Scotland Archives - Page 31 of 91

13Apr

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

90 Days – Traverse Theatre

There are few things that raise an actor’s energy and commitment (and fear!) more than playing a character who is sitting barely a few feet away from them. Tonight, in Traverse 1, all five actors on stage faced this particular challenge and all rose as a powerful team, bonded by music, to face their namesakes in the audience and to tell the unlikely story of what happened in dressing room and rugby pitch exactly thirty years ago. In an emotion-packed evening there are tears, laughter, singing and a real buzz of camaraderie. On stage Dani Heron, Caitlin Forbes, Yang Harris and Ava MacKinnon play some of the key players of the 1994 Scotland rugby team, Sue (Subo) Brodie, Sandra (gnomie) Colamartino, Kim (headgirl) Littlejohn and Annie (Fannie) Freitas, with John Kielty as their (dol...

3Apr

By H.S. BakerNo Comments

Scotland

Pretty Woman – Edinburgh Playhouse

Most of us are familiar with the 1989 film of Pretty Woman, starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, directed by Garry Marshall. For those that aren’t, the narrative is a simple fairy story – millionaire tycoon Edward, visiting Los Angeles on a business trip, stops in Hollywood Boulevard to ask street walker Vivian for directions to the prestigious Beverly Wilshire hotel. She ends up staying the night. The following day she is told to kit herself out with some high-end fashion using Edward’s credit card and asked to remain for the rest of the week and accompany him on his various social enterprises. So far, so Cinderf***ingrella. Pretty Woman the musical, book by Garry Marshall and J.F. Lawton and music and lyrics by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance, is a joyous romp which is about as f...

Introverts The Musical – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

3Apr

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Introverts The Musical – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Writer Amy Hawes, one third of Tandem Writing Collective, teams up with keyboard player Aaron McGregor to present a brand-new musical about Introverts. Still at workshop stage we are treated to a sneaky peek by a trio of fine actors: Kim Allen, Natalie Arle-Toyne and Betty Valencia, with scripts in hand. Toyne stands out as the neurotic, protective mother, trying to protect her anxiety filled, introvert daughter, Angela, played by Valencia, with Allen never far away as the side-kick imaginary friend. When Angela is given the chance of a free a course at the Introvert Conversion Centre (ICC) which has recently opened in Livingston, and her mum the commission to write about it, they both jump at the chance. It’s not long before Angela is transformed into an online celebrity with a host...

Brief Encounter – Church Hill Theatre Edinburgh

1Apr

By Melissa JonesNo Comments

Scotland

Brief Encounter – Church Hill Theatre Edinburgh

Brief Encounter started as a play called Still Life before Noel Coward translated it to the stage with his immortal screenplay. Emma Rice’s highly rated re-adaptation of Brief Encounter for the stage meets both mediums somewhere in the middle. The original screenplay is pastiched beyond belief- even if you’ve never seen it, you will have seen at least one comedy skit. Married suburban mother Laura Jesson is passing through the train station when a piece of grit gets in her eye. Saved from potential blindness by fellow train traveler, the married Dr Alec Harvey, passions are ignited. The trouble is, it’s the late 1930s, and their burning love for each other is ruinous, so here their love story pans out against a motley crew of other travelers, clientele and servers in the train station c...

The Addams Family – Memorial Hall, Innerleithen

27Mar

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

The Addams Family – Memorial Hall, Innerleithen

The Addams Family, a musical comedy, promises ghoulish jokes and familiar characters. These were dished with aplomb by a society with 123 years of productions under its belt. Innerleithen and District Amateur Operatic Society served its apprenticeship many years ago and, while the name Amateur sticks and the commitment to community involvement is at the very heart of each performance, this circle of talented singers, dancers and actors are anything if not professional in their commitment and style. The main characters are spot on: Morticia, played by Angela Duncan, oozes sensuality and confidence; Gomez (Douglas Russell) has a wonderful voice, fabulous delivery and great comic timing; Erin Thompson as Wednesday is suitably grumpy and very likeable as the crazy love-sick teenager and Ros...

