Skip to main content

National Theatre of Scotland 2013 Season - Vicky Featherstone's Swan-Song

That there is no main-stage swan-song directed by National Theatre of 
Scotland artistic director Vicky Featherstone in her final season 
before departing to run the Royal Court speaks volumes about her tenure 
over the last six years. Because it isn't any single production which 
has defined  Featherstone's role. Rather, it is an all-embracing vision 
which has enabled artists to be bold and to think big while 
Featherstone has taken on a more diplomatic role protective of her 
charges. Indeed, it could be argued that Featherstone's own creative 
work has been neglected because of this.

Of the season itself, if there is an element of baton-passing, with 
associate director Graham McLaren being particularly prolific, there is 
also a sense that theatre in Scotland has become increasingly 
exploratory. If the NTS has the resources to raise the bar, then the 
talent is already there to take advantage of it. It is an attitude the 
ongoing national embarrassment that is Creative Scotland could learn 
much from.

Yes, there are classic plays, but they are not there to appease 
traditionalists, but to breathe fresh life into already great works. 
But it is the season's collaborations, with Oran Mor, Vox Motus and The 
Arches, that point the way. All of these companies have led from the 
ground up, and their presence in the programme is vindication for the 
importance of the license to experiment beyond box-ticking.

Featherstone's final NTS season, then, is both as a summation of her 
achievements and a serious pointer towards the organisation's future. 
Whoever replaces Featherstone as artistic director, it remains crucial 
that the NTS is not squeezed into some parochialist ghetto dictated by 
its political funders. That would be a backward step, and a major 
mistake. For the organisation to flourish, the NTS must remain as 
expansively internationalist as its 2013 season promises to be.


The Herald, September 28th 2012

ends

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Myra Mcfadyen - An Obituary

Myra McFadyen – Actress   Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024   Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.”   For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...
1 comment
Read more

The Passage – Hip Rebel Degenerates: Black, White and Red All Over

Prelude – The Power of Three   Fear. Power. Love. This life-and-death (un)holy trinity was the driving force and raisons d’être of The Passage, the still largely unsung Manchester band sired in what we now call the post-punk era, and who between 1978 and 1983 released four albums and a handful of singles.    Led primarily by composer Dick Witts, The Passage bridged the divide between contemporary classical composition and electronic pop as much as between the personal and the political. In the oppositional hotbed of Margaret Thatcher’s first landslide, The Passage fused agit-prop and angst, and released a song called Troops Out as a single. The song offered unequivocal support for withdrawing British troops from Northern Ireland.    They wrote Anderton’s Hall, about Greater Manchester’s born again right wing police chief, James Anderton, and, on Dark Times, rubbed Brechtian polemic up against dancefloor hedonism. On XOYO, their most commercial and potentially mo...
Post a Comment
Read more