REVIEWS Archives - Page 14 of 612

9Aug

By Jessie MartinNo Comments

Scotland

[Seagull] – Studio Theatre

[Seagull] directed by Stijn Van Opsatal is a bold new take on Chekhov’s classic play The Seagull. Running consecutively for two and a half hours, this is an adaptation unlike any you have seen before. At the forefront of [Seagull] is the performance of the text in Flemish Sign Language. This production truly highlights the ingenuity and championing of accessibility as not just a requirement, but as a medium in its own right. Performed as part of the Edinburgh international festival, [Seagull] is brought to us by two Belgian theatre companies; Toneelhuis and Olympique Dramatique. [Seagull] follows the story of a young aspiring playwright and the relationships around him. Featuring four acts, each exploring the themes of unrequited love and creative ego, tensions rise and fall b...

Game of Thrones: The Mad King – RSC Stratford Upon Avon

8Aug

By Paul WilcoxNo Comments

West Midlands

Game of Thrones: The Mad King – RSC Stratford Upon Avon

There is a particular excitement that accompanies a genuine theatrical event: not simply another adaptation of a familiar property, but the sense that a production is attempting something genuinely ambitious. Three days before its official press night, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s preview of Game of Thrones: The Mad King already feels like one of those rare occasions where expectation meets execution. Running for well over three and a half hours, with just a single twenty-minute interval, this is epic theatre in every sense. Remarkably, it rarely feels overextended. Director Dominic Cooke maintains an unerring grip on the pacing, while adaptor Duncan Macmillan has achieved something that should perhaps have been impossible: distilling George R.R. Martin’s vast mythology into a work t...

8Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Wolf of Poyais – Assembly Roxy

There are some stories so extraordinary that the difficulty in putting them on stage is not making them interesting but making the theatre as interesting as the story. The Wolf of Poyais, written by Sam Went and performed by Thom Tuck, takes on one of the most extraordinary confidence tricks in British history, the story of Scottish soldier, adventurer and fraudster Gregor MacGregor, the man who managed to sell people land in a country that did not exist. Born in Scotland in 1786, he became a soldier and adventurer, fought in the South American wars of independence and then performed perhaps his greatest feat of imagination. He invented Poyais. Not merely a piece of land. A country. It had a government, currency, titles, documents, land for sale and, most importantly, inves...

8Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

For Dolores – Traverse Theatre

Two larger-than-life women. One very small lift. Sparks are inevitably going to fly. Eva O’Connor’s For Dolores throws Réaltín, a little Irish star with an inexhaustible capacity for storytelling, together with Mo, a gloriously forthright Glaswegian, in a broken-down lift. What follows is surely one of the great encounters of this year’s Fringe. Lara McDonnell as Réaltín and Catriona Faint as Mo make a classic double act, and an unusually refreshing all-female one. Réaltín embellishes and romanticises, Mo punctures and corrects. When Réaltín recalls romantically “coming off the boat” from Ireland, Mo reminds her that she actually got off a £19.99 Ryanair flight. That rhythm drives the play. A joke becomes an insult, an insult becomes affection, and affection occasionally revea...

The Barber of Seville – Upstairs at The Gatehouse

8Aug

By Stewart Who?No Comments

London

The Barber of Seville – Upstairs at The Gatehouse

Hollywood pin-up, Timothee Chalamet caused a global hoo-ha when he claimed in an interview that “no one cares” about ballet or opera. He was rightly ridiculed and provoked a lively debate which proved that high art forms are in rude health and ignorance is ugly, even when it comes from the mouth of a beauty. Nobody can deny that ballet, opera and classical theatre can be elitist, financially inaccessible, intellectually demanding, unfamiliar to the newcomer and outrageously time consuming. As someone who endured Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass (5 hours) at Barbican and Gaddafi: A Living Myth at ENO, I can confirm that attending such productions can feel like extreme sport mixed with expensive self-harm. It is also true that when some of the cultural barriers are removed or tackled, a...

8Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Water Colour – Traverse Theatre

There is something very frustrating about a play centred on a painter that never quite convinces you that its protagonist actually paints. Written by Milly Sweeney and directed by Sally Reid, Water Colour arrives in Edinburgh with considerable acclaim and an impressive collection of awards behind it, which makes my reaction to it all the more surprising. I found the writing naive, the storytelling resolutely linear and the theatrical world surrounding its central character’s art strangely unconvincing. The structure is very much: this happened, then this happened, then this happened. Events accumulate but rarely seem to deepen. Molly Geddes as Esme, the young artist at the centre of the story, and Ryan J Mackay as Harris give perfectly reasonable performances, but the writing rarely ...

8Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Supposing – Traverse Theatre

Supposing you fell down a hole. Supposing, shortly afterwards, you began hearing voices, seventeen of them in fact, a kind of Greek chorus taking up residence inside your head. And supposing you became convinced that falling down that hole had somehow allowed you to see into the future. Written and directed by Zinnie Harris, Supposing takes this curious premise and turns it into a clever, funny and increasingly unsettling examination of reality, marriage and what happens when nobody believes what you believe to be true. At its centre is Nicole Cooper as Sally, married for fifteen years to Richard, played by Richard Conlon. Cooper establishes an immediate connection with the audience, helped enormously by one of Harris's simplest and most effective theatrical devices. On Alisa ...

8Aug

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

London

CATS – Regents Park Open Air Theatre

The cast of CATS have arrived in style dominating the scene with feline grace. And they’re ready to slink into the spotlight. Regent’s Park Theatre came alight with contemporary dance in a jaw dropping performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s theatrical classic, CATS. The excitement and buzz in the audience of anticipation was palpable. The set, a rustic crescent moon lit the sky with a warm glow as the smaller moon orbited with ease against the darken sky. A vision captured perfectly for a night of feline adventure and storytelling. Don’t be fooled by the simplicity here, there is so much to appreciate, and time given to lose yourself in the ‘magic’ of the music and artistry unfolding before you. The longevity of Andrew Lloyd Webbers CATS now 45yrs old is a testament to ...

8Aug

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

London

Sick Dog – Etcetera Theatre

As I kick off my Camden Fringe Festival coverage, I began with a charming play called ‘Sick Dog,’ which incidentally does not have a dog as a cast member! Winne (Cara Crofts) shares her flat with her friend Eliza (Pearl D’Souza), and they hang out and share household duties, and this is your usual flatmates play…until you realise that Eliza is not human, but a humanoid! We learn that Winnie has been existing in her flat for months and has an illness which has made her unable to work. Eliza is stepping in to help where she can, and she is also learning about Winnie’s characteristics and mimicking them in an attempt to learn more about humans to integrate more authentically. Directed by Lily Gilchrist, the play is set in Winnie’s flat and revolves around Winnie’s ill...

Alice Fraser: Oh Man! – Monkey Barrel Comedy

8Aug

By Ella BeckleyNo Comments

Scotland

Alice Fraser: Oh Man! – Monkey Barrel Comedy

When she’s off the comedy stage, Alice Fraser is a politics and news podcaster, which she jokes puts her in a small demographic of women that can speak to men without interruption. Her show pulls from topical issues like AI, the manosphere, capitalism, technology, gender and sexuality. Fraser pulls these themes together succinctly, conveying her worldview with persuasive intellect, but it all feels a little too ambitious to contain within a one-hour Fringe comedy set. Fraser’s stand-up show centres around training a little AI vacuum cleaner how to be a man, with PowerPoint slides and crowd work used cleverly along the way. Fraser discusses how masculinity presents itself, moving through themes of today while exposing men in her life like gym-bro Jaden. ...