Scotland Archives - North West End UK

29Oct

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

Rollers Forever – King’s Theatre

The Bay City Rollers were a 1970s phenomenon hailing from Edinburgh. They had huge popularity with their catchy tunes, and the band travelled the globe selling an estimated 120 million records world-wide. Rollers Forever, written by Danny McCahon, is a light-hearted trip down memory lane. The story pivots around two women, Susan (Chiara Sparkles) and Jenny (Fiona Wood) who relive their teenage dreams of meeting and marrying Woody and Alan and upgrading their lives. Their dream never materialises but their happy fiction and their efforts to nab the boys before they get too famous and every girl on the planet wants them is recognisable to anyone who’s been a teenage fan or known one. It is a charming, witty, bright and lively musical. The leads are strong and the whole cast can sing an...

26Oct

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

Bottom’s Dream – Traverse Theatre

Martin O’Connor, that champion of youth theatre and new Scots writing, creates an absorbing, modern-day monologue as William Shakespeare’s mechanical, Nick Bottom. Ably directed by Debbie Hannan and Assistant Director, Morgan Ferguson, this 54-minute piece was clever, varied and entertaining. The set and costumes by Heather Grace Currie are simplicity itself, and yet supremely apt. The setting holds up and expands the creative, poetic words of Martin O’Connor. Yes. The writer and performer are one and the same. Taking conceptual work to firm reality takes time, determination and shovel-loads of deep thinking. This piece felt very true. It hinged on Bottom’s desire to play any part in any way the director wants; to be given a chance despite his background. His earnest fumbling and...

Concerned Others – The Eastgate Theatre, Peebles

19Oct

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

Concerned Others – The Eastgate Theatre, Peebles

Concerned Others is an installation-style docu-drama, utilising live art, tiny models, puppetry, masks and even a treadmill to convey the hidden inner world of the addict and society’s unwilling attitude to look this problem squarely in the face. It is mesmerising with its real-life voice-overs and shocking statistics about the counter culture of substance abuse and crime endemic in Scotland. With Scotland’s statistics for 2025 standing at 21.4 deaths per 100,000 people (four times higher than in the year 2000), drug and alcohol-related deaths in Scotland out-performs the rest of Europe. The death rate in Scotland’s most deprived areas is fifteen times higher than the least deprived areas. Yet no-one, no class, is immune. The soundscape of this intriguing miniature theatre (which...

A Play, A Pie & A Pint: Contact by Jonny Donahoe – Traverse Theatre

16Oct

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

A Play, A Pie & A Pint: Contact by Jonny Donahoe – Traverse Theatre

Contact is an hour-long exploration of unresolved pain, blame and a yearning for love amid the messy realities of today’s nuclear family. It is caustically funny, filled with bathos and yet heart-felt as we peel away the characters’ anguish. A dysfunctional parent-child relationship is adeptly presented by Blythe Duff (Mother) and Mark Barrett (her adult son). Duff’s depth of expression, conveyed with minimalist physicality and restrained vocal range is hugely engaging. She is cold, verbally acerbic and cruel, yet her tears of frustration and pain are heart-rending. Some might call her descent into grief contrived. Yet, it was moving. Barrett plays the adult child (who feels the urge to build bridges, but ultimately, is as cruel as his mother in a more nuanced way) with an uneasiness th...

14Oct

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Sylvia – Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

This is some show! Having watched Jersey Boys at the Edinburgh Playhouse the previous evening, I thought I had witnessed musical theatre at its most polished and professional. Twenty-four hours later, Sylvia at the Festival Theatre took the whole business to another level. The comparison is fascinating. Jersey Boys has the considerable advantage of being built around songs that generations already know and love. Recognition and nostalgia do much of the heavy lifting. Sylvia has no such luxury. We arrived knowing none of its songs, yet for two hours and forty-five minutes this extraordinary production held our attention almost without respite. That is no small achievement. Written by Kate Prince and Priya Parmar, with music by Josh Cohen and ...

