Scotland Archives - Page 61 of 93

UPSTART! Shakespeare’s Rebel Daughter Judith – Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose

6Aug

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

UPSTART! Shakespeare’s Rebel Daughter Judith – Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose

The talented associate West End director, Alexandra Spencer-Jones (Action to the Word) is known for her physical theatre and musical productions such as Six and Clockwork Orange. So, when the American writer, Mary Jane Schaefer, approached her to direct Upstart! she was both surprised, flattered and a little fearful. It is a gentle play and a perfect play. One of a trilogy Schaefer, has created about the Shakespeare family, Upstart! will delight fans of the Bard. First given a reading at the National Arts Club in New York in 2014, the storyline explores the plight of women, then and now. There is no preaching. But there is a vivid awareness of the modes of suffering and paralysis caused by lack of education and confinement to the domestic domain, where dying children and intransige...

6Aug

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

Scotland

Tennessee, Rose – Pleasance Dome

The Tennessee in the title refers to playwright Tennessee Williams, the writer of such greats as The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, and Rose was his sister, who has also been described as his muse. Tennessee, Rose examines the relationship between Williams and Rose by travelling through time with Rose to her childhood, and how her experiences shaped her future, leaving her with scars, both mental and physical. It is very easy to think of this show as a play about a playwright and his sister, but this play is so much more than that. The lack of understanding of mental health meant that Rose’s treatment was severe, without any care for her feelings, but only on the impact that her unguarded action and speech had on others. Clare Cockburn has written a rem...

Piano Matinee: From Classical to Contemporary – St Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh

6Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Piano Matinee: From Classical to Contemporary – St Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh

Set in Scotland oldest purpose built concert hall, a handsome oval shaped room with an ornate skylight, dating from 1763, Russian-born pianist and composer, Olga Riazantceva-Schwarz, treated us to a varied exciting programme of piano recital. Kicking off with Debussy and Beethoven, played from heart, the award-winning pianist plays with extraordinary virtuosity and delivers a brilliant and moving interpretation of the sonatas. As a special feature, Olga Riazantceva-Schwarz then introduces us to Swiss composer Jean Paul Liardet, which she recently recorded. This concert is part of the album release tour and this is the Scottish Premier. The double-CD album contains a total of six piano sonatas composed by JP Liardet between 1971 and 2020. In halting English, Schwarz explains, L...

Los Guardiola, The Comedy Of Tango – Edinburgh Space Triplex

6Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Los Guardiola, The Comedy Of Tango – Edinburgh Space Triplex

If an aficionado of dance, movement and mime this is a must-see, but otherwise? The flyer for this production claimed the performers had drawn on their expertise in Commedia Dell’arte, mime and Argentine Tango but there were strong elements of Marionette/puppetry, and Kabuki present too. It was skilfully and cleverly performed by Marcelo Guardiola and Giorgia Marchiori, both clearly possessing years of dance ‘chops’. Structured in seven parts, the first (‘Barrel Organ’) dealt with the origin of the dance along the banks of the River Plate and the second (‘Emigrant’) with its spread to Europe, where it initially took hold in Paris. Important to its development in the late 19th century was the role of the barrel organ, combined no doubt with rhythms that had migrated there via slavery. ...

I’m Sexy and I Know It – Sprout Studio, Greenside

6Aug

By Ben PearsonNo Comments

Scotland

I’m Sexy and I Know It – Sprout Studio, Greenside

Everyone should watch this show. And I mean everyone. As a 21-year-old man, it would be easy to assume that I wasn’t the target audience for a performance about a middle-aged woman’s relationship with her sexuality and her body. But that could not be more wrong. Anna Friend has devised an utterly hilarious, and incredibly moving, play about the struggles that women go through from such an early age to feel ‘sexy’ and desirable. She charts the course of her relationship to this struggle throughout her life. Beginning with when she first watched porn at the age of 11, to her more recent revelation that she is in fact bisexual. She holds nothing back as she takes the audience through this journey, which leads to as many hilarious moments as it does profound ones. I’ll try not to give away too...

