"Hear Word!" is how Nigerians start a story, a sort of town crier’s call and Hear Word! Naija Woman Talk True co-written and directed by Ifeoma Fafunwa is definitely at…
Hard to be Soft: A Belfast Prayer choreographed and directed by Oona Doherty is at times an explosive, visceral and overwhelming experience.
In the company of Barrie Kosky, Artistic Director of Komische Oper Berlin, and singers Alma Sadé and Helene Schneiderman, step back into the tragedy and tongue-in-cheek wit of a forgotten genre: Yiddish operetta…
Jackie Kay’s memoir Red Dust Road, adapted for the stage by Tanika Gupta, is a huge disappointment.
Kalakuta Republik will stay with you, for good or bad.
Theatre-making manifestos always make me wary, in part because I'm inherently suspicious of portentous artists in any field: "The aim is not to depict the real, but to mak…
Formed in Edinburgh in 1990, Shooglenifty has always embraced a wide church of influences. The band draws in members from the Highlands and Islands, and the city, from traditional musical backgrounds, and those shaped by more experimental genres…
There's little doubt that The Duchess of Malfi has become the most popular and successful work written by the English Jacobean playwright John Webster. Its concise narrative, complex characters and at-times beautifully poetic language has ensured that the play continues to be revived across the centuries…
When Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum Theatre announced that they were producing a stage musical based on the iconic 1983 Scottish film Local Hero, I must admit to wondering if it was (a) a sign that one of Scotland's most successful producing theatres had decided to play safe with a familiar brand; and (b) little more than an exercise in nostalgia…
Guess Q’s back! The naughtiest puppets in town will be heading to a theatre near you as comedy musical Avenue Q returns next year to tour the UK with all of your favourite fuzzy friends, opening in at Portsmouth Kings Theatre 21 January 2019...
Rumbustious, fast, furious and funny, yet full of magic and fairy dust, Wendy and Peter Pan will delight all ages: an awfully big adventure and the perfect Christmas show. It is also a new version of J M Barrie’s well-loved play, adapted by Ella Hickson and directed by Eleanor Rhode, which re-imagines gender roles (the swopping round of names in the title is no typing mistake) and also re-interprets the theme of "Lost Boys", the theme of mortality adding poignancy and depth…
The works by French poet and playwright Edmond Rostand, just one of the victims of the influenza pandemic which swept the world in 1918, are today largely forgotten; the one exception is his 1897 "heroic romance" Cyrano de Bergerac…
“If music be the food of love, play on…” In Shakespeare’s bittersweet comedy genders blur, boundaries are crossed and the world is turned upside down, all with music as the engine for these bacchanalian shenanigans…
As resident company at the 2018 International Festival, the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord brings three contrasting yet equally daring works to Edinburgh. Peter Brook is among the most influential figures in international theatre, and one of the most important artistic figures in the past century...
Featuring an acclaimed cast of screen and stage actors, Marguerite Duras’s psychological thriller is given a radical stage reworking by iconoclastic British director Katie Mitchell.
Considered to be one of the greatest plays ever written, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot is famously a play about nothing. Twice. Two characters wait for the titular character to arrive and as they wait, they meet some other travellers on the road before being informed that Godot will not, in fact, be coming...
August Strindberg apparently subtitled his play Creditors (in Swedish: Fordringsäxgare) a “tragicomedy” but, while David Greig’s 2008 adaptation does indeed contain a few decent one-liners to inspire laughter, this remains an all-too-easily depressing tale of individuals brought down by the forgotten or overlooked fracture-lines in their own personalities—not least their ability to easily forget how past actions always come with a price which has to be paid, sooner or later...
Writer and director Tony Cownie has established a particular niche at Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre, taking potentially overlooked 18th century comedies (like Carlo Goldoni's The Venetian Twins) or modern works inspired by them (Liz Lochhead’s Thon Man Moliere) and giving them a distinctly Scottish twist...
When watching the stage adaptation of any book, especially one I’ve not read, there’s often a question lingering at the back of my mind; would I appreciate this more, would I understand this better, if I had? It’s a telling distraction, of course; arguably, any stage adaptation should stand or fall on its own metaphorical feet as a work of theatre; if you need to bring background information to make the experience work, it’s failed...
Stories illuminate the truth, lies hide it; that’s just one of the lessons audiences of all ages can take from Suhayla El-Bushra’s energetic new adaptation of The Arabian Nights, brought to Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum stage by director Joe Douglas; a suitably magical portmanteau of mythical stories within stories that offers a genuinely inventive, and refreshingly vibrant family entertainment for the festive season...
“Lavender Menace”, according to Wikipedia, were “an informal group of lesbian radical feminists formed to protest the exclusion of lesbians and lesbian issues from the feminist movement at the Second Congress to Unite Women in New York City on May 1, 1970”...
Site specific theatre is nothing new in Scotland; from the numerous innovative creations by the likes of Grid Iron Theatre Company to much of the work by the “without walls” National Theatre of Scotland, performances in non-theatrical settings can ensure an impact—when everything works—difficult to reproduce within the safe traditions of the proscenium arch...
A father’s horrifying sacrifice of his daughter sets in motion a cycle of bloody revenge. Murder and madness ensue, testing the loyalties of his remaining children and propelling them to the edge of reason...
Blak Whyte Gray is a galvanising dance theatre work from award-winning East London hip-hop company Boy Blue Entertainment. It’s a bold and brilliant dance creation combining tightly drilled choreography and a ground-shaking electronic score...
