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Let The Right One In

Dundee Rep 5 stars When a bullied boy meets the strangest of girls in the woods at night, they are instantly drawn to each other. Yet, in Jack Thorne's stage adaptation of Swedish writer John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel and feature film, things are even more peculiar than mere adolescent awkwardness. While Oskar comes from a broken home where his mother gets by with a glass in her hand, his new neighbour Eli has her own dysfunctional relationship with an apparent father figure who brings her fresh blood. With a serial killer on the loose, Oskar and Eli eke out a quiet form of co-dependence while all about them is turmoil. Fans of Lindqvist's work will already know the outcome of Oskar and Eli's story, but John Tiffany's exquisitely realised production for the National Theatre of Scotland in association with Dundee Rep transcends its source to become a rich and beautiful theatrical experience that is by turns gripping and tender. The forest has long been

A Satire of the Three Estates

Linlithgow Palace 4 stars There was a glorious informality to this major restaging of the oldest known play in Scotland's dramatic history, presented as part of a major research project involving the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the University of Edinburgh and Historic Scotland. Before a cast of almost forty actors wrestled with the full five hour version of Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount's sixteenth century Scots language epic, they milled about in the sunshine next to the outdoor playing area set against the dramatic backdrop of Linlithgow Palace itself. While some were in full period costume, others, presumably not scheduled to appear onstage for a couple of hours, were in dressed-down modern day civvies. While not deliberate, seeing the centuries brush up against each other so casually gave a hint of just how much Lyndsay's play addresses the here and now of a Scotland on the brink. When the play itself began, with the audience sitting on the grass in

Rachel O'Riordan on Perth Theatre's Autumn 2013 Season

There's a big metal letter 'R' on the shelf above Rachel O'Riordan's desk in the small office from which the creative director of Perth Theatre has run things since she arrived from Northern Ireland two years ago. The sign is taken from the set of the female version of Neil Simon's play, The Odd Couple, which O'Riordan directed in its female incarnation in 2012 On the floor, a pair of O'Riordan's shoes lay messily discarded. Both features -point not just to how much O'Riordan has made Perth Theatre her home as much as a thriving artistic nerve centre, but how comfortable she feels since she started to develop an ambitious programme across her two seasons thus far. With a major refurbishment of the theatre set to take place between 2014 and 2016, the Herald's exclusive announcement of Perth Theatre's forthcoming autumn season gives O'Riordan a chance to reflect on her previous seasons as well as look forward to the new one and be

The Poor Mouth

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh 4 stars The likes of Brian O'Nolan's epic Irish-Gaelic novel probably won't be seen again, but the Sligo-based Blue Raincoat Theatre Company's audacious stab at bringing it to life is as probably as good as it gets. Although originally published as An Beal Bocht under O'Nolan's Myles na gCopaleen pseudonym rather than his better-known Flann O'Brien moniker, it's to O'Brien that Jocelyn Clarke credits his new adaptation. Such a flirtation with multiple identities perhaps point to the roots of one Bonaparte O'Conassa, who narrates his own life story, from his messy birth in a fatherless household, to his eventual incarceration from whence he relates his solemn tale. Inbetween, director Niall Henry navigates his cast of five around Jamie Vartan's rural map of a set to lay bare an entire society in flux. With the performing quintet lining up to frame what follows with a disclaimer of sorts, O'Brien's s

Bronwen Sleigh – Construct

Edinburgh Printmakers until July 20 4 stars At first glance, this body of some thirty-eight architecture-based prints and 3D constructions look like blueprints for some Russian constructivist science-fiction futurescape built for a Tarkovsky film by way of a Ladybird book. Look closer, however, beyond the sleekly-angled swish of the lines, and you'll see that these visions of the future were built some time ago, be it as airports, stadiums or any other epically proportioned hub of congregation, comings or goings as befits of any international big city metropolis brimming with ambition. There's a utopian urgency at play here, in images of locales that range from Charles de Gaule airport in Paris to Meadowbank Stadium and beyond that look like nothing on earth. With everything seemingly in motion amidst a fanfare of metallic greens and bloodrush reds, there's a wide-eyed sense of wonder in Sleigh's stranger's gaze that suggests she too might have come fr

Johanna Basford: Wonderlands

Dundee Contemporary Arts until July 7 4 stars You can all but hear a wash of psychedelic harpsichords as you wander through this first major show by this increasingly high-profile and cannily commercial Dundee trained illustrator., so Carnaby Street retro-groovy are the charmingly decorative array of Basford's faux Edwardiana inspired images. To find the way into this, one first has to navigate through a maze-like forest of large-scale images of trees. Once inside, the plural of the show's title is made crucial via an array of crowd-sourced woodland creatures, cuckoo clocks and prints with the word 'LOVE' emblazoned, all writ large in a series of baroque-curlicued black and white images. Beyond the voguish (and indeed Voguish) quasi product placement in one of the smaller rooms, it's the larger than life work that really matters. The coffee table magazine friendly wallpaper is epic enough in its overwhelming ornateness, but the leaf-tattooed showroom d

Victory/The Possibilities

Tron Theatre, Glasgow 4 stars Playwright Howard Barker's wilfully singular poetic vision is rarely seen on his own country's main stages. With academic institutions picking up the slack, few schools have promoted Barker more than the Royal Conservatoire Scotland, which regularly throws its students in at the deep end to wrestle with Barker's back catalogue. This latest programme of two plays form something of an end of term treat. Victory, tellingly subtitled Choices in Reaction, dates from 1983, and looks at the very personal consequences of political upheaval following the English Civil War and Charles 11's restoration to the throne. This is done largely through the actions of Bradshaw, the widow of the leader of the revolt, whose body is dismembered and put on public display. As her sense of self-preservation is driven by a desire to piece her husband's body back together, the erotic charge of politics and power is laid bare in a stream of encounte