Roger Jacobs, Author at North West End UK

Samantha Day (I’ve Started So I’ll Finish) – Edinburgh Banshee Labyrinth

10Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Samantha Day (I’ve Started So I’ll Finish) – Edinburgh Banshee Labyrinth

Self-styled Heritage Hottie, self-confessed Recovering Accountant sits in a quiet, dark corner of (Scotland’s most haunted pub/venue – tell us another!) The Banshee Labyrinth and at least we know we’re in the right queue. Thirty minutes later we’re in the company of someone hilariously dark but nowhere near quiet. It’s an intimate venue, the Cinema Room, and proximity to a performer such as Day provokes the odd spot of discomfort, related anatomical details notwithstanding. But it’s so worth it. Reminiscences about ‘Dating Direct’ (was a thing in the late noughties, apparently), lies and false photos posted, one’s inability with age to suppress comments about others, self-effacing admissions regarding youth (‘I was like Harrods, everyone was queuing to get in’) pepper an hour where the tim...

Ian Stone (The Plebs Pow Wow) – Edinburgh Counting House

10Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Ian Stone (The Plebs Pow Wow) – Edinburgh Counting House

And if you do end up with a Rhino-sized hamster in your kitchen, make damn sure it has its trousers in order and understands the recommended toilet manoeuvres. You get meh? ‘Mon there, keep up. Especially Keith from Canada. There’s audience sympathy for Keith, for so quick and break-neck is the pace of this show, it’s a tall ask. Speaking of which, just take a moment to contemplate the diminutive Hazel Blears given the responsibility for floods back in 2007? Speaking of politicians, there’s a brief assessment of prime ministers from Tony Blair, Gordon Brown et al up to and including Andy Burnham. It’s exhausting, impossible to take your eyes off him or take even a second to pass comment to your neighbour. There are twists and turns, but Stone doesn’t slow down for any of them. It’s ...

Ordinary Elephant – Edinburgh Traverse Bar

28Jul

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Ordinary Elephant – Edinburgh Traverse Bar

There are Banjo jokes too numerous – and withering – but after an evening with Ordinary Elephant, in the apt setting of the Traverse bar, erstwhile gag-writers might be forced to revise their material. In the hands of Pete Damore are revealed hitherto unknown sensitivities and tasteful textures, a perfect complement to the soaring vocals and gentle guitar strumming of Crystal Hariu-Damore. It’s atmospheric and dreamy yet with an edge courtesy of insightful, well-observed lyrics, reminding one instantly of The Delines. ‘…born to be a bigot… don’t mean that I am one…’ from ‘Scars We Keep’ appears to hit home with every member of the audience. And the thing one quickly forgets is that it’s just them, husband and wife, with lushly matched vocals and a stringed instrument each. There’s nothing ...

The Karate Kid: The Musical – Festival Theatre

24Jun

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

The Karate Kid: The Musical – Festival Theatre

Yet another musical version of a successful film from back in the day and though they rarely miss, not all hit. The production values are usually high and this is no exception. A superb set consisting chiefly of brightly coloured Japanese screens propelled around by cast members creates the different sets; the arcade where Daniel meets Freddie Fernadez and first encounters Ali, the Larusso household, Mr Miyagi’s den, the Cobra Kai gym and so on. It’s visually thrilling with some sharp light changes, the choreography, skilfully incorporating elements of the Okinawan martial discipline, exciting and well-executed. Gino Ochello is perfectly competent as Daniel, as is Abigail Amin as Ali but it’s with quiet authority that Adrian Pang steers the ship in an unexpectedly gentle comic manner as Mr...

10Jun

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Dear Evan Hansen – Church Hill Theatre

There are few cinematic puzzles more challenging than trying to complete a viewing of Dear Evan Hanson. Trust me, I tried, twice. However… abandon your car, bus, hackney cab or pushbike in Morningside and dodge the hailstones – it is, after all June, in Edinburgh – to the stunning Church Hill theatre for this Room 29 Theatre Co production. There are five more performances left from tomorrow (today by the time you’re reading this) June 10th, until June 13th including a Saturday matinee. This was excellent from start to finish, genuinely moving, touching and inspiring, the sight of Eilidh Todd (playing Evan’s mum Heidi) pretty much in tears at the end before a standing ovation said it all. The show took place upon an impressive, well-lit set before a backdrop representing a typically chao...

