Scotland Archives - Page 2 of 129

Jack and the Beanstalk – Festival Theatre

22Dec

By Susan CohenNo Comments

Scotland

Jack and the Beanstalk – Festival Theatre

What never fails to amaze about Edinburgh’s panto is that year after year, it seems to reinvent itself. This year the city’s beloved panto team delivered the most intriguing combination – an unpredictable quirkiness on a stage dressed with the most spectacular set. This production was exquisitely lit and its set extravagantly and effectively designed so that it felt like something special, something pretty swanky well before the first flash of (many) pyrotechnics. Indeed, it was so extravagant that the cost was comedically referred to by Allan Stewart (Dame May McTrot) on more than one occasion, pointing out that sacrifices had to be made in the budget elsewhere. Funny? Yes. True? Most probably. And so, there we all went, flying headlong into Panto...

22Dec

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Finding Balance – Traverse Theatre

Five writers, five directors and twenty five actors come together for the inaugural event from Balancing Act Theatre. Scratch nights are a little like winter allotments: the soil is cold, the beds are uneven, and what you’re really being asked to admire is not the harvest but the intention. Finding Balance, Winter, hosted by David Gardner and Benedict Hoesl, wears that honesty openly. This is an evening about writers finding their feet rather than actors polishing their shoes, and the Traverse’s Traverse 2 becomes a kind of rehearsal room made public, scripts in hand and possibilities hovering. The temperature of the night is best described as promising but baggy. Five short works in progress make for a long evening, and the cumulative effect can feel diffuse, particularly w...

15Dec

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

4Play – Traverse Theatre

The Traverse’s 4PLAY has form, a new-writing pressure cooker where short pieces are aired, tested, and occasionally launched into something much larger. Last year’s Colours Run was proof enough that this collective can produce work that grows real legs. This year’s quartet, though, is more uneven, with flashes of real quality offset by structural quirks and the odd misjudgement. The evening opens with Chips by Ruaraidh Murray, a micro-play in every sense. Running no more than seven or eight minutes, it dramatises a real-life Edinburgh gangland robbery, not for cash, but for microchips, with a premise that promises much more than the piece has time to deliver. There’s energy and intent here, but it barely gets started before it’s over. As an amuse-bouche, it’s intriguing, as drama, it’s ...

Tchaikovsky’s Heroines & Heroes – Usher Hall

12Dec

By Wendy McEwanNo Comments

Scotland

Tchaikovsky’s Heroines & Heroes – Usher Hall

This concert comprises scenes from three of Tchaikovsky’s greatest operas, each with a compelling female character at its heart. Their stories of forbidden love echo the composer’s own heartache from living as a gay man in a homophobic culture. In the aria Da, Chas Nastall from Act 1 of The Maid of Orleans, Joan of Arc (Natalia Kutateladze), bids a bittersweet farewell to her homeland. “You meadows and trees, my foster children, you will blossom and wither without me.” The music, and the performance, are filled with drama and passion, contrasting Joan’s intimacy with her childhood landscape, and the bloodstained violence of the battlefield to come. I was struck by the resolute strength that Kutateladze brought to the character. In a scene from Iolanta, Vaudémont (Robert Lewis) falls ...

8Dec

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Dancing Shoes – Traverse Theatre

Unbridled joy. A tonic. In an almost panto-style atmosphere this brilliantly written work of Edinburgh-based duo Stephen Christopher and Graeme Smith is brought to life in celebratory fashion, complete with audience participation, and the themes (NOT memes); addiction, isolation and depression. Still with us? The set is comprised of five chairs and an Eric’n’Ernie curtain through which, eventually, reluctantly, steps our Byrne-esque hirsute hero Donny (Stephen Docherty). ‘Dancin’ Donny’ encounters Craig (Lee Harris) and Jay (Craig McLean) in a local community centre where amongst the Craft Workshops, Yoga (and Baby Yoga) activities on offer are sessions for recovering addicts. With Maggie, who always takes the central chair and alternates the direction of conversation depending on the d...

