REVIEWS Archives - Page 11 of 623

21Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Bebe Cave: Swoon – Pleasance Dome

You have to marvel at the sheer industry of Bebe Cave. Swoon is not simply an hour of character comedy. Cave appears to have swallowed a substantial chunk of Victorian art history, constructed a beautifully gilded Pre-Raphaelite world of curtains, frames and tableaux, assembled an armoury of hats and costumes, and then decided to perform all of the people inhabiting it herself. The result is extremely funny and occasionally almost impossible to keep up with. Cave's starting point is John Everett Millais's Ophelia and Elizabeth Siddal, the woman who modelled for one of the most recognisable paintings in British art. From there, through the fictional Bertrude Siddal, she charges headlong into Rossetti, Millais, Holman Hunt, Victorian womanhood, beauty, madness, mu...

21Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Tell Me – Summerhall Dissection Room

The Dissection Room at Summerhall is a fascinating space, double height and voluminous, and Tell Me certainly knows how to celebrate that verticality. At its centre stands a giant open metal cube. Inside that sits another, and another, a Russian doll of skeletal geometry which performers Sadiq Ali, Phoebe Knight and Jonah Russell climb through, hang from, rotate and send tumbling across its different surfaces. There is something of the rolling of dice about it too. During the AIDS crisis, whether you received that positive diagnosis could seem like the biggest roll of the dice imaginable. Tell Me moves between that crisis and our contemporary understanding of HIV. The dramaturgy is often beautifully handled. Radio announcements report the emergence of this frigh...

21Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Penelope – Underbelly Belly Button

Grace McLean's hands deserve a review of their own. In Penelope, they become almost another piece of stage machinery. A picture on a bedside table is conjured between her fingers, suddenly forming something resembling a tiny Grecian image. Later, as Penelope describes working at her loom, McLean's hands weave invisible landscapes, seascapes and portraits in the air before methodically undoing them again. It is mesmerising physical storytelling. Penelope has promised that she will marry one of her suitors when her weaving is finished. Her solution is beautifully simple: create by day, unpick by night, and keep waiting for Odysseus. And she has been waiting a very long time. There is initially something almost Liza Minnelli-like about McLean's performance, ...

Little Animals – Traverse @ Lyceum Studio

21Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Little Animals – Traverse @ Lyceum Studio

Paul Ready is a familiar face to television audiences, notably as the wonderfully beleaguered Kevin in Motherland and the considerably more sinister Lee in Utopia, alongside an extensive stage career including work at the National Theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe. Perhaps those credentials are part of the draw behind the sell-out interest in Little Animals. The question is what happens when Ready strips almost everything away and stands alone in a room with a story to tell. Conceived, written and performed by Ready, and directed by Caroline Steinbeis, Little Animals is ostensibly about his best friend Richard. Ready tells us almost immediately that Richard is dead. He is no longer here. Dead. From that stark beginning, he starts piecing together the life of ...

20Aug

By Peter KinnockNo Comments

West Midlands

Mrs Doubtfire – Birmingham Hippodrome

It’s hard to believe it’s 12 years since that shimmering colossus of stand-up comedy, Robin Williams, took his last bow leaving behind a staggering array of glorious movies from the much maligned “Popeye” to the profoundly moving, “Dead Poet’s Society.” Nearly everything he touched seemed to turn into comic gold and through it all shone a heart of honesty and truth. I remember watching his “Live from the Met” and being totally mesmerised by his charm, speed and humour. He was a good man and a hard act to follow. With “Aladdin” re-animating his celluloid turn on Broadway (running, it seems, forever) it’s only reasonable his other major film favourite should also receive the stage treatment - “Mrs Doubtfire.” First a book by Anne Fine, then a family film hit directed by Chris Columbus and...

