Jasdeep Singh Degun and the Scottish Ensemble – The Queens Hall, Edinburgh

8Oct

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Jasdeep Singh Degun and the Scottish Ensemble – The Queens Hall, Edinburgh

At The Queens Hall tonight Jasdeep Singh Degun sits cross-legged smiling and calm, cradling his sitar, on a raised Dias in the middle of the stage, and at his shoulder equally laid-back, Harkiret Singh Bahra, his regular accompanist on the Tabla, a pair of hand drums from the Indian subcontinent. In a semi-circle around the pair the Scottish Ensemble quintet are assembled, the violins of Jonathan Morton and Donald Grant, the viola of Jane Atkins, Naomi Pavri on Cello and Diane Clark on Double Bass. The striking difference is that Degun and Bahra do not have iPads in front of them streaming the music. As Degan explains in the excellent programme notes, ‘In Indian Classical music, we don’t get caught up in notation,… instead you should learn and embody the music in its entirity’. In an...

13Sep

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The King and I – Edinburgh Playhouse

A show originally performed in 1956, It would be easy to write this off as old, irrelevant, dull, an anachronism, a three-hour yawn fest? How wrong you would be! It is the very opposite on all counts and has to be one of the most opulent and lavish and thoroughly entertaining touring productions I have ever seen at The Edinburgh Playhouse. Not only that, it also has themes which are extremely relevant and pertinent to our times. At its centre, the role of women, particularly in Asian society and the tensions between East and West, which are probably even more extreme and concerning now than they ever were when this was written. Anna Leonowens, played brilliantly by Annalene Beechey, is the headstrong school mistress travelling to Bangkok in Siam (now Thailand) to teach the King’s (Brian...

24Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Jake Bugg – Edinburgh Playhouse

Bringing my Edinburgh Fringe reviewing to an end for another year (with review number 63!), an absolute belter, five-star performance by Nottingham lad, singer-songwriter and supreme musician, Jake Bugg, at the Edinburgh Playhouse. An artist that I have known of and heard snippets of over the last ten years, this concert came as a very pleasant surprise, and reminded me that I actually do know loads of his songs, albeit not the names of them! Luckily, I was sitting next to fellow reviewer and big Bugg fan, Eilidh Tuckett from Artmag, who was able to lean over and tell me the names of the songs as they came thick and fast. Thanks Eilidh! From the very Oasis sounding, Kingpin, from Bugg’s second album to the much softer and more lyrical Hold Tight, his favourite from his fifth album, y...

The Music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie – The Jazz Bar

23Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie – The Jazz Bar

The Colin Steele quintet, featuring the brilliant saxophone of Martin Kershaw, cooked it up a storm at The Jazz Bar tonight. A young lady in the front row (who couldn’t have been more than 11 years-old!) was back for the second night in a row. And why not, when you have musicianship of this quality on your doorstep. The superlatives list would be long for the saxophone playing of Martin Kershaw who was the stand-out on stage, a truly world-class performer. Beautifully supported by Colin Steele on trumpet, Pete Johnstone on keys, Brian Shiels on Bass and Max Popp on the skins. It was great to see the level of respect and love for their fellow players and the space they all received to show off their individual skills on the various instruments, all of which was heartily applaud...

The 7 Fingers: Duel Reality – Underbelly Circus Hub

23Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The 7 Fingers: Duel Reality – Underbelly Circus Hub

Now, here is an oddity, a show I have seen twice, once on preview night at the start of the Fringe, and again tonight, and I can immediately see improvements! The first thing to say, is that this show is best viewed from the central seating area (where I was tonight), if you can. Duel reality starts with a beautifully choreographed fight scene between the two ‘sides’ of the ten-strong troupe, pitting the blues against the reds. To add to the audience experience you are given a wrist band of blue or red as you enter the circus tent and ‘requested’ to support your team. There is whooping, clapping, screaming from the audience – this idea sounds like it is working well! Raising the stakes of the team struggle, we soon come to realise that Blue is Capulet and Red is Montague and the ...

22Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Shooglenifty – Rose Theatre, Edinburgh

I vaguely recall the Shoogles, it must have been more than 25 years ago in some dank Edinburgh cellar. But I still remember being moved, shocked even, by the discovery that Scottish traditional music could be funky, edgy, dance-worthy! I cannot remember what I was expecting then (Jimmy Shand perhaps?!), but the band that termed the phrase Acid Croft were a musical revelation. And here tonight, at The Rose Theatre, nothing has changed, yet everything has changed. No longer led by their charismatically big-bearded frontman, fiddler, Angus Grant, who used to bound around the stage like some BFG and always whipped the crowd up a storm, lost way too early to throat cancer in 2016. But somehow, they have survived, regrouped, with new fiddler Eilidh Shaw, fitting in beautifully to the w...

22Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Heaven – Traverse Theatre

This play is a compelling duel monologue between a wife and her husband during the weekend of a spirited wedding celebration in a small town in the Irish Midlands. The dialogue alternates between Janet Moran’s Mairead, a 50-something social worker with a fiery temper, and Mal, her mild-mannered teacher husband who has somehow managed to suppress his homosexual leanings for the last thirty years, but suddenly, with the littlest of pushes, finds a calling to action them. Meanwhile, Mairead finds her own passions reignited in an old flame who she hasn’t seen since she was 20. Beautifully written by Eugene O’Brien, and sensitively delivered with a light Irish brogue, direct to the audience, has everyone leaning in and laughing or smiling knowingly. The set and lighting design are exquis...

After The Act (A Section 28 Musical) – Traverse Theatre

21Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

After The Act (A Section 28 Musical) – Traverse Theatre

A law existed until very recently which refused to acknowledge that gay and lesbian existence was normal. Between 1988 and 2003 a local government act was introduced which decreed that councils and schools throughout the United Kingdom be silent on homosexuality and not spend time in lessons discussing or acknowledging let alone normalising its existence. This production by Breach Theatre, written by Ellice Stevens and Billy Barrett, with an original score by Frew, After The Act takes as it’s starting point the Danish children’s book Jenny Lives With Eric and Martin, which caused such an uproar when it was launched into schools in the early 1980’s. Set against the suddenly rising AIDS epidemic, people panicked, burned the books, protests against teaching same-sex relationships in school...