H.S. Baker, Author at North West End UK

3Apr

By H.S. BakerNo Comments

Scotland

Little Women – Festival Theatre

Louisa May Alcott’s classic, much loved tale of the coming of age of the March sisters in 19th century Massachusetts, is brought to the stage in an adaptation by Anne-Marie Casey. The narrative will be familiar to many, and is loosely based on Alcott’s own life. Sisters Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy, living a frugal life with their mother, Marmee, whilst father is away fighting in the American Civil war, struggle to keep spirits up as they endure the deprivations that poverty brings them. They could ask rich Aunt March for money, but no one really likes her or her strict views on what is considered proper behaviour in good society. When father is injured in battle, Jo (always one for the dramatic gesture), cuts off her hair and sells it for $25 to help pay for Marmee to tra...

17Mar

By H.S. BakerNo Comments

Scotland

Wild Rose – Royal Lyceum Theatre

Rose-Lynn Harlan loves country music and is pretty good at singing it too. Her burning ambition is to sing at The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. The trouble is, she’s just been released from prison and has a tag on her ankle. Whilst Rose-Lynn was incarcerated, her mother has been looking after her two children and now thinks her family deserve her presence and attention. Set in Glasgow, it turns out that Glasgow has its own Grand Ole Opry, (who knew?) and Rose-Lynn gets a job as a cleaner. The rest is fairly standard and predictable. Mother give Rose-Lynn the money to go to Nashville, Rose-Lynn realises what’s really important and the final song, “Glasgow (no place like home)” says it all. But this show isn’t about the narrative, it’s about the music, and if you like country m...

21Nov

By H.S. BakerNo Comments

Scotland

101 Dalmatians – Edinburgh Playhouse

This musical is very much a children’s entertainment, so it’s therefore surprising that it runs the standard length of time, despite starting and finishing half an hour earlier than one normally expects. It would benefit considerably from being at least half an hour shorter, without losing any of the essential story telling or spectacle. The narrative is a simple one, the evil Cruella de Vil desires a wardrobe of outfits made of white with black spots fur, and to that end, sends her two incompetent nephews to steal all the Dalmatians in the area. With music and lyrics by Douglas Hodge, book by Johnny McKnight from an original novel by Dodie Smith, and directed by Bill Buckhurst, this musical has a lot in common with pantomime. With Cruella the villain we all love to bo...

Dementia The Musical – The Sudio, Edinburgh

14Oct

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Scotland

Dementia The Musical – The Sudio, Edinburgh

Written by Ron Coleman (aka The Demented Poet), himself a dementia sufferer, the inspiration for this thought-provoking musical was three people living with the diagnosis. They are James McKillop, Nancy McAdam and Agnes Houston, dementia activists, who are portrayed on stage by three 30 somethings. More of that later. Having started life as a play, it soon turned into a musical, composed by Sophie Bancroft with additional music by Andrew Eaton-Lewis. The narrative is based on the campaigning work of the three dementia activists and set in the near future when the fictitious British Bill of Rights allows the system to control individuals with dementia, deciding for them where they live and what they can do. Karen Tennent’s set design is simple and versatile,...

Blue Man Group: Bluevolution World Tour – Festival Theatre

11Oct

By H.S. BakerNo Comments

Scotland

Blue Man Group: Bluevolution World Tour – Festival Theatre

Where to start? Well, if you don’t like rib rattling drumming, strobe lighting and a full on multisensory happening, don’t see this show! It is an experience of epic proportions, colourful, loud, funny and stompingly engaging. The fun starts before the show begins, with public announcements being displayed on a board reminiscent of those motorway signs. Neon red letters requested us not to be annoying with our phones and announced that the flying of drones was definitely not allowed. Blue Men come in threes. They are mute, bald, blue and strangely endearing. They are curious about everything, like silent aliens they seek to connect with the unfamiliar world in which they find themselves. Essentially, I suppose the Blue Men are dru...

26Sep

By H.S. BakerNo Comments

Scotland

Blood Brothers – Edinburgh Playhouse

Blood Brothers is an emotional morality tale which is all about the narrative, less about the music. Poor and fecund Mrs Johnstone discovers she is expecting twins shortly after starting work as a cleaner for rich infertile Mrs Lyons. With her husband having done a bunk and too many mouths to feed already, Mrs Johnstone agrees to let Mrs Lyons have one of her twins. Conveniently Mr Lyons is away on business for nine months, so Mrs Lyons is able to create the pretence of pregnancy, fooling everybody including her husband, into believing the baby is hers. The show’s narrator constantly warns of the consequences of their actions and is the voice of impending doom throughout. Written by Willy Russell, directed by Bob Tomson and Bill Kenwright (resident director...

The Accused – theSpace at Surgeons’ Hall

21Aug

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Scotland

The Accused – theSpace at Surgeons’ Hall

After taking our seats in the performance space we waited in spooky red light, listening to eerie music, knocking and screams. So the mood was set – for murder! Daniel Hindley is on trial for the murder of pretty young thing Samantha Sutcliffe (names sound familiar?), after she stole the starring role in a show in which he had been promised the lead. After the charges have been read in the court, we see in flashback, various key moments leading up to the awful crime, although stopping short of revealing the actual killer. That’s up to the jury to decide. Before the case was presented, members of the audience had to look under our seats to discover if we had been selected for jury duty in the form of the presence, or not, of a paddle with “G” on one side...

In The Sick of It – Assembly George Square

17Aug

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Scotland

In The Sick of It – Assembly George Square

In the interest of transparency, I must declare from the start that I worked as a nurse in the NHS for over forty years. But this show, which I will struggle to define adequately, is by no means of interest only to NHS workers. We all use the NHS, we all care about the NHS, we all complain about the NHS and we all agree with the values of the NHS – “free at the point of need, providing care from the cradle to the grave.” Not only would everyone be entertained, amused, informed and moved by this show, but I almost feel attendance should be mandatory! “In the Sick of it”, presented by Wake the Beast, is a fusion of laugh out loud comedy, serious drama, audio newscasts, recorded interviews, audience participation, and some pretty cool music and crazy dancing. Th...

Agatha Christie’s The Rats – theSpace on the Mile

14Aug

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Scotland

Agatha Christie’s The Rats – theSpace on the Mile

Performed by Hart Players, from Fleet in Hampshire, The Rats is one of a trilogy of less familiar Agatha Christie plays known as the Rule of Three. Each play stands alone, but has links between the characters, which become apparent when all three are performed as a single production. At a little over 30 minutes long, The Rats is the shortest in the trilogy. Described as “a dark and chilling tale”, this production didn’t quite seem to know where to pitch the style, hovering somewhere between playing it straight and playing for laughs. Either would have worked, but as it was this play neither thrilled nor amused. Sandra (Helen Tyson) arrives at an apartment, allegedly the home of the Torrences, to which she’s been invited to a party.&nbs...

9Aug

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Scotland

Through The Mud – Summerhall Main Hall

Opening to screened news footage of the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, a mixed race student (Tinashe Warikandwa) is moved to join the protests and become a fierce advocate in the Black Lives Matter movement. 42 years earlier Assata Shakur, as a member of the Black Panther Party is violently involved with the civil rights movement, leading to a conviction for the killing of a State Trooper on the New Jersey Turnpike. Shakur (played by Apphia Campbell) later escaped prison and fled to Cuba, where she still lives and remains on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. The two women share the stage with Shakur as a sort of ghost mentor, reliving her own fight, as the student becomes ever more embroiled in the 2014 escalating violence, following one of the main prot...