Sunday, December 22

Tag: Pitlochry Festival Theatre

David Greig’s new play Adventures with the Painted People gets its stage premiere
9May By Paul ClarkeNo Comments
NEWS

David Greig’s new play Adventures with the Painted People gets its stage premiere

David Greig’s new play Adventures with the Painted People which started life as a radio play makes its stage debut at Pitlochry Festival Theatre. It was first commissioned as part of Pitlochry’s cancelled 2020 season and subsequently became a radio play on BBC Radio 3. Now it’s set to have its world stage première from 10th June to 4th July in the theatre’s outdoor amphitheatre as part of their Summer Season. Greig’s first new play since 2013’s The Events will be directed by Pitlochry’s Artistic Director Elizabeth Newman, and is a love story exploring the value of history and the power of writing.   Lucius is a cultured Roman officer captured by the Picts and about to be sacrificed. Eithne is a wise Pictish woman, who wants to record her people's history in writing - a skill ...
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Tennis Elbow – Pitlochry Festival Theatre and Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh
2May By Paul ClarkeNo Comments
REVIEWS

Tennis Elbow – Pitlochry Festival Theatre and Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh

The good folk of the Nitshill Writing Circle have gathered together to eulogise the life of writer and painter Pamela Crichton Capers, but the conceit of John Byrne’s first play for 13 years is that their late mentor’s career is one of utter mediocrity at best. This is a companion piece with a gender twist to Byrne’s seventies hit show Writer’s Cramp that explored the life of another mediocrity Frances Seneca McDade. Fans of that earlier work will relish his fleeting appearances in this radio play produced by Pitlochry Festival Theatre and Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh as part of their Sound Stage season. Byrne traces Pam’s life story from her early days as a pretentious schoolgirl in a crummy religious boarding school where we are treated to one of her dreadful poems, and the veteran pla...
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Scottish legend John Byrne is back with new radio play Tennis Elbow
26Apr By Paul ClarkeNo Comments
Interviews

Scottish legend John Byrne is back with new radio play Tennis Elbow

In 1977 the hottest ticket at the Edinburgh Festival was comedy drama Writer’s Cramp by new Scottish writer John Byrne and the three-hander went on to be a hit in London. It was the riotous tale of Frances Seneca McDade, who is being remembered by the Nitshill Writing Circle, and they seem oblivious that despite his public school swagger their mentor ended up being an utter mediocrity in all his many artistic endeavours. Now Bryne has returned to Paisley for a new radio play, Tennis Elbow, as the writing group gather once again to remember the life of McDade’s estranged wife Pamela played by Kirsty Stuart. “Tennis Elbow is the life story of a writer and artist as she makes her way through life and all of the characters that she meets on the way, the struggles that she has,” says K...
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Angela – Royal Lyceum Theatre/Pitlochry Festival Theatre online
28Mar By Paul DownhamNo Comments
Scotland

Angela – Royal Lyceum Theatre/Pitlochry Festival Theatre online

Mark Ravenhill has taken us to some dark places over the years but none more so than with this unflinching account of his beloved mother Angela’s final dementia journey. But this debut audio collaboration between the Royal Lyceum Theatre and Pitlochry Festival Theatre is as much about class, thwarted ambition and shared memories as it is about a condition that affects nearly a million people across the UK. From the moment the young Angela – subtly played by Matti Houghton – changes her name from the too ‘common’ Rita to Angela you sense this is an intelligent working class woman with artistic ambitions. Her short am dram career is cut short by marriage to engineer Ted, and any ambition to take it further disappears. A pertinent point when the acting profession is increasingly posh an...
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Pitlochry Festival Theatre to reopen with exciting outdoor Summer Season
19Mar By Paul DownhamNo Comments
NEWS

Pitlochry Festival Theatre to reopen with exciting outdoor Summer Season

• Pitlochry Festival Theatre to welcome audiences again with outdoor Summer Season of stage premieres, concerts, new adaptations, and family entertainment • 2021 will be the 70th anniversary Summer Season at Pitlochry Festival Theatre • Season to be performed in newly built 80-seater outdoor amphitheatre in the grounds of Pitlochry Festival Theatre • Season to feature Stage premiere of David Greig’s new play Adventures with the Painted People • New works from leading Scottish playwrights including a new adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde by Hannah Lavery and Jo Clifford and Lesley Orr’s new promenade production Requiem which will see the two celebrated playwrights devise a ceremony which will mourn and celebrate the lives of those lost during the pandemic and support the process of ...
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Theatres Trust supports 40 more UK theatres become Covid-safe in final round of Reopening Fund Grants
14Mar By Paul DownhamNo Comments
NEWS

