Coffee-Table Notes

Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow Four stars   “We’re Saving Grace,” says a playful Robert Plant midway through a set of lesser known folk, blues and rock-pop covers presented with the superlative quintet the former Led Zeppelin vocalist turned global village explorer has been playing with for more than half a decade. “We’ve come to help.”   By this time in the Glasgow leg of what has been dubbed the Ding Dong Merrily tour to accompany the release of the band’s eponymous named album, Plant and co have sauntered through Kentucky blues, English trad, contemporary Americana and more. This wide reaching songbook has been brought to life by way of a meticulously arranged mix of Tony Kelsey’s acoustic and electric guitars, Matt Worley’s banjo, Barney Morse-Brown’s cello and Suzi Dian’s accordion, all powered by Oli Jefferson’s skittering drums.   The heart of this on versions of Addie Graham’s The Very Day You’re Gone and English folk song The Cuckoo is Plant’s vocal duets with Dian,...

Oran Mor, Glasgow Five stars    A wing and a prayer are everything in Morag Fullarton’s ingenious reimagining of one of the festive season’s most loved feelgood films. Celestial interventions aren’t just the order of the day for George Bailey, the small town saviour about to throw himself off a bridge at the start of the play as life gets too much to bear. They are there too for the show itself, which Fullarton confesses to the audience prior to its first night curtain hasn’t had a proper dress rehearsal due to assorted technical glitches. This is all done in mutual good humour, but Fullarton needn’t have worried, as what follows on Oran Mor’s tiny stage is one of the most joyously inventive theatrical experiences on show anywhere just now.    The can-do attitude of Fullarton and her company of four actors is a reflection of the show itself, which opens as a quartet of old school cinema usherettes attempt to pick up the pieces after a screening of Frank Capra’s 1946 ...

The Playhouse, Edinburgh Four stars   A woman’s world has probably shifted on its axis several times over since Catherine Johnson’s ABBA powered musical dramady first stormed the West End a quarter of a century ago. That may have been at the fag end of the ab-fab, girl powered 1990s, but the show’s heart remains in the 1970s, a seemingly more innocent age of free(ish) love without too many apparent consequences as feminism trickled down the class scale.    Or so it probably seemed for forty-something Donna’s generation in Johnson’s story, which, while tailored to Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus’s greatest hits, could probably stand up dramatically on its own. This isn’t to undermine one of the greatest songbooks in late twentieth century mainstream pop history. Far from it. In truth, for Johnson, director Phyllida Lloyd and producer Judy Craymer, the mix of ennui and euphoria that fires the Swedish songwriting duo’s grown up mini melodramas were a dramatic gift.   ...

Dundee Rep Three stars   Jack may not be the only one full of beans in Dundee Rep’s festive reimagining of the classic English fairy story, but they certainly keep him out of view. The star of Jonathan O’Neill and Isaac Savage’s new ‘mooosical’ take on the story is Caroline the Cow, a sassy Highland breed who is milked for all she’s worth to make Jack’s mum and dad’s ice cream business liquid. When Jack’s dad dies everything dries up, alas, as Caroline is farmed out to the Happy Smiles Petting Zoo, where she falls in with a musical trio made up of a hen, a pig and a llama.    While a blinged up Jack and his mum Sherry strike gold from their raids up the beanstalk, it is left to Caroline and her flock/pack/herd to shimmy up and sort things out for good. Throw in a half man, half harp and an increasingly benevolent sounding Giant, and by the end everyone’s back in business, including some for whom it has to be the one of show.    Stephen Whitson’s production is a ...

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Four stars   It’s hard to be a private dancer when your support group mates turn up at the door. No intervention is required, however, for the veteran pocket rocket who soon becomes known to the world as Dancing Donny. Donny may have two left feet, but away from the crowd, he gets the sort of kick from a soft shoe shuffle that the booze he once numbed himself with could never match.    Craig and Jay have never seen the like, with Jay in particular spotting a chance to make a fortune once phone footage of Donny’s shape throwing goes viral. While Donny is none the wiser about some of the less flattering online comments, he loves every second of being the centre of attention.    Stephen Christopher and Graeme Smith’s comic drama plays with expectations about what a show about a bunch of addicts should be like by having its Leith based trio introduce themselves to the audience with a ‘no childhood trauma’ rule. Brian Logan’s speedy reviva...

Theatre 118, Glasgow Four stars   Aoife McDonagh has a dream. Sweet seventeen and a self styled ‘half a virgin’, Aoife can’t wait get away from small town County Kildare and make her mark on the mean streets of London. If that particular city didn’t happen to be in England, Aoife’s family might like it a whole lot better, but she doesn’t care what they think anymore. If she stays that would be the end of her. Especially after what happened with Erin Kelly, the coolest girl in school who she’s been besotted with since they met when they were six. Erin’s going away as well, so who know what might happen next, but at least they’ll always have that moment.    As confessionals go, Rebecca Donovan has written a rites of passage that taps into the hormonal hunger of young women on the verge with a comic dynamism and an unfiltered frankness that could make a nun blush. Performed by Donovan in Georgia Nelson’s production for Theatre 118, Aoife is a guilt-ridden force of natur...