REVIEWS Archives - Page 49 of 342

One Man Poe – Lauriston Castle, Edinburgh

31Oct

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

One Man Poe – Lauriston Castle, Edinburgh

As Part of the Edinburgh Horror Festival, at the historic Lauriston Castle overlooking the Firth of Forth, One Man Poe draws a sell-out, expectant audience of barely twenty souls to the Drawing Room for an intimate and spellbinding performance by Stephen Smith of Threedumb Theatre. Smith, nearing the end of his one-month tour of the UK, channelling the high priest of horror, Edgar Allan Poe is very much ‘in the groove’ and barely puts a foot wrong in a precise and electrifying monologue of two of Poe’s finest works. Such is the electricity in the tiny room that we all barely dare to breath, lest we upset Smith’s mesmerising, metronomic delivery. Clever lighting and make up, (self-applied by Smith at half time) and some wonderful sound effects and soundtrack, by Joseph Furey and...

Sycamore Grove – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

31Oct

By Wendy McEwanNo Comments

Scotland

Sycamore Grove – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

Dark magic, addiction and competitive home decorating underly the apparently genteel lives of two suburban couples. Charlotte (Rebecca Wilkie) and Colin (Nicholas Alban) are the proverbial Joneses that everyone tries to keep up with. They have almost everything that their tiny minds have ever dreamed of – but they are struggling to conceive a baby. Hannah (Cara Watson) and Ben (Conor O’Durger) are not doing so well. Ben is struggling at work and desperately trying to keep up appearances. When Charlotte and Colin explain their secret, he is intrigued. Our Stepford couple reveal that they have decorated their home with mysterious symbols that have been used to alter reality since ancient times. They draw Ben into their cult, and he attributes his increasing success to the ...

The Ritual – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

31Oct

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Ritual – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

As Part of the Edinburgh Horror Festival, at The Banshee Labyrinth just off Edinburgh’s ghostly Royal Mile, The Ritual draws a sell-out, expectant audience to the fifty-seater underground vault that is The Chamber Room. Talking to the queue beforehand, I find one acolyte who is back to see the show for the 13th time, who swears that the first viewing changed her life. By the end of a very quick hour, I can see why this classic double act, Steffens Hanes as ‘The Master’ and Gregory Lass as his stumbling, crouching, fawning servant ‘Gregor’, are in the process of assembling an almost cult-like following. They are just brilliant. Good Clowning requires not acting but reacting. Hanes, half Norwegian, half Danish and a graduate of the Paris Clown Academy knows this and uses it to its utm...

The Shadow in the Dark – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

31Oct

By Wendy McEwanNo Comments

Scotland

The Shadow in the Dark – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

Edith Nesbit is best known as a writer of children’s fiction, but alongside her classic novels such as The Railway Children, she explored a variety of genres, including horror. The Shadow in the Dark is comprised of spoken word adaptations of several such stories, told by a trio of actors. Edith (Rebecca Hale) sits at a wax cylinder machine, surrounded by candles. She speaks into the recording device, telling us of her memories of childhood, and of how she became afraid of the dark. Hale’s Edith speaks in the way I always imagined she would. In her crisp accent, she is soothing and deliberate. She gives the impression that she is telling a bedtime story, but the atmosphere is sinister. In The Mummies at Bordeaux, she tells of a creepy childhood encounter in a charnel house, th...

Dr Bonk’s Macarbaret – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

31Oct

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Dr Bonk’s Macarbaret – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

As Part of the Edinburgh Horror Festival, at The Banshee Labyrinth just off Edinburgh’s ghostly Royal Mile Dr Bonk’s Macarbaret promises an evening of drag, burlesque, music, comedy and medical mayhem. Dr. Bonk, imagine a more creepy and cookie version of Mr Bean if you will, unspeaking and with a white leather beak-like gimp mask. Prompted by a script read from the back of the room, the reason for this being…unclear? The demographics in the 50-seater underground chamber are interesting, 90% female and average age of twenty-something. The bird-faced Bonk is an odd-looking character who prods and pokes various audience members with his stethoscope and at one point removes the earwax from one rather uneasy looking young lady to create an instant candle. Which drew some nervous la...

