Coffee-Table Notes

Summerhall, Edinburgh Five stars A strip of vertical mirrors lines the back of the stage throughout Kathryn Joseph’s theatrical rendering of her remarkable second album, From When I Wake The Want Is, presented on this five date tour as a low-key spectacle by the Glasgow-based Cryptic company. More mirrors are attached to Joseph’s piano, so it looks like some junk-yard steam-punk contraption about to be powered into the skies. It is to designer James Johnston’s cut-glass slivers hanging all-angles in a row behind her that Joseph sings to first, squaring up to her own image in a set of invocations that are possibly the ultimate in self-reflective soul-baring. When Joseph finally turns to the audience mid-way through the album’s title track, it is with a fearlessness that defines the raw candour of her songs as she pounds at the piano keys with a driven insistence. As directed by Josh Armstrong, and with little pause between songs, the album is revealed as a suite that evol

Tron Theatre, Glasgow Four stars When ten young Irish lads from Achill were burnt to death in Kirkintilloch in 1937 in the bothy they were staying in while working as potato pickers, while the boys were honoured in their homeland, in Scotland the tragedy is barely known. Muireann Kelly and Frances Poet’s new play for Theatre Gu Leor unearths the story in a way that puts flesh and blood on its bare bones for a modern telling that resonates for a younger generation. This is done through the figure of Michael, a latter-day Glasgow teenager the same age as the Achill boys and the offspring of Gaelic-speaking parents. Through a school history project, Michael dreams his way into a timeslip where he walks among the migrant workers, but is only seen by Molly, a young Irish woman who is closer to him than he knows. Through bearing witness in this way, Michael becomes alive to his own heritage, laying some old ghosts to rest along the way. Kelly’s production is a

Derren Litten was at the TV Choice awards the night before we’re due to talk about Benidorm Live, the writer’s new musical stage adaptation of his hit package-tour-set sit-com, Benidorm. Litten’s show, which has run over ten series’ over the last decade to ever-expanding audiences, was named as best comedy. Given that the producers at ITV who made the show had not long cancelled Benidorm, there was no little irony in it scooping such a popular accolade. This was something Litten made reference to in his acceptance speech. “I said something about how any channel that can cancel a show that’s still getting five and a half million viewers and which can still win an award has bigger balls than I’ll ever have,” Litten says the morning after. “It was a bit awkward at first, sitting at this glitzy do next to the people from ITV who’ve just cancelled my show, but for a night out, it’s one of the better awards ceremonies. Because it’s not televised, it gets quite raucous, and when we won,