Coffee-Table Notes

Perth Theatre 4 stars A new wind has blown into Perth, just as it does in Shakespeare's Illyria. That's the accidental message anyway during the opening storm scene of the theatre's incoming artistic director Rachel O'Riordan's debut in-house production. Because, in something usually played as a knockabout rom-com, Riordan sets out her store from the start by blowing away such surface froth to reveal near-Chekhovian depths. Much of this stems from an update to a post World War One Scotland in a crumbling petrol-blue house where a baby grand piano sits at the top of an elaborate staircase. Here Conor Mitchell's Curio sips cocktails while whipping up a jaunty Palm Court style soundtrack with violinist and fellow gent Valentine. That's about as fizzy as things get, however, as all involved wander about in a kind of shell-shocked limbo, trying to re-connect with some sense of purpose. Samara MacLaren's brittle, flapper-like Olivia and Martin

Wednesday September 28th 2011 When Liverpool's most grandiose post-punk Scally-delicists released their fourth album, Ocean Rain, in 1984, it was advertised as the greatest album ever made. Despite the band's then manager Bill Drummond's provocative hyperbole that he would later refine with the KLF and the K Foundation, it wasn't, but it's collection of string-laden epics was the sound of a band at the peak of their powers. It was also the last time the original four members ever sounded so special in a work that was both fragile and heartfelt. To hear Ocean Rain live, then, complete with all-female teenage string sextet The Cairns Strings bolstering original vocalist Ian McCulloch and guitarist Will Sergeant leading a fine young band, should have been an event on a par with The Crystal Day, the original all-day magical mystery tour around the band's home town that preceded a three-hour live spectacular by the band in Liverpool's St George

Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow 1 star When Liverpool's most grandiose post-punk outfit released their fourth album in 1984, it was advertised as the greatest ever made. It wasn't, although it's collection of string-laden epics was the last time the original four Bunnymen sounded so special. To hear Ocean Rain live, then, complete with an all-female string sextet bolstering original vocalist Ian McCulloch, guitarist Will Sergeant and a fine young band, should have been major. As it was, despite the music's dramatic splendour, an overly-refreshed McCulloch steered us into chaos. During the first 'greatest hits' set, McCulloch apologises for being “a bit shaky...one point off the ten.” Over the next two hours the score gets considerably lower. Like a bad comedian, McCulloch threatens to sing Donald, Where's Your Troosers, and does unlikely impressions of Jim Morisson impersonating Sid James. Ocean Rain is ushered in by Silver's triumphant flou

By the time you read this, Vanishing Point theatre company will have almost finished the premiere run of their new show, Saturday Night, in three Portuguese cities prior to opening in Glasgow next month. Back in Glasgow rehearsal several weeks beforehand, and what's possibly the biggest touring set in the world is waiting to be dismantled and shipped out to foreign climes. For now, it's two-tiered expanse we're allowed to peek into through full-length perspex windows holds court to a series of private moments performed by half a dozen actors from three different countries. The next day, however, this imitation of a flat-pack ideal home des-res will be demolished, so there's nothing left but a rehearsal room gap-site waiting for something as yet unknown to replace it. Behind the perspex, a pregnant woman attempts to turn a house into a home. Upstairs, another woman moves in hypnotic motion in a rocking chair. Back downstairs, the roof springs a leak, while

Tron Theatre, Glasgow 3 stars Drama that deals seriously with prejudice and disease may be all the rage in mainstream American teen TV these days from Glee to True Blood. When Bill Russell and Janet Hood's flesh and blood wake for first generation AIDS victims first appeared at the end of the 1980s, its mix of schmaltz-laden show-tunes and social comment was considered edgy enough to become a cause celebre. More than two decades on, the gospel-tinged ensemble numbers and overwrought ballads belted out by the nineteen performers onstage in Paul Harper-Swan and musical director Michael Webborn's new studio production sound all too X-Factor familiar. The stories they frame, however, told in a series of rhyming monologues, are a heartfelt and timely reminder of a world-changing epidemic that may no longer hit the headlines, but still affects people every day. Set here around the tables of a celestial cabaret club, the gathered angels of the show's title may mo

Brunton Theatre, Musselburgh 3 stars Strikes, riots and pay-cuts for the lowest earners are all the rage just now, the first two possibly with good reason. None of this is anything new, however, as Hamish MacDonald's new play for Mull Theatre makes clear in a tale of would-be revolutionaries on the streets of Glasgow and aboard a Royal Navy ship in 1931. Inspired by real life events when sailors in Invergordon protested at a twenty-five per cent wage cut while officers continued to lord it over them, MacDonald's script follows the travails of Connal MacNab, who becomes a figurehead for a mutiny that mirrors his journalist brother Finlay's would-be Bolshevik tendencies on terra firma. As an incarcerated Connal looks back on an adventure that led to his downfall forty-odd years earlier along with thrill-seeking actress Erica, what becomes evident in this hitherto buried piece of peoples history is just how much the establishment are prepared to put the boot i

Eden Court Theatre, Inverness 3 stars Hard hats and fluorescent bibs are de rigeur down at Inverbeg Council Recycling Depot at the opening of John Bett's musical reimagining of some of Neil Munro's boat-bound yarns involving the saltiest of sea-dogs. Bett's rough-hewn co-production between Eden Court and the Open Book company looks to his own theatrical roots with 7:84 and Wildcat as a rudder for this ribald compendium. For those who may not know the legend, Para Handy is captain of pre World War One puffer boat the SS Vital Spark. With first mate Dougie, deckhand Sunny Jim and engineer Macphail in tow, adventures are many as the crew navigate their way through the Clyde's nether-most reaches. Once Bett's modern-day framing device is done away with, a busy melee of song, archive film footage and silent movie style captions are ushered in amidst an array of sketch-like scenes. These feature a role-call of comic grotesques in what looks like an exten