Traverse Theatre Archives - North West End UK

8Mar

By Dylan MooneyNo Comments

Scotland

Medea – Traverse Theatre

Eurpides’ Greek tragedy, Medea, is revived once more by Kathy McKean, arguably bringing more life to the title role, putting Medea front and centre in her own story. This adaptation stays true to its source material while also modernising to fit with today’s usual audience. Her husband, Jason (Jonny Panchaud), gained the golden fleece while Medea (Nicole Cooper) has largely been forgotten. Left at home to look after her two sons, assisted by the Nurse (Isabelle Joss), Medea begins to play a dangerous game of revenge after Jason falls in love with the Princess and daughter of King Creon (Alan Steele). Cooper’s performance as Medea is truly incredible. From the moment she enters the stage, she commands attention, bringing a great sense of naturalism to this well-known Greek tragedy. Sh...

4Mar

By Wendy McEwanNo Comments

Scotland

Fairytales ’26 – Traverse Theatre

IDS Theatre take us back to the dark roots of storytelling, in this work-in-progress sharing of three intersecting short plays. Each play is staged as a monologue, with one actor playing multiple roles. Cleo, My Little Baby tells the story of the “perfect woman”, an AI robot created to comply with men’s desires without asking for anything in return. Cleo escapes from Darren, a bullying creep who calls her mummy in bed, and sets out to discover her origins. My heart broke for Cleo, played with vivacious humanity by Samuela Noumtchuet. Personally, I am rooting for the robot uprising sequel. In The Ginger Girl, we meet Mark (Kieran Lee-Hamilton), a young washing machine repairman and committed misogynist. Mark is chronically online, finding community through the so-called “manospher...

Someone’s Knockin’ at the Door – Traverse Theatre

4Mar

By Jessie MartinNo Comments

Scotland

Someone’s Knockin’ at the Door – Traverse Theatre

Kicking off this season of A Play, a Pie and a Pint, is Someone’s Knockin’ at the Door. Written by Milly Sweeney, this play features grandparents Kathy (Maureen Carr) and Jack (Jonathan Watson) recounting to their granddaughter how they met music legend Paul McCartney in the rural landscape of the Mull of Kintyre. Moving between sit-down interviews with the couple separately talking to their granddaughter, to flashbacks of the couple’s camping trip in 1976, Someone’s Knockin’ At The Door evokes heavy nostalgia and sentimentality. Exploring not only the personal journey of the couple, but how the political landscape in Glasgow actively shaped their relationship. Sweeney has a knack for tackling a myriad of different themes without complicating the narrative or gleaning ...

4Mar

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Events – Traverse Theatre

There’s something quietly disarming about walking into the Traverse and finding the choir already in place. No theatrical reveal, just a community gathered on stage, singing, moving joyously, and dispensing hot drinks to the audience. Behind them, in a broad horseshoe, columns of stacked chairs rise like an improvised colonnade, orderly, architectural, faintly ecclesiastical. Later, those same chairs are winched into the roof, clattering against one another in a moment of metallic chaos, a striking image of rupture of ‘the event’ that lingers long after it settles. David Greig’s The Events, first staged in 2013 and winner of a Fringe First that year, returns here as a welcome re-emergence of a modern classic. Its revival demonstrates that it has lost none of its edge. If anything, ...

26Feb

By Jessie MartinNo Comments

Scotland

Espen Eriksen Trio – Traverse Theatre

Once again, local music programming charity Soundhouse have graced the Traverse theatre with another act of outstanding renown: this time, the Espen Eriksen Trio. This Norwegian jazz trio is composed of frontman Espen Eriksen on piano, Lars Tormod Jenset on double bass, and Andreas Bye on drums. With tranquil, lilting phrases, the Espen Eriksen trio bring a gentle approach to jazz, creating a completely dreamy and meditative soundscape. The trio all possess that typical Norwegian wit, presenting their work with charm, managing to absolutely win the audience over with their dry quips and smart remarks. We really warmed to them as people and hence furthered our connection with their music. My favourite track had to be the opener of course, bringing in the show with p...