2Dec

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Beyond Monet – Royal Highland Centre

There’s something delightfully odd about stepping into one of the colossal cattle halls of the Royal Highland Centre and finding yourself transported into Monet’s luminous world of haystacks, lily ponds, and steam trains. Edinburgh’s Beyond Monet is the smaller sibling of last year’s Glasgow Beyond Van Gogh installation, but size, as it turns out, is only part of the story. The Royal Highland Centre, by contrast, offers a more contained, unified volume. Here, the projections encircle you on all four walls with complete synchronicity, transforming the experience into something more cohesive. Instead of moving through fragments and competing tableaux, you sink into a single visual world. Oddly enough, the smaller building produces a bigger emotional effect. The room becomes womb-like, dar...

2Dec

By Susan CohenNo Comments

Scotland

Baltic – Cumbernauld Theatre

Well, this is a panto full of creative Christmas joy! The word BALTIC is the jokey Scottish colloquialism for the word FROZEN, so the audience arrived in anticipation of being treated to a narrative which involved at least some of the much-loved characters of the Disney movie. It turns out that they weren’t to be disappointed. According to the promo blurb, brave young Elspeth, with magical powers still to be unleashed, lives in the snowy village of Glenfrost. When her brother Kai is kidnapped by the wicked Snow Queen Chilblain and her slippery sidekick Jack Frost, she sets off on a daring rescue mission. She’s joined by her hilariously cheeky pal Sammy the Slush, her snow-stopping mammy Dame Agnes Avalunch, and a whole host of frosty new friends, including a talkin...

2Dec

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Bee Asha – Traverse Theatre

As part of The Soundhouse Winter Festival we’re treated to a vibrant set from poet, spoken-word, rap, jazz, dance, multi-faceted artist Bee Asha, but more of that in a minute… Support is no less than erstwhile keys player for The Vaselines, Carla J Easton, playing a clutch of songs from a forthcoming album that started life in a small recording booth in Nashville. With Brett. Dignifying a Fender Mustang (ok, could’ve been a Jaguar or Jazzmaster), peppering the set with anecdotes ranging from buying said guitar from Glasgow’s salubrious West End, to adventures halfway up a Norwegian glacier with Mr Hefner himself, Darren Hayman, she’s accompanied by ‘the best-dressed man in music’, Paul Kelly on acoustic. He was well-attired but a touch of glitter wouldn’t have gone amiss. What reall...

Cinderella: A Fairytale – Royal Lyceum Theatre

2Dec

By Dylan MooneyNo Comments

Scotland

Cinderella: A Fairytale – Royal Lyceum Theatre

Deck those halls as it’s Christmas time once again in Edinburgh with Royal Lyceum Theatre’s annual festive show, this year Sally Cookson’s and Adam Peck’s Cinderella: A Fairytale. A classic story known and loved by many, holding on to its original charm alongside modernisation, making this play a stand-out for family festive fun. We follow Ella (Olivia Hemmati), recently orphaned and ‘looked after’ by her stepmother (Nicole Cooper) and tormented by her wicked stepsiblings (Christina Gordon and Matthew Forbes). In this production, Ella has a deep connection with birds and, when finding some needed solace from her awful living conditions, she meets a fellow bird enthusiast (Sam Stopford), who just so happens to be a prince. As the story goes, Ella is invited to a royal ball but will every...

24Nov

By Jessie MartinNo Comments

Scotland

Gallus in Weegieland – Tron Theatre

What a way to kick off panto season! Gallus in Weegieland at The Tron theatre is glam, gorgeous, and very glaswegian. Expecting the typical tired panto schtick and gags, I was very gladly mistaken - this is a panto that cares. With an actually engaging storyline accompanied by original songs by Ross Brown (who's multi-tasking and multi-instrumentalism in playing the score was incredibly impressive), I was grinning from ear to ear. Based on Alice in Wonderland, we saw Alice (Jorgey Scott-Learmonth) embark on a quest to find love, inspiration, and bravery in Weegieland in order to pass her ballet exam back on earth. Of course, it wouldn’t be a panto without an evil queen and Queenie of Hearts, Louise McCarthy did not disappoint. If Elaine C. Smith was hig...