13Oct

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Jersey Boys – Edinburgh Playhouse

There is something reassuringly familiar about Jersey Boys. This is my third encounter with the musical in approximately six years, suggesting that, rather like a distant relative, it comes calling every three years whether invited or not. But familiarity can be a double-edged sword, particularly when a show has been around for twenty years and its extraordinary catalogue of songs is already deeply embedded in our collective musical consciousness. This latest touring production, directed by Des McAnuff, takes a little longer than expected to find its feet. The first act is, dare I say it, rather pedestrian at times, despite the considerable musical talent on display. But what initially threatens to become a fairly conventional musical biography transforms in the second half into so...

A Play, a Pie and a Pint: Whaur’s Yer Wullie Shakespeare Noo? – Traverse Theatre

12Oct

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

A Play, a Pie and a Pint: Whaur’s Yer Wullie Shakespeare Noo? – Traverse Theatre

Whaur’s Yer Wullie Shakespeare Noo is a comedic reenactment debating not just the Scots Enlightenment in the mid-1700s, but also the value of pure entertainment and man’s inclination to cling to traditional modes of thought. Writer and Director, Brian Logan is currently the Artistic Director of A Play, a Pie and a Pint. He has returned to his homeland from a sojourn in London where he championed The Camden People’s Theatre for thirteen years. Clergymen and thinkers, David Hume and Alexander Carlyle join John Witherspoon (a Scottish Presbyterian Minister and Founding Father of the United States) and Hume’s cousin, John Home, in a fictional recreation of the real men behind several ideas which carry through to today’s society. Actors, Gavin Jon Wright (so good looking), Kevin Lennon (c...

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Lyceum Theatre

10Oct

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie – Lyceum Theatre

The National Theatre of Scotland’s new expressionistic production of ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ is a magnificent theatrical gem. Since the 1960s, theatre audiences have enjoyed the Jay Presson Allen adaptation of Muriel Spark’s iconic novel. That features an eccentric but lovable teacher in 1930s Edinburgh, and her influence on the young girls in her care. Vanessa Redgrave played Brodie in the 1966 West End production but turned down the part for the 1969 film version, allowing Maggie Smith to step in and claim her first Oscar. David Harrower is only the second writer to be allowed to adapt the novel, receiving permission from Muriel Spark herself shortly before her death in 2006. Harrower’s adaptation, which premiered at London’s Donmar Warehouse in 2018, and has been rev...

9Oct

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Void – Traverse Theatre

There are moments in The Void when I genuinely believe I have boarded the Nostromo, and for someone whose youthful infatuation with Sigourney Weaver remains largely undiminished, that is no small achievement. The extraordinary set presents us with an exploded view of the nose cone of a spacecraft, its outer sections peeled back like the petals of some enormous mechanical flower, exposing the industrial structure within. At its centre, a vast circular surface doubles as a rear-projection screen, providing the focus for much of the production's remarkable imagery. But what makes this design particularly impressive is how successfully the whole of Traverse One becomes part of the spaceship. The exposed air-conditioning plant, overhead gantries and cage-like structures of the t...

7Oct

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Barnum – Edinburgh Festival Theatre

Of spectacle and razzamatazz there was no shortage. For pure froth, noise and escapism this production scores high. But absent were suspense and drama, although some comedy dribbled through here and there. Spectacle, like chocolate cake when relentless and overloaded, loses its flavour. History presents contrasting portraits of P T Barnum, but none were explored regarding his complex, contradictory personality. As a celebration of the man’s chutzpah the two themes to the fore were Barnum’s relationship with his wife Charity, and the ‘theory’ of humbug or, ‘trimmings’. Charmingly executed but devoid of any jeopardy concerning Barnum’s tougher episodes. All the cast gave it their everything, Matt Rawle (P T himself) and Monique Young (his wife, Charity) leading from the front, bringin...