Thursday, November 7

Tag: The Space @ Surgeons’ Hall

Phil Hammond and Dame Clare Gerada:  Fifty Minutes to Save the NHS – The Space @ Surgeons’ Hall
Scotland

Phil Hammond and Dame Clare Gerada:  Fifty Minutes to Save the NHS – The Space @ Surgeons’ Hall

Well, this is a show that achieved the impossible!  I still can’t quite figure out how discussions of subjects such as assisted dying and addiction seriously informed and engaged the audience, whilst making them properly belly laugh time and time again.  This show is an impressive piece of work.  No doubt about it.  The fast paced banter and sparky chemistry between these two eminent doctors – unmistakably authentic, evidently passionate – was right up there with Morecambe (Phil Hammond, step forward) and Wise (Clare Gerada, you played the straight woman as easy as breathing).  The well prepared method of delivery also allowed the voices of fellow members of the NHS to be heard – some serious, some hilarious, some outrageous, all raw, moving and honest. ...
Vote Macbeth! – The Space @ Surgeons’ Hall
Scotland

Vote Macbeth! – The Space @ Surgeons’ Hall

Part 4 of my Fringe of ’23, Macbeth marathon, sees another murder, this time set in the present day that boils and bubbles its way through a very dense script/lib to end with its own toils and troubles. The common theme in disappointing shows is that they inevitably try to do too much, and there could hardly be a better example than this one. From the singular hand of John Paul Liddell, writing, composing, directing, acting and singing (very nicely BTW I might add!) in the Macbeth lead role, there is no air at all left in this one by the end. A dense and wordy treatise on political power, where Macbeth is president, I assume of a post-Independent Scotland, set in the near future, the musical is comprised of 18 songs, which run non-stop, top to tail, with no dialogue in-between. N...