Stand & Deliver: The Lee Jeans Sit-in – Traverse Theatre

21May

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Stand & Deliver: The Lee Jeans Sit-in – Traverse Theatre

The Bryant & May Matchgirls strike in 1888 in Bow. Fords in Dagenham and the fishing industry champions, the Women Of Hessle Road, both in 1968. The Grunwick dispute in Dollis Hill in 1976. Fast forward to 1981, the Lee Jeans factory in Greenock, a fading town west of Glasgow once vibrant with ‘ships & sugar’. Maggie T is attempting to drag the UK out of the dismal 70’s, with, as they say, scant regard for the horses. Cue the factory’s American owners, having availed themselves of some generous government assistance in Greenock in the first place, are having their heads turned by similar enticements in N Ireland. 240 jobs, predominantly for local women, hang in the balance. The story was exhaustively researched by local journalist and broadcaster Paul English and written by...

Jack Docherty in The Chief: No Apologies – Traverse Theatre

23Apr

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Jack Docherty in The Chief: No Apologies – Traverse Theatre

Jack Docherty has had a much longer, and varied, career than many may be aware of. Having started at the Fringe in his home town of Edinburgh in 1980, he’s been on stage, in front of and behind the camera and as a writer for such legendary TV shows as Alas Smith & Jones, Spitting Image, Vic Reeves and Lenny Henry. Heck, he even had a chat show on Channel Five for a year or so in the late 90’s. But it’s Chief Commissioner Cameron Miekelson (from Scot Squad) that’s finally given him his oeuvre and the opportunity to roam unrestrained across any subject he cares to choose. Tonight’s very much like a stand-up routine but in two acts, with an interval. He’s written a book, ‘The Chief: No Apologies’ and treats us to excerpts, ‘treats’ being the operative word for we are privileged to be t...

The Spy Who Came in from The Cold – Edinburgh Festival Theatre

23Apr

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

The Spy Who Came in from The Cold – Edinburgh Festival Theatre

One of the predominant elements of John Le Carré’s novels concerning British Intelligence is bleakness. A mantle of washed-out grey cloaks the lives and actions of his characters, darker shades representing the shadows in which they are doomed to operate. As his son Nick Harkaway writes in the programme (in contrast with another, cinematically celebrated, agent of ‘the service’) there’s ‘not a martini or an Aston Martin in sight.’ The set (Max Jones) and lighting (Azusa Ono) for tonight’s show reflect this, the barbed-wire topped wall looming mute behind a floor displaying the contorted map of Europe in the early 60’s. The uniforms and attire of all concerned (with the exception of Liz Gold’s turquoise suit in the closing scenes) are relentlessly dour, and in Alec Leamas’s case, appr...

The Legend of Davie McKenzie – Traverse Theatre

14Mar

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

The Legend of Davie McKenzie – Traverse Theatre

From the duo who brought us Dancing Shoes at this venue before Christmas (and The Scaff prior to that) comes another play providing a comic, tragic and moving portrait of life on the ‘other’ side of the tracks. In their latest offering Stephen Christopher & Graeme Smith bring us Sean and Davie who meet as kids on a housing scheme and, both father-less, hang out together escaping their drab surroundings via their favourite films. Their perspectives on life are betrayed as they frequently play characters set against the world whether it’s Butch and Sundance or Tony Montana. Davie is clearly the more gallus of the two, claiming to have seen every single film ever made. Unsurprisingly his vibrant, imaginative approach to life knows few boundaries. The two end up in prison for ...

24Feb

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Head. Heart. Hand. – Traverse Theatre

Stef Smith is an uncompromising writer. Edinburgh’s Queen Margaret University has some history. What might a collision between the two produce? Commissioned to mark ‘150 years of hope, action and education’ it’s performed by a cast of the university’s acting and performance students, bookended by crises; the poverty and hunger that inspired its founding in 1875 and the cuts to and erosion of the education sector that started in the 1970’s, persisting to the present day. It’s almost as if, following the 60’s, someone felt education might pose a threat. The story alighted upon two other milestones in the institution’s journey, the wartime contributions of the students (many spent time in London looking after bomb repair workers dealing with the effects of Hitler’s 1944 rocket offensiv...