The Tale of The Original Jekyll and Hyde (Told by a Mad Hatter from Stockport) – Greenside @ Riddles Court

20Aug

By Beth EltringhamNo Comments

Scotland

The Tale of The Original Jekyll and Hyde (Told by a Mad Hatter from Stockport) – Greenside @ Riddles Court

The tale of Deacon Brodie is one rarely known by those outside of Edinburgh: A corrupt member of the City Chambers who used his skills as a Wright (in this case cabinet maker and locksmith), to steal from the wealthy folk of Edinburgh. The tale however has been known somewhat in another form: as the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde (although that can be held to some debate). The Tale of The Original Jekyll and Hyde (Told by a Mad Hatter from Stockport) lures us in with the promise of hearing Brodie’s tale…. although we end up hearing more about the writer’s fictional character Stanley instead. As a local historian I was pretty excited about the prospect of hearing the tale delivered through a character of the time. There’s something charming about having history ...

Rosco McClelland: The Bones – Monkey Barrel Comedy

20Aug

By Ella BeckleyNo Comments

Scotland

Rosco McClelland: The Bones – Monkey Barrel Comedy

In the midst of Old Town, Cabaret Voltaire’s arched basement under Blair Street is full of a crowd eagerly watching Rosco McClelland, spotlit on stage. You could hear a pin drop with the patient wait for the punch line. McClelland is a storyteller, every joke recounts a guilty pleasure, an embarrassing story or even identifying the man who apparently wants him dead. Convoluted stories of his marriage complete with heartwarming moments and arguments both had the audience listening attentively, all for the reward of one-line laughs. McClelland’s charisma and charm keep the audience hooked on his line, reeling them in with an assortment of confessions and an open ‘this is me, bones and all’ kind of attitude with the audienc...

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat – Blackpool Grand

20Aug

By Marianna MoranteNo Comments

North West

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat – Blackpool Grand

“Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” presented by the Blackpool Grand Theatre Summer Youth was an absolute joy to watch. The musical tells the story of Joseph who can see visions of the future, the jealous eleven brothers who craving their fathers favour send Joseph away and the multicoloured coat that is the musicals namesake. As someone who teaches young people myself, I have learnt to never underestimate their talents yet despite going in with high expectations, this cast absolutely exceeded them. From the very beginning when the Narrators started to sing in front of a sparkly backdrop, I knew the vocals and harmonies within the show would be phenomenal and with a creative team including the likes of Joe Keegan, Mykey Young and Sophie Yaeger who I have had the pleasur...

20Aug

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

Dear Lihua – Canal Café Theatre

‘Dear Lihua’ is a highly accomplished piece of theatre, delicately constructed and performed with remarkable tenderness. Written by Xinyi Chen and directed by Zhaoyi Ying, this bilingual English and Mandarin production explore the loneliness of living abroad, the strain of communicating in a language that is not your own and the painful compromises sometimes demanded by cultural assimilation. After dying in London, Qiuqiu awakens in an “English-speaking heaven”, where even the afterlife is governed by bureaucracy and paperwork. To earn enough points to return to China, she is assigned to the “Department of Unanswered Letters” by God, sorting through correspondence that never received a reply. Among the abandoned words, she repeatedly encounters letters addressed to Lihua, gradually ...

How Do I Love Thee? – Circle and Star Theatre

19Aug

By Alan Stuart MalinNo Comments

London

How Do I Love Thee? – Circle and Star Theatre

Inspired by the life and work of English poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, ‘How Do I Love Thee?’ is an ambitious and emotionally intelligent piece of new writing from new company Aside Hustle. Tracing the Victorian poet’s journey from confinement in England to liberation in Italy with Robert Browning, Ruby Thomas’s script explores creativity, illness, love and the struggle of a woman determined to be heard in a society intent on restricting her. There is considerable beauty in the writing. Drawing upon Browning’s poetry and correspondence, Thomas constructs a thoughtful portrait of an artist discovering the courage to define herself. Her script possesses genuine emotional power and demonstrates substantial future potential, particularly in its examination of the relationship between ...