24Feb

By Roger JacobsNo Comments

Scotland

Head. Heart. Hand. – Traverse Theatre

Stef Smith is an uncompromising writer. Edinburgh’s Queen Margaret University has some history. What might a collision between the two produce? Commissioned to mark ‘150 years of hope, action and education’ it’s performed by a cast of the university’s acting and performance students, bookended by crises; the poverty and hunger that inspired its founding in 1875 and the cuts to and erosion of the education sector that started in the 1970’s, persisting to the present day. It’s almost as if, following the 60’s, someone felt education might pose a threat. The story alighted upon two other milestones in the institution’s journey, the wartime contributions of the students (many spent time in London looking after bomb repair workers dealing with the effects of Hitler’s 1944 rocket offensiv...

17Feb

By Jessie MartinNo Comments

Scotland

The Flames – Traverse Theatre

The much loved over 50s ensemble group, The Flames return to the Traverse theatre with another verbatim-style, mixed medium show. Produced by Tricky Hat Productions, The Flames uses each ensemble member’s personal memoirs to collate together a story. In this case, the connecting theme of all these individual memoirs was jealousy. Alongside the candid monologues, video and text was projected onto the back wall of the stage. Quotes, presumably taken from the ensemble, were projected - each providing a different outlook on how they define jealousy. As well as this, black and white video of the ensemble was also projected. From raw close-ups that captured a wide-range of expression and emotional depth, to wide shots that artfully superimposed its subjects as...

16Feb

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

(UN)LOVABLE – Traverse Theatre

Scratch nights are, by their very nature, uneven affairs, messy blue prints or gluey models rather than finished buildings. And [UN]LOVABLE at the Traverse Theatre embraced that spirit fully, five short pieces circling the theme of love’s absence, distortion, or bureaucratic assessment. Some were works in progress in the truest sense, one felt ready to walk straight back onstage tomorrow. Clown Divorce Written by Russ Russell and directed by Sarah Docherty, this dark comedy about a clown navigating marital breakdown opened the evening with energy and a knowing wink. Performed solo by Chris Viteri, the piece invited us into a surreal domestic world where divorce proceedings involve greasepaint and emotional pratfalls, and where the profession runs in the family, mother a...

12Feb

By Jessie MartinNo Comments

Scotland

The Wood Paths – Traverse Theatre

Tired of watching paint dry? As an alternative, Manipulate Festival offers The Wood Paths at the Traverse Theatre. Beginning with thirty straight minutes of performers and co-creators Rūdolfs Gedinš and c chopping into large wooden logs in silence, this show is certainly off the wall. Produced by Latvian company, Theatre on Gertrude Street (ToGS), The Wood Paths is an abstract and eccentric piece of performance art that is both mysteriously aloof, and affectionately playful. Directed and co-created by Andrejs Jarovojs, Rudof Bekič is another co-creator alongside Samĭtis and Gedinš. This certainly was a unique performance, and while some may say its reeks of fine-art ostentation, it can’t be denied that The Wood Paths is absolutely intriguing. The performance was in ...

9Feb

By Greg HolsteadNo Comments

Scotland

The Rite of Spring – Traverse Theatre

At the Traverse Theatre, as part of the Manipulate Festival, Dewey Dell’s The Rite of Spring announces itself as a work that expects, and repays, sustained attention. Running a concentrated fifty minutes, this is not a production that courts easy admiration or quick interpretation. It is slow, deliberate, and insistently moody, drawing the audience into a sealed weird world that unfolds according to its own internal logic.The original scandal of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring lay in its pagan brutality, Nijinsky and the Ballets Russes presenting sacrifice as the necessary price of renewal. In Dewey Dell’s reimagining, conceived and directed by Agata Castellucci, Teodora Castellucci, and Vito Matera, that focus subtly shifts. As a monumental red flower opens to reveal a prot...