23Mar

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

Don’t. Make. Tea. – Traverse Theatre

In a near future in which government attitudes to disability have supposedly been revolutionised, Chris (Gillian Dean), a former police detective now facing a deteriorating condition, receives a visit from Ralph (Neil John Gibson) to “check” whether she is indeed entitled to benefits. But their competing agendas are clearly mutually exclusive: if displays and white lies are not enough, then how far must Chris go to get what she needs? A dark comedy written by Rob Drummond and directed by Robert Softley Gale, Don't. Make. Tea. tackles many of the issues of current attitudes towards disability. As with many stories set in the future, the applicability is clearly in the here and now rather than the impossible. Many of Ralph's slogans, repetitions and little tricks clearly struck a chord...

17Mar

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Escaped Alone – Traverse Theatre

A play by Caryl Churchill (written in 2016), at age 86 arguably Britain’s greatest living poet and playwright. Known for her dramatisations of the abuse of power, for her support of Palestine, and for her exploration of sexual politics and feminist themes. Also central to most Churchill plays is a fascination with surreal deconstruction and non-naturalistic techniques which puts her firmly in the uncompromising postmodernist camp. Anyone coming to see a Churchill play will leave this one with a knowing smile, for those of us just coming to see a play, less so. The structure of the short 50-minute piece is simple enough; two storylines run side by side, in the first four post-menopausal women sit in comfortable chairs chatting in broken sentences and half-words in a sunny garden, in t...

14Mar

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

Blue Beard – The Lyceum, Edinburgh

In the early 1400s, a French nobleman, Gilles de Rais, was found guilty of kidnapping, raping, torturing and murdering children. He got away with his heinous crimes for longer than he should due to high birth rate and fear, amongst the lower classes, of retribution, should they speak up. This true story became the legend of Blue Beard and the children he murdered morphed into a series of murdered wives, whose mutilated bodies Blue Beard hid in the cellar. The fairy tale explores and warns of the perpetual fear, always in society, of abuse and cruelty forced upon the innocent and the weak. Emma Rice has reworked this famous Bartók opera into a modern-day musical, balancing fresh, boozy, party-loving female confidence against the scales of ongoing malevolence towards specific, known, w...

La Nina Barro (The Clay Girl) – Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh

10Mar

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

La Nina Barro (The Clay Girl) – Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh

Writer Marta Masse joined the audience at the Roxy tonight, to see her life-affirming poetry brought to life for the first time in almost ten years. It must have been an emotional reconnection with her prose and with the original all female cast on what was International Woman’s Day. Ten years on from its first performance during the Edinburgh Free Fringe in 2014, Elizabeth Sogord, returns as La Nina (the clay girl) and Alexandra Rodes as Woman / mbira player. Relying on very minimal set and costume, or in Sogord’s case no costume at all. From a winding sheet of clay-spattered plastic we see the clay girl squirming and wrestling and moaning, and eventually releasing herself into existence to the weirdly haunting (think ancient music box) sound of the mbira, a mini piano from Zimb...

A Giant On The Bridge – Traverse Theatre

10Mar

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

A Giant On The Bridge – Traverse Theatre

Between 2017 and 2021 Glasgow University’s Professor of Criminology & Social Work Fergus McNeill and researcher/artist/linguist and musician Lucy Cathcart Frodén engaged with people involved in the Scottish Criminal Justice system, creating the Distant Voices Community. They wanted to explore crime, punishment and issues associated with re-integrating with ‘normal’ society upon release, going beyond the obvious candidates, interacting with prison officers, governors, probation and social workers and family members of those incarcerated. To quote the Traverse programme notes; ‘Every year in Scotland 10,000 people return home from prison to an uncertain future’. Their findings can be found as ‘learning resources’ on the web (go to Vox Liminus) and six podcasts entitled Currents, Stepping...