I Was on a Sitcom – The Gilded Balloon, Teviot – Turret

6Aug

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

I Was on a Sitcom – The Gilded Balloon, Teviot – Turret

Eden Sher’s show, I Was on A Sitcom, is situated in The Turret at The Gilded Balloon Teviot. It is not easily accessible. The room is hot and Sher sweats her way through the act. It’s perfect … because the subject matter isn’t easily accessible and could bring on a sweat of embarrassment in less capable hands. But not in Sher’s hands. She is a raconteur who can turn anything to gold. Sher jokes, both verbally and physically, about the excruciating pain of giving birth to premature twins. Carrying her babies was an uphill struggle and the pregnancy culminated in a sweaty urgency. She cleverly links this life episode to her ten-year residency on the American sitcom, The Middle, explaining how she became, over time, half her character, Sue, and half herself, split from one egg, like he...

Gone to the Dogs – Gilded Balloon Teviot – Wine Bar

6Aug

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

Gone to the Dogs – Gilded Balloon Teviot – Wine Bar

Conceptually, I was intrigued by this piece. Britannia, written and played by Tsarzi, cut an attractive figure with her cheeky grin and mischievous eyes. The set was messy, stuff all over the place, and Britannia was dozing over her piano as the parody of a Radio 4 broadcast opened the show. The play explores the decay of the British Empire: the intransigence of the establishment and the older generation to let it go. A pertinent idea for the times. It is for this reason that the stage is scattered with remnants of a former glory. Even the sash worn by royalty on formal occasions is put on, taken off, held up instead of worn - it is an afterthought. Tsarzi sings us through a host of representations of our fading cultural heritage, mostly in refrains on repeat, including the church, the ...

5Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Ants – The Space On The Mile

If you’re a fan of The Apprentice you’ll love this. If you hate The Apprentice, you’ll love this. Three jargon-peddling suit-types, straight from Alan Sugar central casting, within a faceless company where no-one seems to know what it does, makes or sells are given the task, sorry, ‘brief’ of maximising profits over the next year. In a matter of hours. In a typically febrile atmosphere recognizable to anyone who’s ever worked for a large corporation, the threat of job losses and cost-cutting hovers. We’ve a statuesque terribly well-spoken HR officer, a diligent, meticulous worker from the Research department and an earthy, frequently insensitive Accounts personality direct from the locker room, trying to mansplain his way through their dilemma. They all talk a lot. They all talk even more ...

Mull Historical Society – Edinburgh Summerhall Dissection Room

5Aug

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Mull Historical Society – Edinburgh Summerhall Dissection Room

In a record company promotions office, London town, late 2000 or early 2001, a track came on provoking one of those joyous ‘what’s this?’ moments. The song was ‘Barcode Bypass’. Mull Historical Society’s debut album ‘Loss’ appeared in October 2001 and eight albums later (two released under Colin MacIntyre’s own name) there’s ‘In My Mind There’s A Room’. It’s available via the usual modern channels but for those who care, also on double pink vinyl. A stellar literary cast too long to mention here assisted in its creation including locals Ian Rankin, Jackie Kay and Alan Warner. It’s an emotional listen. More so when one discovers it was recorded in a studio… apologies, a room… in Tobermory, once inhabited by his Grandfather Angus, none too shabby a poet himself. So it is that folks beat a...

Topless: The One Woman Musical – Open Top Deck at Big Bus Betty

5Aug

By Beth EltringhamNo Comments

Scotland

Topless: The One Woman Musical – Open Top Deck at Big Bus Betty

Who doesn’t love an open top bus tour? Maybe not of the wrong city (yes, this bus tour is of London from the comfort of Edinburgh!), but for this show it’s not the site seeing that takes precedent rather the emotional roller coaster in which your guide is going to take you on. Your tour guide Sandie is sure to show you why it’s best not to mix business with your personal life in this one woman musical. Based off the original play Topless by Miles Trednnick (my favourite play and worth a read alone) this dark comedy shows Sandie a tour guide with a messy relationship history as she tells her unsuspecting tourists just how she dealt with her cheating husband, but unlike the previous play back in 1999 she does some of it through song. Set in the very intimate setting of an old open ...