Scotland Archives - North West End UK

Spamalot – Portobello Town Hall, Edinburgh

12Jul

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Spamalot – Portobello Town Hall, Edinburgh

There are some shows where you spend your time analysing every directorial choice, every dramatic beat and every performance. Then there are shows like Spamalot, where after about ten minutes you simply surrender to the sheer joy of it all. Happy Sad Productions' latest musical is exactly that kind of evening. Based on the classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the musical lovingly embraces absurdity, gleefully mocking both the original film and the conventions of musical theatre itself. It's a show that positively encourages performers to throw caution to the wind, and this company responds with infectious enthusiasm. One of the production's greatest strengths is its scale. A large ensemble fills the stage with energy throughout, ensuring that even the smallest roles have ...

The Burns Project – Royal Lyceum Theatre

7Jul

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Burns Project – Royal Lyceum Theatre

There can be few figures in Scottish history as difficult to bring to the stage as Robert Burns. Poet, radical, celebrity, serial womaniser and national icon, he remains a figure whose mythology is almost as powerful as the man himself. The Burns Project, now returning to the Royal Lyceum following a successful Fringe run and subsequent touring, sets itself the ambitious task of stripping away that mythology to present Burns as a complex human being. It succeeds in many respects, but ultimately falls short where it matters most. Presented in the intimate surroundings of the Lyceum's Henry Irving Room, the audience gathers around a large dining table while Burns moves through the space, his life unfolding chronologically from humble beginnings to his premature death. Live music, performe...

2Jul

By Jessie MartinNo Comments

Scotland

Twelfth Night – Bard in the Botanics

Bard in the Botanics remains one of the most prominent Shakespeare-forward festivals in Scotland having performed 25 Summers in the beautiful Glasgow Botanic Gardens. Their well-established reputation and years of experience are clear as they present us with a schedule of both Shakespearean works and more contemporary classics such as Jane Austen’s Emma. Using the gardens to their advantage, there is both an open-air main stage, and a separate performance space within the Kibble Palace glasshouse. This time around I saw Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at the main stage, directed by Jennifer Dick and it's safe to say I would happily rush back to see it again. This season of Bard in the Botanics is titled Lovers & Madmen and really is there a difference? Of course...

Catriona Macdonald & Annbjorg Lien – Traverse Theatre

2Jul

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Catriona Macdonald & Annbjorg Lien – Traverse Theatre

It was, as one might expect, a famously fiddly evening at the Traverse Theatre, as Shetland’s Catriona Macdonald and Norway’s Annbjørg Lien brought together a programme rich in Scandinavian and Shetland tunes, shared history and extraordinary musicianship. Presented as the final concert in this season’s Soundhouse series, the evening was built around the musical relationship between two players who first met when they were barely teenagers. That history mattered. This was not simply a meeting of two virtuosos, impressive though both undoubtedly are, but a conversation between traditions, between islands and sea routes, and between generations of musicians passing music from one hand to the next. Macdonald was open, warm and generous throughout, speaking movingly about returning h...

Love and Friendship – St Augustine United Church

30Jun

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Love and Friendship – St Augustine United Church

There is no shortage of ambition in Edinburgh Rep’s latest production, an affectionate parody of Jane Austen’s youthful novella Love and Friendship, adapted and directed by Oliver Giggins. Packed with heightened Regency melodrama, broad physical comedy and moments of gleeful absurdity, the production showcases a company with obvious talent and infectious enthusiasm, even if the material itself doesn’t always provide the strongest framework for that talent to flourish. Rather than adapting one of Austen’s familiar novels, the production draws on one of her earliest works, written when she was still a teenager. The story follows the young Marianne persuading her Aunt Laura to reveal the astonishing tale of her youth, a tale involving doomed romances, improbable revelations of parenta...

26Jun

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Table – Traverse Theatre

Community theatre often faces a challenge that professional theatre rarely has to confront. The desire to include everyone can sometimes come at the expense of dramatic momentum. Large casts, varied abilities and an understandable determination to give every participant their moment in the spotlight can result in productions with enormous heart but limited theatrical drive.The Table, a collaboration between Curious Seed, Lung Ha Theatre Company and Lyra, tackles that challenge head on and comes remarkably close to overcoming it.Directed by Christine Devaney, Maria Oller and Jo Timmins, this ambitious and highly inclusive production brings together professional performers, young people, disabled and non-disabled artists in a work that sits somewhere between dance theatre, live music event a...

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...

Strength In a Whisper – Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh

16Jun

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Strength In a Whisper – Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh

Some productions tell a story. Others invite you into a landscape, a culture and a state of mind. Strength in a Whisper belongs firmly in the latter category. Created by singer-songwriter Kirsty Law and developed with Liam Hurley, this atmospheric blend of folk song, dance and theatre draws deeply from Scotland's oral traditions, exploring memory, solitude and the songs that survive only because someone chooses to keep singing them.The production unfolds at a deliberately unhurried pace. Alone in a remote bothy, a woman settles into the rhythms of rural existence. Gather. Dry. Eat. Rest. Repeat. The repetitive rituals of daily survival become the structure of the piece itself, creating an experience that asks the audience to slow down and inhabit its world rather than simply observe it.At ...

11Jun

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Portable Infinity – Traverse Theatre

A packed Traverse 1 on a Monday night is no small achievement for a contemporary jazz ensemble. Yet Portable Infinity's appearance at the Traverse felt entirely at home in the theatre's largest space. Eighteen months ago the group played the Traverse bar. Now they return at the conclusion of a major European tour to a full house, a testament both to the growing reputation of the band and the enthusiasm of Edinburgh's jazz audience.The evening stretched to around one hour and forty minutes without an interval, a format that might have tested a lesser audience. Instead, the capacity crowd remained rapt throughout, drawn into a performance that was as intellectually engaging as it was emotionally rewarding.What immediately struck this reviewer was the honesty of the music. There were no backi...

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...