Royal Lyceum Theatre Archives - North West End UK

17Mar

By H.S. BakerNo Comments

Scotland

Wild Rose – Royal Lyceum Theatre

Rose-Lynn Harlan loves country music and is pretty good at singing it too. Her burning ambition is to sing at The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. The trouble is, she’s just been released from prison and has a tag on her ankle. Whilst Rose-Lynn was incarcerated, her mother has been looking after her two children and now thinks her family deserve her presence and attention. Set in Glasgow, it turns out that Glasgow has its own Grand Ole Opry, (who knew?) and Rose-Lynn gets a job as a cleaner. The rest is fairly standard and predictable. Mother give Rose-Lynn the money to go to Nashville, Rose-Lynn realises what’s really important and the final song, “Glasgow (no place like home)” says it all. But this show isn’t about the narrative, it’s about the music, and if you like country m...

The Merchant of Venice – Royal Lyceum Theatre

23Jan

By Oliver GigginsNo Comments

Scotland

The Merchant of Venice – Royal Lyceum Theatre

The Theatre for a New Audience production of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice is, of course, not set in Venice. Instead, we are in an American city in the near future, though the play's fidelity to Shakespeare's script largely confines this setting to its physical set, designed by Riccardo Hernandez (a brutalist concrete set of steps before two rectangular doors and a circular window), the presence of costume designer Emily Rebholz' suits and mobile phones and, of course, the Jewish characters being portrayed by Black actors (the link between two different intolerances aided by the fact the play has racist as well as antisemitic portions). This limits what the play can do to what Shakespeare did with it and, unfortunately, Shakespeare by today's standards is an antisemite. I...

17Aug

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

Hamlet – Royal Lyceum Theatre

An international festival ought to end in carnival fashion, and this blended version of Hamlet did just that. It was an explosion of success, rejoicing, a knees-up and warm audience participation. Teatro La Plaza from Lima, Peru, has created a feast of a show using back projection (Lucho Soldevilla), music, thoughtful lighting (Jesūs Reyes), a simple set and a fabulous cast of Downs Syndrome adults. This adaptation of Hamlet is both funny in itself and wonderful as a piece of art for showcasing the unquestionable talents of a marginalised sector of society. Written and directed by Chela De Farrari, a founder of the company, the intention is to entertain as you ask questions which help us better understand the contemporary world and, in this instance, the world of the Downs person in...

16Aug

By Kathleen MansfieldNo Comments

Scotland

The Outrun – Church Hill Theatre

Amy Liptrot's 2015 memoir of a generation lost to trivia and over-consumption certainly struck a chord. A film of the book is released this year plus this co-production between Edinburgh International Festival and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh. The Outrun is beautifully staged. Milla Clarke works some artistic magic, along with a collection of talented creatives from Lewis den Hertog on video (superb), Lizzie Powell on lighting, Michael Henry and Kev Murray on music and sound. The piece is cleanly directed by Vicky Featherstone. Vicki Manderson’s chorus opening as waves is very atmospheric and intriguing. Set partially in Orkney, waves are relevant. Additionally, a wave can knock us off our feet and fighting a wave can prove fruitless. Metaphorically, the waves work for this pie...

4Aug

By Caroline WorswickNo Comments

Scotland

Penthesilea – The Royal Lyceum Theatre

This passionate fictional play set at the gates of Troy, was written in 1807 by Heinrich Von Kleist, who four years later would commit suicide with his married lover aged only thirty-four. This may be an indication of his passionate nature, and why at age thirty, he could write such a romantic, but also violent play. Part of the Edinburgh International Festival, the ITA Ensemble who are the in-house team at the Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, are behind this bold production which is part rock concert, and part classical play. The director Eline Arbo, who achieved great success with ‘Weg Met Eddy Bellegueule’ winning a director’s award in 2020, is working with Thijs Van Vuure who created the music which acts as the beat for the play. Staged at the wonderful Royal Lyce...

Shirley Valentine – Royal Lyceum Theatre

15Jun

By Beth EltringhamNo Comments

Scotland

Shirley Valentine – Royal Lyceum Theatre

It’s easy to get stuck in life's daily routine, to lose all excitement in life due to duty and obligation. Shirley is a mother whose kids have grown up and left home, a wife to a man who still requires babying and all in all a shell of her former lively self. For Shirely life's about making her husband’s dinner and talking to the kitchen wall, a life unsatisfied and without risk or excitement, that is until her friend hands her a ticket to Greece. 2 Weeks abroad without the husband or kids… or at least that was the plan, now she’s met a man and discovered the true Shirley Valentine once more. Shirley Valentine is a brilliantly written one woman play that really makes you think about life and how it shapes us. It makes you think about who you are, how you got to where you are and reminds...

31May

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Sunset Song – Royal Lyceum Theatre

Dundee Rep in a major co-production with the Royal Lyceum Theatre bring a contemporary reworking of a piece of classic Scottish fiction for the next ten days, marking the end of an East coast tour through Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness. It is not surprising that the tour has stayed in sight of the North Sea given that almost the entire dialogue is performed in the Doric language native to the North East coast of Scotland. A script that would have had my sadly departed Mother-In-Law, Isobel, chortling away and no doubt reminiscing on her Invergorden crofting roots. Much of the setting of Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song would have been familiar to Isobel; the chains that bind you to the land, to family and hardship. The tears, the toil, the unending bleakness and the stoic endurance...

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...

Group Portrait In A Summer Landscape – Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

6Oct

By Tom ScottNo Comments

Scotland

Group Portrait In A Summer Landscape – Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

It is a brave playwright who describes his play as “Scottish Chekhov”, but Peter Arnott’s magnificent new play does not disappoint. It’s an exhilarating tour-de-force which deals with huge issues while zooming in on the complex human relationships of a group of privileged and talented people. It’s hugely entertaining, thought-provoking, and witty, but not always an easy watch. The first night audience was often shrieking with laughter, but sometimes stunned into shocked silence. It’s set in the summer of 2014 in the heady days leading up to the Scottish Independence Referendum. But although that’s discussed, it’s not a play about Independence. Nor is it about the climate emergency, although that issue features, too. And it’s not really about God though the Deity is important to some ...

Kidnapped – Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

13Apr

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

Kidnapped – Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

Based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, National Theatre of Scotland’s retelling of this boy’s own adventure novel is a fine evening’s entertainment. Branded on the fliers as a ‘swashbuckling rom-com adventure’, it does do some serious veering around from pantomime to poetic to abstract post modern, to sassy jazz cabaret with a splash of bromance. As Kim Ismay proclaims following her rousing ‘I’ve been everywhere (man)’ opening musical number, ‘this book is different’. Kidnapped follows the adventures of youth Davie Balfour, who, following the death of his father leaves the safe dullness of his Borders town to travel to Edinburgh in search of his rich uncle. We are at this point introduced to ‘the boulder’, a cleverly conceived hollowed out stage device which also houses a f...