Brendan Son of Dublin – The Tung Auditorium

30Oct

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Brendan Son of Dublin – The Tung Auditorium

In the 100th anniversary year of the birth of the infamous Brendan Behan, Fatdan Productions present the second of their musical dramas focusing on the ‘outsider’, following their 2021 play on Oscar Wilde, as part of the Liverpool Irish Festival. Written by John Merrigan and with music and lyrics by Danielle Morgan, director and visual artist Professor Pamela Howard OBE presents a semi-staged production to explore the enigma that is Behan. With the simplest of staging that includes three stools, three chairs, and a clothes rack, Behan (Pádraig Lynch) steps through the key phases of his life from impassioned young Republican through to literary lush, with supporting characters portrayed by an ensemble (Gillian McCafferty; John Newcombe; Jack Klaff; Ann Marcuson; Ross Scarfield) and the ...

The Haunted Haus: Adamas Family Values – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

30Oct

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Haunted Haus: Adamas Family Values – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

As Part of the Edinburgh Horror Festival, at The Banshee Labyrinth just off Edinburgh’s ghostly Royal Mile, April Adamas international drag legend (it says here!) and friends are certainly on the ‘Rocky’ side of Horror as they strut and lip-synch their way at (time)warp speed towards the witching hour. Chaotic, amateur, energetic, edgy. In a performance that started twenty minutes late and with performers outnumbering audience at the start this got off to a bad start, but certainly was a grower, to the point an hour later the 40-seater venue was full to bursting point and rocking big style. The infeasible lithe April and friends certainly put on a show, dramatic and well-choreographed, gymnastic and high octane and with April’s ascetic wit (like a latter-day Lily Savage) just ab...

Devil In The Belfry – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

30Oct

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Devil In The Belfry – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

Part of the Edinburgh Horror Festival, at The Banshee Labyrinth just off Edinburgh’s ghostly Royal Mile, Edgar Allan Poe’s short tale is vividly reincarnated by the brilliant David Robb in partnership with the assured touch of director Flavia D’Avila. All seems well in the town of Vondervotteimittiss (wonder-what-time-it-is), somewhere in the mountains of Holland (?), where the clock is king and the cabbage is queen, until a fiddle playing stranger comes a calling. With rubber face and equally lithe body, Robb with just a handful of props shows just what can be achieved with very little indeed but with quite a bit of help from an entranced audience, who, with varying levels of enthusiasm, take on the role of central character Handel Fledermaus. Handel, whose parents were unfo...

Tarmac Lullaby – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

30Oct

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Tarmac Lullaby – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

Part of the five-day long Edinburgh Horror Festival, at The Banshee Labyrinth just off Edinburgh’s ghostly Royal Mile. A suitably dark and stormy night saw me head out for a Labyrinthine hat trick of horror. First up, written by Daniel Orejon for his theatre company Crested Fools, this one-woman show looses its way a little by being way too wordy for its own good. Often the simplest stories told well work out the best. A flow chart showing all of the characters featured in the stories and their relationships would have been handy. A chance meeting in a car park brings together two old schoolteacher friends, and soon they are recounting stories from the past, but these are not cosy school stories, these are tales of blood-weeping daughters, abusive relationships, a foul-mouthed m...

30Oct

By Peter RuddickNo Comments

North West

Spam Valley – 53two

There is something intensely personal about Spam Valley. Perhaps unsurprising given it is described as an ‘autobiographical monologue’ of Kevin P. Gilday’s journey from working-class Glasgow to a middle-class career on the stage. But what makes the show extra special is how universal and relevant it is. Blending poetry and spoken word this is part stand up, part sermon. A hilarious, heartbreaking and extraordinary analysis of class. Under the 53two arches sits a solitary plastic chair, a microphone on a stand and a clothes rail of jackets: from the classic Umbro zip up to the badged blazer beloved by the arterati. One person monologues like this rely on the audience feeling secure in the hands of the performer. Gilday emerges and delivers his brilliant poem The Old Men In Wet...