Friday, December 19

Scotland

Batshit – Traverse Theatre
Scotland

Batshit – Traverse Theatre

There’s a certain audacity to a one-person show. One performer, one story, one mind in charge of the entire evening. Batshit, created and performed by Leah Shelton, turns that control into both its subject and its triumph. In a world quick to label women “mad”, Shelton calmly, stylishly, and with extraordinary precision, takes charge of her own narrative, and everyone else’s for that matter, for sixty taut minutes.When you enter the tight Traverse 2, the first thing that hits you is the bank of LED strips looming above the stage like a silent judge. It’s no decorative flourish: throughout the show, that strip becomes an emotional metronome, pulsing and flickering in unnervingly close rhythm with the sound design. The coordination of light and sound, operated, I assume, from a pre-programme...
To Kill a Mockingbird – Festival Theatre
Scotland

To Kill a Mockingbird – Festival Theatre

All rise. Atticus Finch is back in court, and on this particular evening in Edinburgh it isn’t Richard Coyle behind the spectacles but John J. O’Hagan, stepping up from first cover to take on one of American literature’s most beloved men of principle. He does so with quiet assurance. Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird, reborn for the stage by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Bartlett Sher, has been touring the UK with glowing tributes. The Edinburgh stop at the Festival Theatre proves both admirable and exhausting, a beautifully acted, morally charged evening that never-the-less feels every minute of its bloated three-and-a-quarter-hour runtime. Sorkin’s adaptation has long been praised for shifting the novel’s moral centre from saintly nostalgia to uneasy realism. His Atticus isn’t carved...
The Seagull – Royal Lyceum
Scotland

The Seagull – Royal Lyceum

The Seagull is the complete package thanks to James Brining's direction. The casting is perfect; the set sumptuous; the costumes tip-top and the adapted script a true delight. Mike Poulton, the witty script adaptor, praises The Lyceum as “a theatre and a company Chekhov would have loved.” The cast of eleven certainly warm your heart, being consistently strong across the board. There is humour, tenderness, spite and selfishness aplenty. The Seagull offers a study in human folly, with each of us striving for originality and acknowledgement in a world where our relationships and the perspective of “the other” tarnishes and corrupts our pure intentions. The human experience is presented with simplicity. The tragedy of despised love and our willingness to accept crumbs, or nothing at a...
Cheapo – Traverse Theatre
Scotland

Cheapo – Traverse Theatre

Cheapo, brought to the Traverse Theatre by Play, Pie and a Pint, follows schoolboy Jamie (known as “Sheldon” to his bullies, played by Testimony Adegbite) as he sets up his travel chess board in KFC, ready for his usual match. Expecting to meet the same friend he plays with every week, Jamie is instead greeted by Kyla (Yolanda Mitchell), one of his bullies. Kyla has a proposition: she wants Jamie to retract his witness statement to the police. In return, her boyfriend and his friends will spare him a beating. As their chess game unfolds, it becomes clear that Kyla is not as cruel as she initially seems—she is frightened, afraid of the consequences of going to court. Likewise, Jamie fears the repercussions of withdrawing his statement, particularly in light of how the police treat young ...
HER – Traverse Theatre
Scotland

HER – Traverse Theatre

What would you do if you knew explicit photos of a young schoolgirl were being leaked? Would you do anything? Have you done anything? We’ve all witnessed situations like this before—it’s an all-too-common scenario, so common in fact that most people wouldn’t bat an eye. HER, produced by Strange Town and written by Jennifer Adam, confronts the audience directly, urging us to stand up and take action. The play insists that there is no such thing as an innocent bystander. Fast-paced and quick-witted, we are swept into the heart of the school by our two schoolkid narrators, B1 and B2, played by Zara-Louise Kennedy and Alex Tait. The pair move deftly through a multitude of characters, from teenage bams to ostentatious patrons of the fancy restaurant where HER (Eleanor McMahon) works. While t...
War Horse – Festival Theatre
Scotland

