The Playhouse, Edinburgh Four stars When Baz Luhrmann made Moulin Rouge in 2001, the last of the Australian auteur’s ‘Red Curtain Trilogy’ after Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet was an audacious fusion of turn of the nineteenth century Paris-by-night bohemianism and contemporary pop bangers. This made for the ultimate backstage musical. Almost a quarter of a century on, director Alex Timbers and writer John Logan’s delirious stage mash up has become a global sensation. First performed in 2018, productions in New York, London and Melbourne are still running, with the show’s first world tour opening in Edinburgh where it is in residence for the next six weeks. This extensive back-story only goes some way to introduce the sheer scale, ambition and outrageous excess of the three hyperactive hours of breathless spectacle that is the result. If plot is what you’re after, Logan’s book stays faithful to the film, as American dreamer in search of a scene Christ...
Dundee Rep Four stars Faith and belief are at the heart of John Patrick Shanley’s 2004 play, seen here for the first time in Scotland since 2010. Set in a Catholic school in the Bronx district of New York in 1964, Shanley’s play pointedly frames itself a year after the assassination of President John F Kennedy. This is highlighted in an opening sermon by the progressive Father Flynn, who questions putting what is sometimes blind faith in old certainties. This is a red rag for Sister Aloysius, who rules the school with a tight-lipped authoritarianism that won’t allow room for any new ways of thinking, whatever Vatican 2 might say. This leads her to embark on a campaign against Father Flynn with the intent of ousting him from office. To do this, she manipulates her young charge Sister James into reluctant complicity with her damning claims regarding Father Flynn’s alleged conduct before what is effectively a trial by hearsay ensues. This makes for an intense nin...