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Brendan Son of Dublin – The Tung Auditorium

30Oct

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

Brendan Son of Dublin – The Tung Auditorium

In the 100th anniversary year of the birth of the infamous Brendan Behan, Fatdan Productions present the second of their musical dramas focusing on the ‘outsider’, following their 2021 play on Oscar Wilde, as part of the Liverpool Irish Festival. Written by John Merrigan and with music and lyrics by Danielle Morgan, director and visual artist Professor Pamela Howard OBE presents a semi-staged production to explore the enigma that is Behan. With the simplest of staging that includes three stools, three chairs, and a clothes rack, Behan (Pádraig Lynch) steps through the key phases of his life from impassioned young Republican through to literary lush, with supporting characters portrayed by an ensemble (Gillian McCafferty; John Newcombe; Jack Klaff; Ann Marcuson; Ross Scarfield) and the s...

The Haunted Haus: Adamas Family Values – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

30Oct

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Haunted Haus: Adamas Family Values – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

As Part of the Edinburgh Horror Festival, at The Banshee Labyrinth just off Edinburgh’s ghostly Royal Mile, April Adamas international drag legend (it says here!) and friends are certainly on the ‘Rocky’ side of Horror as they strut and lip-synch their way at (time)warp speed towards the witching hour. Chaotic, amateur, energetic, edgy. In a performance that started twenty minutes late and with performers outnumbering audience at the start this got off to a bad start, but certainly was a grower, to the point an hour later the 40-seater venue was full to bursting point and rocking big style. The infeasible lithe April and friends certainly put on a show, dramatic and well-choreographed, gymnastic and high octane and with April’s ascetic wit (like a latter-day Lily Savage) just abo...

Devil In The Belfry – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

30Oct

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Devil In The Belfry – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

Part of the Edinburgh Horror Festival, at The Banshee Labyrinth just off Edinburgh’s ghostly Royal Mile, Edgar Allan Poe’s short tale is vividly reincarnated by the brilliant David Robb in partnership with the assured touch of director Flavia D’Avila. All seems well in the town of Vondervotteimittiss (wonder-what-time-it-is), somewhere in the mountains of Holland (?), where the clock is king and the cabbage is queen, until a fiddle playing stranger comes a calling. With rubber face and equally lithe body, Robb with just a handful of props shows just what can be achieved with very little indeed but with quite a bit of help from an entranced audience, who, with varying levels of enthusiasm, take on the role of central character Handel Fledermaus. Handel, whose parents were unfor...

Tarmac Lullaby – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

30Oct

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Tarmac Lullaby – The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh

Part of the five-day long Edinburgh Horror Festival, at The Banshee Labyrinth just off Edinburgh’s ghostly Royal Mile. A suitably dark and stormy night saw me head out for a Labyrinthine hat trick of horror. First up, written by Daniel Orejon for his theatre company Crested Fools, this one-woman show looses its way a little by being way too wordy for its own good. Often the simplest stories told well work out the best. A flow chart showing all of the characters featured in the stories and their relationships would have been handy. A chance meeting in a car park brings together two old schoolteacher friends, and soon they are recounting stories from the past, but these are not cosy school stories, these are tales of blood-weeping daughters, abusive relationships, a foul-mouthed mo...

30Oct

By Peter RuddickNo Comments

North West

Spam Valley – 53two

There is something intensely personal about Spam Valley. Perhaps unsurprising given it is described as an ‘autobiographical monologue’ of Kevin P. Gilday’s journey from working-class Glasgow to a middle-class career on the stage. But what makes the show extra special is how universal and relevant it is. Blending poetry and spoken word this is part stand up, part sermon. A hilarious, heartbreaking and extraordinary analysis of class. Under the 53two arches sits a solitary plastic chair, a microphone on a stand and a clothes rail of jackets: from the classic Umbro zip up to the badged blazer beloved by the arterati. One person monologues like this rely on the audience feeling secure in the hands of the performer. Gilday emerges and delivers his brilliant poem The Old Men In Weth...