War Horse – Festival Theatre

Based on the 1982 novel by Michael Morpurgo which was later adapted into a film by Steven Spielberg in 2011, the show was adapted for the stage back in 2007, on which it has been more or less ever since (factoring in for Covid). The eponymous War Horse is Joey, young farmer Albert’s beloved equine companion, who gets sold to the Cavalry and shipped to France in 1914 during mobilisation. Soon he and Albert who, despite being too young, followed him into war a few months, are caught up in enemy fire in No Man’s Land. Despite having followed Joey explicitly to find him, there seems little hope of reuniting, or even surviving the War that was meant to be over by Christmas. Featuring life-sized horses by South Africa’s Handspring Puppet Company and projection on a tear-like screen by Nico...
Top Hat – Edinburgh Playhouse
Scotland

Top Hat – Edinburgh Playhouse

Irving Berlin’s Top Hat taps into the Edinburgh Playhouse this week with more sparkle than a sequinned gin palace, and, in a rare feat, manages to float for two and a half hours without ever feeling heavy. Not just that, the sound is also extraordinary, and for a venue sometimes dogged by poor acoustics, this is a revelation: sound clear as a bell, band fizzing with verve, and an audience leaning in from overture to curtain. For context, Top Hat began life in 1935 as an RKO film directed by Mark Sandrich, a vehicle for Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, with Berlin supplying the evergreen numbers, “Cheek to Cheek,” “Top Hat, White Tie and Tails,” “Isn’t This a Lovely Day?”. The stage version we see tonight descends from the 2011 UK adaptation by Matthew White and Ho...
Man’s Best Friend – Traverse Theatre
Scotland

Man’s Best Friend – Traverse Theatre

The acclaimed Douglas Maxwell’s new play, Man’s Best Friend, opened at the Traverse Theatre having previously played at the Tron in Glasgow. Directed by the Tron’s Artistic Director, Jemima Levick, and starring Jordan Young, a rising star in Edinburgh’s famous panto, this play is both laugh-out-loud hilarious and also beautifully emotive. Ronnie (Young) is a dog walker tasked with walking his neighbor’s beloved pooches. However, when the belt holding their leads breaks, the dogs are left running free into the woodlands of the local park. Alone, Ronnie is left with his thoughts as he navigates through the trees, searching for the runaway canines. And his mind begins to wander, perhaps it's answers and understanding he’s looking for also. From the outset, Young crafts a natural and...
FEIS – Traverse Theatre
Scotland

FEIS – Traverse Theatre

FEIS is a story of ambition, intergenerational discord and Irish dancing, with a side order of chaos. Deirdre (Louise Haggerty) is seriously over-invested in her daughter Aiofe’s (Leah Balmforth) dance career. Grandmother Maura (Julie Coombe) is delectably unhinged. Deirdre secretly makes ends meet by creating online Irish dance-themed adult entertainment. Family secrets come to light as Aiofe seeks to understand who she is. Anna McGrath’s mercurial script energetically captures the love and battles between three generations of women. Director Laila McGrath keeps the pace just right, giving the actresses space to really go for it with the larger-than-life characters. The belly laughs come from the heart of the story, as the characters raise the stakes to outdo each other. Haggerty an...
Black Hole Sign – Tron Theatre
Scotland

Black Hole Sign – Tron Theatre

Beginning its development in 2021 by Traverse Theatre’s in-house playwright Uma Nada-Rajah, Black Hole Sign hits the stage this week at the Tron Theatre.  Over the course of a night in a collapsing (figuratively and literally) NHS ward, we gain insight into the series of events that led to the dismissal of Senior Charge Nurse Crea (Helen Logan) as she fails to meet her duty of care.  Combining heavy emotional arcs with amusing and outlandish characters, Black Hole Sign captures the toil NHS staff and patients alike face due to overworking and underfunding.  Inspired by Nada-Rajah’s own experience working as a nurse, this play hits hard - the events that take place are harrowing and all too realistic.  The play unpacks a huge myriad of issues; we see the strain put on personal relat...