Tom Scott, Author at North West End UK

Mhairi Black: Politics Isn’t for Me – Gilded Ballon

16Aug

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

Mhairi Black: Politics Isn’t for Me – Gilded Ballon

This show is an absolute joy. Tumultuous applause greets Mhairi Black’s entrance. From then until the show ends 70 minutes later, she captivates the audience with her humour, insights and brilliant storytelling. Unsurprisingly the show’s sold out. Try very hard to get a return for one of the best shows at this year’s Fringe. It’s now nine years since Mhairi Black became an SNP MP, overturning a huge Labour majority. Black was part of the SNP landslide in 2015 when the party won 56 of the 59 Scottish seats at the General Election. Aged only 20, she became the youngest MP since the early 1800s. Still a student at Glasgow University, Black took her final exam after the election, gaining a first-class honours degree in Politics. An impressive speaker, she became deputy leader of the SNP at ...

The Edinburgh Seven – Greenside @ Riddle’s Court

15Aug

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

The Edinburgh Seven – Greenside @ Riddle’s Court

The Edinburgh Seven were the first women to go to medical school in Scotland - and indeed the whole UK. But they faced discrimination from the University of Edinburgh, ridicule from male lecturers, criticism in some newspapers, and insults and even violence from male students. Their story began in the 1860s long before women (or even most men) had the vote. In 1869 Sophia Jex-Blake applied to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Then in her late twenties, she had been born and educated in England. She lived for a while in the USA and applied to Harvard University for a place in their medical school, but her application was declined because she was a woman. On returning to England Jex-Blake wrote an essay, entitled ‘Medicine as a profession for women’ in which she argued that w...

13Aug

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

Sessions – Zoo Playground

What should we do with violent young men? Lock them up and ‘throw away the key’? Or try to rehabilitate them? ‘Sessions’ is the story of 17-year-old George, a violent offender, who is fortunate to avoid a prison sentence. Instead he is given community service and ordered to attend weekly sessions with a social worker. This timely play comes amidst a longstanding concern about violence amongst disaffected youth. The show starts with the sound of news bulletins about youth crime, austerity cuts including a reduction in youth services, and the links between those spending cuts and crime. Our incarceration rate is higher than that of most other European countries. The new Labour Government is releasing offenders early because of a shortage of prison places. What’s the solu...

Me For You – Pleasance Courtyard (The Green)

10Aug

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

Me For You – Pleasance Courtyard (The Green)

‘Me for You’ is a fascinating play about two women who are in love. It has a sparkling, very funny script and is beautifully performed. The climate emergency provides an intriguing backdrop to this contemporary drama. Holly has been seeing Jake for quite some time. Now they want to have a child together. But Jake comes to regret the day he introduces Holly to his friend and workmate, Alex. The two women quickly fall in love. For a while Holly continues to sleep with Jake but, as she’s also having an affair with Alex, she stops taking the pill. Holly finally tells Jake the truth. Understandably he’s very upset. And Holly’s assurance that “It’s you, not me” and that she still cares about him, doesn’t really help Jake to feel any better. Two people had loved each other. But the r...

8Aug

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

Eleanor – the Space @ Niddry Street

Eleanor, the youngest daughter of Karl Marx, was a socialist and feminist activist. But this play concentrates mainly on her relationships with her lover and friends. All of the characters in this well written drama by Agnes Perry-Robinson were real people, intellectuals who lived in late nineteen century England. The play is based on research. But Perry-Robinsion has used her imagination to recreate some of the interactions between Eleanor and her friends. We see laughter-filled soirées full of stimulating conversations, charades and acting. The group shares a love of Shakespeare and even play the mechanicals performing ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. It’s all great fun - at first. Eleanor (nicknamed ‘Tussy’) has a particularly close friendship with ...

