Scotland Archives - Page 36 of 93

10Feb

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Pickled Republic – Traverse Theatre

Part of Edinburgh’s Manipulate Festival 2024, Pickled Republic is advertised as an existential dip into the pickle jar of life from Glasgow-based creator/performer Rudy Cantir. Originally from Moldova, where apparently every food is pickled, this one-woman show sees Rudy morph into various pickled vegetables to highlight the universal themes of abandonment, being unfulfilled and unwanted, the fundamental need to be loved, or in the case of the pickled tomato, just eaten would be nice! It sounds zany and it is! Sound designer John Keilty creates an atmospheric, gastric gurgling soundscape and I assume also writes the witty songs which pepper this dish. But the real driving force behind this show are the consumes, which are fabulously conceived by Fergus Dunnet, and which takes t...

Evahisseurs (Invaders) – Traverse Theatre

6Feb

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Evahisseurs (Invaders) – Traverse Theatre

Part of Edinburgh’s Manipulate Festival 2024, Evahisseurs is a one-man show directed and performed by Olivier Rannou for Compagnie Bakelite. With tongue firmly planted in dead-pan cheek, Rannou shows that language is no barrier at all as he clowns his way wordlessly but very effectively through this short but nicely formed nostalgic, alien invasion caper. With little more than a table, and a handful of props, Rannou weaves his unlikely story, with just the hint of a glint in his mischievous eye! Featuring UFO abduction, human experimentation, dog decapitation and exploding jelly aliens, there are certainly plenty of laugh-out-loud moments. Rannou’s actions are nicely backed by a prerecorded soundtrack of weird and wonderful sounds and a miniature screen with scratchy black and white ...

6Feb

By Wendy McEwanNo Comments

Scotland

Last Rites – Festival Theatre Studio

This is a story about a man who travels back to his family home in India to conduct a funeral ritual for his late, estranged father, who was a devout Hindu. As he conducts the ritual, he relives experiences from their difficult relationship. This solo piece, performed by Ranesh Meyyapan uses movement, BSL, subtitles and projected images. There is no spoken language. Sometimes the words onscreen are replaced with emoji-like images – for example, the father is represented by a pair of glasses. This nicely reflects the visual nature of gesture-based language. The sound design, by Tayo Akinbode, was a triumph. Music alternates with sound effects. The ambiguous sound of burning flames, or running water, as Meyyapan conducts the ritual, was particularly evocative and brought home the final...

Simple Machines – Fruitmarket, Edinburgh

6Feb

By Wendy McEwanNo Comments

Scotland

Simple Machines – Fruitmarket, Edinburgh

I am a little bit afraid of robots. I was concerned that the automatons in this production would be sinister denizens of the Uncanny Valley. However, my expectations were turned on their head. Here, choreographer Ugo Dehaes has created a cynical alter ego. At least, I hope this is an alter ego: Dehaes’s performance is very convincing. Apparently, this soft-spoken character got into the arts with the intention of getting rich. When unlimited wealth and power fail to materialise, he looks to mega-corporations for inspiration, and decides to replace his workforce – the dancers – with robots. However, plan B doesn’t work out as he expected either. The philosopher Rene Descartes regarded non-human animals as “mere machines”, a view with profound ethical consequences. But perhaps we ...

6Feb

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

L’Amour Du Risque – Manipulate Festival

In this show by Compagnie Bakélite, a man (show creator Olivier Rannou) is served dinner by a collection of automatised vacuum cleaners piloted off-stage by Morien Nolot. Covered in small tables equipped with everything you need for a meal, including romantic music, tablecloths, a candle and a surplus of spoons, these vacuum actors roam around the lined stage with a mixture of robotic awkwardness and occasional personality, bumping into some objects and ignoring others in their mechanical pursuit of simple functionality. The result is a comedic and hypnotic mix of Jacques Tati and a Pixar short. We watch as these vacuum cleaners struggle with their restaurant jobs, sometimes cleverly, sometimes not, and sometimes both, under Rannou's constant but mostly non-judgemental gaze. As the cust...

6Feb

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

The House – Traverse Theatre

The House is a fantastic little puppet world centered on the Warehouse Family Funeral Home. This particular cremation business is burning the midnight oil to please a manipulative, greedy woman. It is chillingly superb. The set is clever, revealing room upon room where unspeakable deeds are carried out. On her deathbed, the undertaker, Mrs Esperanza, changes her will which does not please some. And so begins the shenanigans of hidden identities, lost souls and nonsensical goings on with open and closing doors offering just one more opportunity for farcical fun. This magnificently bizarre horror story made me smile from ear to ear. It’s surreal, funny and enticing. Sofie Krog and her talented partner, David Faraco, clearly love their jobs and, as a result, they are master crafts...

5Feb

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Plinth – Traverse Theatre

Part of Edinburgh’s Manipulate Festival 2024, Plinth is created and performed by Glasgow-based, Al Seed. A darkly intense, wordless portrayal of human conflict, and a timely reminder that actions speak louder than words. A show that comes with a warning, that it contains loud music/sounds, flashing lights and smoke effects, and rightly so. At times this was certainly in the ‘uncomfortable’ zone. But then again, you could argue that the depiction of war should be uncomfortable. Reminiscent of one of my favourite shows from last year, As Far As Impossible (Lyceum), which questioned why some medics continually return to conflict zones, Plinth asks some similarly unanswerable wordless questions about the inevitability of conflict and the human thirst for ascendancy. Seed’s unquestion...

29Jan

By Wendy McEwanNo Comments

Scotland

Protest – Traverse Theatre

“This is a girl”. Three primary seven girls seek to address injustice in their everyday lives. Inspired by previous generations of women, they begin to find their voices. As soon as I saw the set, I just wanted to play on it. Amy Jane Cook’s design invites spontaneous, joyful movement. There is a winding path for the girls to run around, curved frames to climb and swing on, and platforms to rest, spin and jump on. The actresses are adults, but their performances are so convincing that it is easy to forget this. Movement director Nadia Iftkar has done an amazing job, and the girls move playfully, running with arms outstretched one minute, sitting cross legged and fidgeting the next. They beautifully capture the delight in movement that characterises childhood. The costumes, a...

David Suchet Poirot and More, A Retrospective – Festival Theatre

29Jan

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

David Suchet Poirot and More, A Retrospective – Festival Theatre

At one point in this show David Suchet tells the audience the moment he knew he had to be an actor. He describes seeing the stage be prepared from the audience and having the epiphany that this was storytelling, that this was magic. If there was ever any doubt that David Suchet was a born storyteller, and there wasn't, then this show proves it wrong. He has that magic. Suchet has spent 25 years (or at least part of every one of them) playing Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. His interpretation is widely judged to be the definitive version of the character, not only in its characterisation but also its scope, as the series covered all (or almost all, if we're being pedantic) of the Poirot novels and short stories and is said to always be on TV somewhere in the world eve...

17Jan

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

Jekyll and Hyde – Royal Lyceum Theatre

This adaptation by Gary McNair of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel, is keen to point to its source's Edinburgh roots, though mostly through the programme and the lead (and only) actor's Scottish accent. Unlike some recent productions of Great Expectations or Dracula however, it stops short of relocating the story to Scotland. But even the medium of a play represents a coming home of sorts: this story began with the true tale of furniture-maker and lock-breaker Deacon Brodie, about whom Louis Stevenson first co-wrote a play entitled Deacon Brodie, or The Double Life, though it was his later retooling of the idea of duality into the novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which would find lasting success. The story is well-known (spoilers) for its crucial dual role, which lead at...