Coffee-Table Notes

King's Theatre, Glasgow 4 stars There's little in the way of sentimentality in much of the Original Theatre Company's new take on Sebastian Faulks' First World War novel by writer Rachel Wagstaff. Given that it looks at a doomed love affair between English officer Stephen Raysford and Isabelle Azaire, the French woman trapped in a loveless and abusive marriage who captivates him, this is somewhat surprising. But as the frontline troops let off steam with an increasingly desperate-looking sing-song that opens the play before marching to their deaths in the Somme, any ideas of a conventional war-time romance are instantly blasted into the trenches with the emotionally complex grit of what follows. Where Faulks' story was originally told via a linear narrative, Wagstaff's script, revised since Trevor Nunn's original 2010 West End production, weaves her characters through time-frames to create an ambitiously realised memory play which moves seamles

It's the opening night party following a new production of Brian Friel's 1980 play, Translations, at the Millennium Forum in Derry/Londonderry, and the room is packed. The production forms a major part of the programme for Derry's year as UK City of Culture, and it's largely young cast are all dressed up following a couple of hours in suitably dowdy nineteenth century attire in a play that looks at how the British Army were tasked to translate place names from ancient Irish Gaelic to the King's English. In the far corner of the room, the play's eighty-four year old author is sat on a sofa next to its director, quietly holding court. Most enthusiastic of all is a small gaggle of sparkly-frocked actresses who line up to take each other's photographs on their phone cameras while sitting next to Friel, as if he were a pop star. Which, in terms of Irish theatre, he is. During the interval, the play's director had been standing in the corridor next t

Summerhall, Edinburgh 4 stars In 1951, Henrietta Lacks was diagnosed with a cancer that would kill her shortly after. As a black woman in Baltimore, her rights were limited, and she would never know that a cell sample taken without her permission would provide fuel for some of the most significant scientific breakthroughs of the last half century, sealing the careers and reputations of many scientists en route. Such a scandalous violation of human rights forms the back-ground to this new solo piece written and performed by Adura Onashile in association with the Iron-Oxide company and commissioned by Edinburgh International Science Festival. As seen all too appropriately in Summerhall's marvellously evocative Dissection Room, Graham Eatough's production has Onashile jump between Henrietta's all too personal story and its greater historical consequences with a verve that has her sprawled on a stretcher one minute, then dancing for dear life itself the next. There is a

Tron Theatre, Glasgow 3 stars Feminism may no longer be the dirty word it became for a while, but it's vital that the movement's foundations are never forgotten. This new play from the boldly named Theatre Revolution probably isn't the most radical vehicle for such a notion, though it's a game enough look back at the 1960s counter-culture as seen from the sofa by three very different women. It's 1969, Vicki is writing for the women's page of a London tabloid, and is lodging with the bohemian Vivien while being courted by Jack. Into their lives breezes Ursula, an Australian actress and Vietnam protestor who buys into hippy ideals more than any of them. Over a series of episodic scenes, we see them fall out, argue ideology, share each other's self-absorbtion and spout naive platitudes as only children of the sixties can. All of which in Iain McAleese's production of Karen Barclay's script developed from a devising process looks and sou

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh 5 stars When it comes, the ending of Rob Drummond's latest dissection of popular culture is as devastatingly unexpected as it is prescient. Yet all the pointers have been sign-posted in a series of keywords that now seem as obvious as a catch-phrase in a damningly deceptive indictment of celebrity culture which all telly addicts should tune in to post haste. It begins simply enough, as the audience become voyeuristically complicit with the recording of a typically brash TV game show called False. All the classic hallmarks are there, from the gaudily coloured sets to the sharp-suited host to the fawning contestants grasping on to their fifteen minutes of fame with rictus-grinned abandon. There are no questions here, only statements, which new girl Sandra, Ben and reigning champion Molly must get to the truth of. Gradually, however, the every-day grotesquerie of one of the most formulaic forms of escapism takes an ugly turn, lurching into the sor

When Sebastian Faulks' fourth novel was published in 1993, he probably couldn't have guessed it would have the longevity it has. Yet, almost two decades on, Faulks' First World War saga about young officer Stephen Wraysford's doomed love for married French woman Isabelle Azaire set against the back-drop of the Somme can be considered to be a modern classic. In 2003, the novel came thirteenth in a BBC survey to find Britain's favourite book, and has been adapted for film, stage, TV and radio. Birdsong's latest incarnation comes courtesy of the Original Theatre Company, who breathe fresh life into Rachel Wagstaff's stage adaptation which arrives in Glasgow next week. Wagstaff's original adaptation of Birdsong was first seen in 2010 in a production by Trevor Nunn that. That version was a straightforward linear account of the book that ran at more than four hours long. Since being picked up by Original, Wagstaff has revised the piece extensively, so

SECC, Glasgow 5 stars The world has moved on since the National Theatre of Scotland's epoch-making dissection of men at war took Edinburgh by storm in 2006, but still the conflicts continue. Almost seven years later, and this latest tour of duty of Gregory Burke's play culled from interviews with Fife-based Iraq veterans is as thrillingly relevant and theatrically jaw-dropping as ever, and deserved every moment of the standing ovation it received on Saturday night. It opens with all the pomp and circumstance of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo, but this is just the sucker punch for the deathly quiet entry of Cammy, the ex squaddie who acts as our narrator and guide. At first we see Cammy and his mates in the pub, shooting pool as they explain life during wartime to a researcher wanting to turn their story into the play Black Watch became. Within minutes, however, we're lurched onto the front-line. In both there is a simmering mix of anger, bucket-mouthed gallows