Wyld Woman: The Legend of Shy Girl – Assembly Rooms

6Aug

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

Wyld Woman: The Legend of Shy Girl – Assembly Rooms

A twenty something New Yorker is painfully shy. On first seeing us, she struggles to get a word out. She holds a set of crib cards to help her through what is clearly an ordeal. The shyness affects her physicality, too. Although she’s standing, she curls up as if she’s trying to make herself as small and insignificant as possible, hoping that no-one will notice her. Gradually shy girl relaxes. She welcomes us to her apartment and calls us ‘Legends’. She aspires to be one, too. Legends are people who are not shy, thus cool. Shy girl doesn’t have any real friends, but lots of imaginary ones. It turns out that we in the audience are her imaginary friends, too. And she’s using us to rehearse for the arrival of some real Legends who she’s invited to dinner. This is a hugely enterta...

A Fire Ignites – The Space @ Surgeons’ Hall

4Aug

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

A Fire Ignites – The Space @ Surgeons’ Hall

The ‘fire ignites’ following the death of Mahsa Amini in Iran in 2022. She had been arrested by the Morality Police for wearing her hijab “improperly” and subsequently died in custody. The Iranian authorities claimed she’s had a heart attack, but fellow detainees said she was severely beaten. Widespread protests broke out which were violently suppressed with more than 500 killed and tens of thousands arrested. Some protesters were executed. Tara Tedjarati, who is Canadian-Iranian, has written, performs and directs this engaging one woman play. She’s also the lyricist and producer. The fire also ignites literally when 16-year-old Parisa sets her hijab on fire, and shouts ‘Death to the Dictator’. Like so many women in Iran she objects to being compelled to cover her head in public. &nb...

Sell Me: I Am from North Korea – Pleasance Courtyard (Below)

3Aug

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

Sell Me: I Am from North Korea – Pleasance Courtyard (Below)

Jisun is poor. She sells apples at a market in North Korea. Sometimes she even kills squirrels to eat. But she needs more money. Her mother is dying and can’t afford medication to ease her pain. So, on her 15th birthday Jisun decides to sell herself. A broker says he will help her escape to China. She’ll be sold to a man and will have to look after him. Her duties will include washing his dirty underwear, cutting his toe nails and “making babies with him”. That’s the explosive starting point to this remarkable play, written and performed by Sora Baek. And if you think it sounds implausible, you should know that Baek’s grandparents and her father, then aged 4, were refugees from North to South Korea. Baek has also been inspired by true stories of women defectors from the most authoritari...

‘Born in the USA (Leaving Vietnam’ – C Arts (studio), Edinburgh

1Aug

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

‘Born in the USA (Leaving Vietnam’ – C Arts (studio), Edinburgh

This engrossing one man show tells the story of Jimmy Vandenburgh, a decorated marine who finds it difficult to come to terms with life after his military service in Vietnam War, and is swayed for a while by Trump. Like many veterans, Jimmy still bears the mental scars of the War. “I died once in Vietnam, and once every day since then,” he tells us. Although it’s nearly fifty years since the USA had to admit defeat and pull out of Vietnam, America itself - like Jimmy - is still scarred by that conflict in which nearly 60,000 Americans died - a huge total, though dwarfed by more than a million Vietnamese deaths (half of them civilians). During the 1960s and 1970s, while the Vietnam War raged, America was more divided than perhaps at any time since the Civil War. But the USA is just...

13Jun

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

Lie Low – Traverse Theatre

‘Lie Low’ is a theatrical jewel. This is theatre at its best, a production which deals with serious issues but still manages to be hugely entertaining and genuinely funny. If you possibly can, go and see this amazing show. You won’t be disappointed. ‘Lie Low’ is brilliantly written by Irish playwright, Ciara Elizabeth Smyth. The script won the Best Theatre Script award in 2023 from the Writers Guild of Ireland. It’s energetic, funny, profound, imaginative, inventive and deeply moving. Smyth’s script is superbly directed by Oisín Kearney. The production is perfectly paced and keeps the audience on the edge of its seats throughout the 70 minutes of the show. Charlotte McCurry plays Faye, a woman in her thirties who has been suffering from nightmares and insomnia following a violent ...