The House Amongst the Willows – Formby Little Theatre

30Oct

By Mark DavorenNo Comments

North West

The House Amongst the Willows – Formby Little Theatre

Fletcher (Peter Harris) is taking his fiancée Sadie (Hannah Johnson) away for a week, but they will be staying with the parents, Paul (Michael Leathley) and Erin (Vicky Birrell), of his previous wife, Laura (Donna M Day). Although engaged, they haven’t been together that long and Sadie is about to discover more than she had bargained for when his friend Josh (Simon James), a former policeman, reveals some hidden truths about Fletcher’s previous relationship, and when his Parisian ex, Kelly (Samantha Jones), turns up, things are about to get really complicated. If that’s not enough to get you started, then director Day’s unravelling of the subtext of the story definitely will as all is most certainly not what it seems in this tranquil part of middle England. Without giving too much away,...

30Oct

By Alice RoseNo Comments

London

Boy Parts – Soho Theatre

After a huge TikTok following and cult fan group, author Eliza Clark created a fan club for women with rage. The story follows Irina, a photographer who finds art in violence and gore. She chooses her male subjects with exact images in mind, she won’t compromise her desire of ‘perfection’ up until the very last shot. Many reviews compare it to a female ‘American Psycho’ but I would argue we are exploring the endless pit of ‘The Male Gaze’ as women can never quite escape the sexualisation, the ‘pats on the head’ for their fragility- even when she shows the depth of her evil she will never be a threat. Irina is so full of rage that she’s numb. The language in the book is dirty, uncomfortable and this is what excites fans so much because it’s unusual to explore evil women this way and as you ...

30Oct

By Wendy McEwanNo Comments

Scotland

Moorcroft – Traverse Theatre

This tale of male friendship and football is based on writer / director Eilidh Loan’s own memories of growing up in a working-class community in Renfrewshire, and the stories that her dad told her. The play begins as Garry (Martin Docherty) turns 50. He’s grown weary over the years, and he starts to reminisce about his glory days, in the 1980’s, and the friends he played football with back when he had fire in his belly. As narrator, Garry establishes that the story is about working-class men, and will not feature “big bits of furniture falling from the sky”, or sparkly costumes, because “life is so boring and shite” where he comes from. Everyone needs an escape from life’s hardships, and these men find it in their grassroots football team, Moorcroft. The characters are well dra...

Close Up Concert – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

28Oct

By Kiefer WilliamsNo Comments

North West

Close Up Concert – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

This concert in the intimate surroundings of the fantastic Music Room at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Hall features the outstanding UK clarinettist Julian Bliss accompanied by the excellent pianist James Baillieu. The concert included five superb pieces of music written for clarinet and piano. Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for clarinet and piano (1962) is a short, energetic, and quite dazzling piece. In three movements, Poulenc’s sonata simply soars and brings a whole new meaning to the word melodic – the second slow movement is absolutely beautiful, and Bliss really shows us why he is one of the UK’s first and foremost exponents of the clarinet. Claude Debussy’s Premiere Rapsodie (First Rhapsody) (1910) is a sublime and exhilarating piece of music and altho...

28Oct

By Wendy McEwanNo Comments

Scotland

Battery Park – Traverse Theatre

Andy McGregor’s show, about a short-lived Indie band in the early nineties, includes an album’s worth of original songs, so it’s a lot like seeing a play and a gig at the same time. In the present day, Older Tommy (Chris Alexander) is approached by student Lucy (Chloe-Ann Taylor), who multi-roles as Tommy’s girlfriend, Angie, back in the nineties. Lucy is writing a dissertation on indie music, and she wants to know why Battery Park crashed and burned just before they made it big. In the nineties, Tommy’s (Stuart Edgar) brother Ed (Tommy McGowan) has just been fired from his dead-end job, and his pal Biffy’s (Charlie West) band has split up because one of the members got grounded for failing higher maths. They happen to hear Tommy playing a song on his guitar, and agree to form a band...