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Jennie Lee: Tomorrow is a New Day

Lochgelly Centre Three stars If ever a strong political voice for the arts was needed, it is now. The fact that there isn’t currently one emanating from either Holyrood or Westminster brings shame on both Houses. What better time, then, to be reminded of Jennie Lee, the Fife firebrand who became the first ever Minister for the Arts, and who founded the Open University, championing education for all.    Lee had quite a life before such epoch making activity, as is brought home in Matthew Knights’ epic dramatic biography, which premiered at the weekend a stone’s throw from his subject’s birthplace 120 years ago. Coming at a time when arts buildings are fighting to survive, it is telling too that Knights’ play opened in a venue that might not have existed without Lee’s vision.    Knight sets out his store in Emma Lynne Harley’s production for the Angus based Knights Theatre in the variety theatre and hotel where Lee grew up, as the show’s three actors raid the dressing up box to tell her
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Blue Now

Tramway, Glasgow Four stars   Sound and Vision are the heart of director Neil Bartlett’s theatrical reimagining of Derek Jarman’s final film, completed four months before his death from an AIDS related illness in 1994. Featuring an Yves Klein hued blue screen for the film’s full 74-minute duration, Blue features a collage of voices speaking excerpts from Jarman’s diary as he gradually lost his sight.    As Jarman ruminated on friends and lovers lost to what had been demonised as ‘the gay plague’, this opened up a bigger picture of a world that had been decimated. This was offset across several sections by a more impressionistic narrative.   Thirty years on, Bartlett brings a new quartet of voices to recount what has now become a (self) portrait of a major moment in late twentieth century social and political history. More than that, as the cast of Travis Alabanza, Joelle Taylor, Jay Bernard and Russell Tovey line up on stools beneath the screen, it becomes a rhapsody to a time and a pl

Only Fools and Horses The Musical

Theatre Royal, Glasgow Four stars   Life in the 1980s was the best of times for some, the worst for others. Few pop culture creations understood these two sides of the same credit card than John Sullivan’s masterly sit-com of working class aspiration during the Thatcherite boom years. At the show’s heart were siblings Del Boy and Rodney Trotter, the hapless duo attempting to navigate their way through life, but somehow never quite making a million.   This loving homage penned by Sullivan’s son Jim Sullivan with The Fast Show’s Paul Whitehouse revitalises Sullivan senior’s original with a bonus of the sort of showtunes that would make Lionel Bart’s back catalogue sound abstract by comparison. This is not to the detriment of Caroline Jay Ranger’s production, which brings the old gang back together in something akin to the big screen versions of sitcoms that filled cinemas back in the 1970s. Trigger, Boycie, Cassandra, Raquel and all the rest are in attendance in a series of smartly obser

A Streetcar Named Desire

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh Four stars   One of the many fine things achieved by Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s outgoing artistic director Elizabeth Newman is this unflinching production of Tennessee Williams’ 1947 play. Revived for this short Edinburgh run, Newman lays bare Williams’ study of one woman’s doomed attempts at bluffing her through her emotional baggage in the face of continual brutalisation.    One probably shouldn’t over psychologise Williams’ writing, but it is clear from Kirsty Stuart’s mercurial portrayal of Blanche DuBois here that she has been traumatised for some time. Landing unexpectedly in her sister Stella and her husband Stanley’s cramped apartment in a noisy New Orleans community, Blanche’s high maintenance ways have left her jobless, penniless and loveless.    Blanche finds herself cuckoo in a volatile nest, the claustrophobia of which sees a simmering power struggle between Blanche and Stanley for Stella’s attention. Blanche attracts other attention too,

Rise Kagona - An obituary

Rise Kagona – Guitarist, songwriter, singer Born May 17 th 1963; died September 14 th 2024     Rise Kagona, who has died aged 61, was a trailblazing guitarist, whose tenure leading The Bhundu Boys throughout the 1980s and beyond saw his shimmering guitar lines make waves beyond the band’s Zimbabwe homeland on main stages across the globe. This was done through his use of what became known as the Jiti or Jit Jive style. This was a traditional Zimbabwean musical form, which Kagona fused with more contemporary Western elements to make for a restless effervescent sound that filled dancefloors wherever Kagona and the group played.   After becoming regular chart toppers in Zimbabwe, Kagona and the Bhundu Boys were picked up by Scottish singer Champion Doug Veitch, who co-founded the DiscAfrique record label to showcase contemporary African music beyond its homeland. Veitch brought the band to Scotland, and soon they were being hailed by the likes of Eric Clapton and Elvis Costello, or else l

No Love Songs

Tron Theatre, Glasgow Four stars   When Jessie met Lana, it was lovelust at first sight. He was a would-be rock star playing covers in dive bars. She was a fashion student trying to make ends meet who ends up watching Jessie’s set on a night out. A couple of songs later and that was them for life. Or so they thought. Having a baby should have been a joy, but turned out to be agony, especially for Lana, who freefalls into deep depression while Jessie hits the big time on tour in America. Whether the one time dream team survive the fallout is a matter of life and death both of them need to confront.    It’s not hard to see the join between Jessie and Lana and The View’s vocalist Kyle Falconer and his partner Laura Wilde, who initiated this semi-autobiographical lo-fi rock musical first seen on home turf at Dundee Rep and on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2023.    Using songs from Falconer’s 2021 solo album, No Love Songs for Laura, as its starting point, Falconer’s compositions accompa

There’s A Place

Perth Theatre Four stars   It was sixty years ago last week, or thereabouts, when the Beatles embarked on a brief Scottish tour. Beatlemania may have already been at fever pitch, but rather than stay in swanky big city hotels, the loveable mop tops set up camp in two chalets on the banks of Loch Earn in Perthshire. This historical pop moment concerning the original boy band may be the backdrop to Gabriel Quigley’s new play, but it is another fab four she focuses on. The John, Paul, George and Ringo camped out on the other side of the loch are a gang of teenage girls so hopelessly devoted they have taken the names of their idols and braved the elements in their groovy gear in the hope of getting a long range glimpse of them.    With all four members of the gang considering options beyond this last gasp adventure before they go out into the world, this pilgrimage looks set to be a defining moment for them all in a rites of passage saga that takes in some very serious stuff indeed. The ne