Time and again during Zinnie Harris’s new adaptation of Eugène Ionesco’s famous farce, people tell each other not to be absurd. Obviously, it’s a not-so-subtle reference to Ionesco’s honoured place within the role-call of the post-War ‘Theatre of the Absurd’, but it’s also surely an apt description within this colourful, but somewhat slow production by Turkish director Murat Daltaban (of Istanbul’s DOT Theatre, co-producing with Edinburgh’s own Royal Lyceum Theatre)...
Do you love singing? Would you like the chance to sing some of classical music’s most iconic choral pieces, led by a wonderfully expressive conductor? If so, come along and sing with members of the Edinburgh Festival Chorus...
At one point during Glory on Earth, its two main characters—stage right, the young, romantic Mary, Queen of Scots; stage left, the firebrand Protestant preacher John Knox—are each writing letters to the English Queen, Elizabeth...
There’s much to admire, to even love, in Douglas Maxwell’s new play at Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum; a script full of humour and subtle characterisation, if not always clarity and sense, which director Matthew Lenton—Artistic Director of much-acclaimed Vanishing Point—has given a luminous staging, every character clearly delineated by casting and costume...
In one sense, this Lyceum revival of Caryl Churchill’s 2002 play is exactly the “dynamic two-hander” described in the programme: the only actors on stage are Peter Forbes, as regret-filled father Salter, and Brian Ferguson as his son Bernard...
Dominic Hill, artistic director of Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre, apparently doesn’t like to constrain any theatrical experience with the blunt instrument of a rising or falling curtain; he clearly prefers both audience and cast to enter the theatre space more or less simultaneously—with things apparently starting only once everyone has turned up...
Shakespeare's The Winter’s Tale has all the characteristics of a Tragedy, as we speedily witness the horrendous consequences of King Leontes' groundless jealousy for pregnant wife Hermione and life-long friend Polixenes...
As titles go, Picnic at Hanging Rock is a fine conflation of the innocent and disturbing, although the cultural impact of Joan Lindsay’s novel is arguably more down to Peter Weir’s 1975 film adaptation than the book itself...
As a rule, the best children’s stories—be they novels, comics or TV shows—all inspire the same question: “What on Earth were they taking when they came up with that?” The granddaddy of this, of course, is Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, a genuinely creepy children’s story in which author Lewis Carroll plays with the weirdest logics and ideas...
You get a strong sense of what Jumpy is going to be like from Jean Chan’s impressive set—two jumbled piles of household goods, surrounded by an off-kilter frame of plain wall...
In ancient Greece, it was the practice before any theatrical performance to name those citizens who had financed it, and for a respected citizen to give “the libation” to the Gods...
Never, ever underestimate the stupidity of the rich and powerful; that’s certainly one of the obvious lessons you can get from Liz Lochhead’s brilliantly funny take on the scandalous life and times of 17th century French playwright Jean-Baptiste Poquelin de Molière...
It says something about us as a species that one of our oldest myths, crystallised in the form of Homer’s epic poem Iliad, is about war – specifically the bloody climax of the Greek’s 10 year siege of the city of Troy...
I am Thomas is an economic show bound together with a fantastic cast. Though billed as a “brutal comedy with songs”, there are in fact more songs than comedy; this is largely fine as the songs are pretty good...
In the face of something terrible, we can either laugh or cry. For the audience watching John Dove’s new production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the apparent choice is – more often than not – to laugh...
If there’s one moment in this new production of Conor McPherson’s The Weir that encapsulates the quality of its cast and director, it’s towards the close when a moment of genuine emotional tension is deliberately punctured by what, in other hands, could be nothing more than a crass joke...
Enthused with enchantment and wonder, Theresa Heskins’ adaptation of C S Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe lovingly translates the classic book from page to stage. Original music, earnest performances and stunning sets bring the snowy land of Narnia to life, a land where it is “always winter and never Christmas, think of that!”The level of creativity and care behind this production is evident in the gorgeous programmes...
About halfway through the second story of three, in the middle of a series of thoughts on the benefits for men of sitting down on the toilet, Daniel Kitson breaks off, looking up from his notebook: “These are not Harry’s opinions, these are mine...
There are many good reasons for launching the celebratory 50th anniversary season of Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre Company with a new production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot...
Described as “a metaphysical shocker” on its release in 1970, The Driver's Seat was apparently author Muriel Sparks’ favourite amongst her own stories, in part thanks to the clarity of its present-tense realisation...
For some, he was “Italy’s Shakespeare”, “the Moliere of Venice”; yet it’s only relatively recently that British theatre audiences have warmed to work by 18th century Italian playwright Carlo Goldoni – specifically, his 1743 comedy The Servant of Two Masters, turned into West End gold as One Man, Two Guvnors, initially starring James Corden...
Many of the world’s greatest Tragedies – Shakespeare’s in particular – are grounded on the character flaws of their titular characters: Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and so on...
There’s rumbustious joy aplenty in this new adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s infamous examination of legality and justice. Constantly entertaining and frequently enlightening, its only real downside is it being a two-hour-plus show which undoubtedly feels like a two-hour-plus show...
Reality and performance lie at the heart of this solid production of Irish playwright Brian Friel’s Faith Healer. Certainly, they’re not the most comfortable of bedfellows, as evident in the four –sometimes supportive, more often conflicting – monologues which outline the 20-odd year career of titular faith healer Francis Hardy, his “mistress”(or wife, depending on whom you believe) Grace, and his manager and friend Teddy...
Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre always has a Christmassy feel to it, with its gilded pillars and Arabian Nights ceiling, and this enchanting adaptation feels like an early Christmas present...