Theatres Trust supports 40 more UK theatres become Covid-safe in final round of Reopening Fund Grants

Theatres Trust supports 40 more theatres with final Theatre Reopening Fund grants The national public advisory body for theatre has awarded a further £155,265 of grants to help theatres with costs of Covid-secure reopening, including changes to the building to reduce congestion, improvements to ventilation systems and simple measures like installing hand sanitisers and screens. The theatres supported reflect the vital elements that make up the theatre ecosystem with awards made to significant producing theatres – Hampstead Theatre, Lyric Hammersmith, Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Theatre Royal Bath – major receiving houses Capital Theatres and Worthing Theatres, venues specialising in dance (Northern Ballet), new writing (Traverse, New Diorama, Gate Theatre) and one of the country’s fe...
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Strong casts announced for next three Sound Stage Productions
22Feb By Paul DownhamNo Comments
NEWS

Strong casts announced for next three Sound Stage Productions

Pitlochry Festival Theatre and The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in association with Naked Productions have announced three more strong casts for their forthcoming Sound Stage plays. Sound Stage will premiere Tennis Elbow, the new comedy from playwright and artist John Byrne, the creator of the BAFTA award-winning BBC television series Tutti Frutti, and the critically acclaimed plays The Slab Boys Trilogy. The new play, running from 30th April – 2nd May, will be Byrne’s first for 13 years, and is the follow up to his acclaimed 1977 debut play Writer’s Cramp. It’s a bittersweet comedy about the life and work of a mischievous lost artist trying to make her way in the world. Directed by Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s Artistic Director Elizabeth Newman, Tennis Elbow’s exciting cast wil...
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Pam Ferris and Toby Jones lead strong cast for Mark Ravenhill’s new play
13Feb By Paul DownhamNo Comments
NEWS

Pam Ferris and Toby Jones lead strong cast for Mark Ravenhill’s new play

Call The Midwife’s Pam Ferris and Detectorists star Toby Jones lead a strong cast for Mark Ravenhill’s new play Angela The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and Pitlochry Festival Theatre, in association with Naked Productions and BBC Radio 3, are presenting the auto-biographical work as part of their new online Sound Stage project airing from 26th – 28th March with tickets going on general sale from Monday 22nd February. Angela centres on the playwright’s mother at the age of 84, and living with dementia, as she looks back across her life intercutting between old age, her memories and mind failing, and her youth. Ravenhill explores her growing up, moving away from her roots as the world of drama welcomed her. Angela looks at her struggle with depression and the challenges of her...
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Mark Ravenhill’s new play is the highlight of Sound Stage
14Jan By Paul DownhamNo Comments
NEWS

Mark Ravenhill’s new play is the highlight of Sound Stage

Pitlochry Festival Theatre, The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in collaboration with Naked Productions have created Sound Stage featuring a new play by Mark Ravenhill. This new immersive audio digital theatre experience has hit the jackpot with the world premiere of Ravenhill’s, Angela, as he offers his first autobiographical play exploring the way culture high and low impacted his mother’s life and that of his family. The season kicking off on 26th March will premiere eight new co-productions from Pitlochry Festival Theatre and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh written by Roy Williams, Timberlake Wertenbaker, and Tutti Frutti writer John Byrne. “The original idea came from my experience last year making the audio premiere of Adventures with the Painted People with David, Polly, and ...
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The Magic of Christmas – Pitlochry Festival Theatre
11Dec By Paul DownhamNo Comments
Scotland

The Magic of Christmas – Pitlochry Festival Theatre

Perhaps the biggest nightmare for theatreland through the pandemic has been the loss of the lucrative festive shows they use to subsidise their riskier offerings during the year. So, like so many venues the team at Pitlochry Festival Theatre have been forced to offer their seasonal production online, which in all honesty is no replacement for the sheer joy of sitting in a theatre full of overexcited kids with adults in tow keen to relive their youth - all secretly hoping things will go wrong. It may be no substitute, but a four strong cast deliver a charming half hour show in the theatre’s garden as hapless elves Hari and Lari smash the fourth wall inviting cyber viewers to join a journey as they seek the missing North Star that guides Santa as he gives every kid in the world a press...
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