Pleasance Courtyard Archives - North West End UK

Bliss – Grand Theatre: The Pleasance Courtyard

3Sep

By Michelle KnightNo Comments

Scotland

Bliss – Grand Theatre: The Pleasance Courtyard

From the Olivier Award - winning producers of Cabaret and Benjamin Button, BLISS a musical fantasy story which follows four sister princesses who are locked up in a Tower under the caring protection of their father. Time spent studying and their desire to experience the world outside the castle, overwhelms them and they embark on a scheme to leave. Chasing Comets and encounters with a fairy Godfather, Prince. Piper, Carmella, Faye and Holly soon discover that life on the outside is not exactly kind. At its heart, the musical explores the fragile collision between innocence and adversity, placing its characters in a world where anything less than perfection can feel like failure. What begins with hope, naivety and the belief that achievement is simply a matter o...

Trans People Are Awful – Bunker One at Pleasance Courtyard

26Aug

By Jessie MartinNo Comments

Scotland

Trans People Are Awful – Bunker One at Pleasance Courtyard

Performing in the Bunker at Pleasance this Fringe, Ros Watt’s Trans People Are Awful couldn’t be placed in a more perfect venue. Set in the garage of a farm just past Inverurie, Aberdeenshire, the cavernous dinge of the Bunker does emulate the feel of a serial killer’s hideout. We are witness to the crimes of a murderous young man as he dissects the bodies of men in a quest to find the perfect body parts. Boy, played by Watt, is videotaping every moment of his process in an act of explanation. He wants to undertake a self-surgery in which he attaches the member of one of his victims onto himself – he just hasn’t found the right fit yet. Rhythmic, voracious, and vigorous, Watt’s performance is electric. You feel completely absorbed in the character’s ...

Elf Lyons is The Woman on the Edge – Pleasance Courtyard

24Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Elf Lyons is The Woman on the Edge – Pleasance Courtyard

Elf Lyons is The Woman on the Edge arrived with considerable expectation, and for a while I thought I was in for something rather special. The opening Hitchcock-esque passages are beautifully conceived, Lyons creating something strange, textured and nuanced, with an unsettling film-noir quality that suggested an intriguing hour ahead. Unfortunately, for me, the show gradually lost its way. The Beyond at Pleasance Courtyard doesn't necessarily help. It is a particularly wide room, requiring Lyons to cover considerable ground to maintain contact with the whole audience. She certainly works hard physically, but looking around during some of the longer passages, I saw rather a lot of people not laughing. Instead, there were quizzical faces, apparently trying, as I was, to piece ...

24Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Buggers – Pleasance Courtyard

Francis Bacon distorted the human figure on canvas. Buggers asks what happened when that same capacity for distortion entered one of the most important relationships of his life. Written by Alistair Hall and directed by Alice Wordsworth, the play immediately demythologises the famous story that Bacon first encountered George Dyer burgling his home, giving us instead an almost wordless wine-bar tryst between Alistair Hall’s Francis Bacon and Peter Clements’ George Dyer. The following morning begins to expose the gulf between them. “I like your nose,” says Bacon. “Yeah, it’s been punched a lot,” replies Dyer. When Bacon discovers that Dyer has done time, he is delighted. “How wonderful.” Then comes a line which encapsulates both Bacon’s attraction to Dyer and something fu...

22Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Two Little Pigs – Pleasance Courtyard

There is a problem before Two Little Pigs has even begun. Sitting in the front row of The Green at Pleasance Courtyard, the glare from the lighting is sufficiently fierce that I resort to sunglasses. That shouldn't happen. The Green itself is a wafer-thin temporary structure seating around 60, full tonight, but with external noise penetrating the space. Nevertheless, director Merle Wheldon and her two performers have an intriguing hour ahead of them. Written by Caitlin McEwan, produced by Patrick Bone Productions, and performed by McEwan as Pig alongside Caleb Hughes as Mark, Two Little Pigs takes us into the increasingly troubling world of the manosphere. Mark's relationship with Martha has collapsed and she has walked out. Into the void comes a pig. The slight...

21Aug

By Ella BeckleyNo Comments

Scotland

Dust – Pleasance Courtyard

Dust travels through time and space, waltzing, dodging and diving through the life of a working-class man. It is the energetic, nostalgic retelling of life that many wish they could’ve had from their own grandparents. Bunker one at Pleasance Courtyard, a cavernous stage set only with a wooden trunk, a walking stick and a miner’s helmet set atop. Seats littered with flyers describing Dust as ‘A true story of northern grit, humour, heart & soul!’, covered in appraisals and five-star ratings. Once the house lights dim and actor Craig...

A Pebble In The Road – Pleasance Courtyard

21Aug

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

Scotland

A Pebble In The Road – Pleasance Courtyard

It was an absolute delight to spend an hour and ten minutes in the company of Ingeborga Dapkunaite, to hear her story of three generations of women, and their experiences living in Lithuania. This is storytelling in its purest form, one person on a stage with no props other than a chair, and with Dapkunaite wearing plain black clothes so that nothing will distract us from the tale of these incredible women. The play moves between locations but is predominately set in the family’s home in Lithuania. We join them on Christmas eve, Dapkunaite shows us the layout of the downstairs of the house, and we learn that they will dine on twelve different dishes with the family sitting around a table with a white tablecloth. Like every family, they have their own traditions at ...

21Aug

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

Scotland

Drone – Pleasance Courtyard

I have taken time to mull over this show before writing my thoughts. I call it a show and not a play, because it is multi-faceted and it has been very cleverly devised. For the most part I applaud its uniqueness, it challenges convention. But I will discuss what I perceive as a basic need in theatre – storytelling, and did this play get the balance right between being inventive, and telling its story? I had done a little research before heading into the theatre, so I felt reasonably confident in understanding the premise of the show. The organisers very wisely gave out a handout as we walked in, which set out the back story, and the basics of the scenes. For those who had not done some research before going in, this would have helped to ease their mind ...

The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much – Pleasance Courtyard

21Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much – Pleasance Courtyard

Voloz Collective have two propositions at this year's Fringe and having already seen their newer REDACTED: The Cover-Up of a Cover-Up of a Cover-Up, I found myself watching The Man Who Thought He Knew Too Much rather unusually, seeing the company's evolution backwards. Set in 1963, it follows Roger Clement, played by Paul Lofferon, a French advertising executive in New York who’s meticulously ordered existence is disrupted when being late for work saves him from an explosion. What follows is an increasingly improbable international chase, delivered through Voloz's trademark combination of physical theatre, object work, comedy and live music. Lofferon is joined by Voloz co-artistic directors Olivia Zerphy, Emily Wheatman and Sam Rayner, all four having trained at L'...

19Aug

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

A Better Memory – Pleasance Courtyard

There can hardly be two more different approaches to AI and bereavement at this year's Fringe than An Echo in the Void and A Better Memory. Intriguingly, you can see them almost back to back, and as a theatrical double bill they make fascinating companions. Where An Echo in the Void throws us headlong into the Matrix, asking us to grapple with neural networks, alternative realities and a future where 1.5 billion people have effectively disappeared inside an artificial world, A Better Memory brings everything back home. Literally. Ihsan Kerr's new play is less psychological thriller than homespun domestic drama. Eleanor, played by Lubna Kerr, is a widow living with an Alexa-like device containing an AI reconstruction of her dead husband Harold, pla...