Coffee-Table Notes

Citizens Theatre, Glasgow Four stars   The streets on the TV screens are burning, the country is at war over disputed territorial land grabs, and the squaddies victory dance sees them waving their Union Jacks to Come on Eileen, missing the point entirely of a Celtic rooted song. Welcome to this early 1980s set Othello, where the fallout of the Falklands War and the UK’s inner city riots that preceded it add a new dimension to Shakespeare’s tale of tough guys trying to outdo each other in a white man’s world.   Central to this in Shakespeare’s play is General Othello’s secret marriage to Desdemona, the army brat who falls in love and ends up being caught in the crossfire of boys’ games. These are initiated by Iago, who is here a barrack room wide boy with ideas above his station. His slyness in playing everyone off against each other brings about everybody’s downfall, including his own.    Anthony Almeida’s production makes full use of its late twentieth century histo...

Òran Mór, Glasgow Four stars   Stormy weather abounds both on and off stage in Kenny Boyle’s new Halloween themed play for A Play, a Pie and a Pint’s ongoing lunchtime theatre season. Sorcha and Evander find themselves seeking shelter in a highland bothy inbetween reaching the summit they are aiming for. Just what that is remains to be seen as they cosy in around the table to share ancient stories of a decidedly spooky kind.    For the first half of Ben Harrison’s production, out-scaring each other seems to be the aim for MJ Deans’ Sorcha and Boyle himself as Evander. The series of yarns they spar with fall somewhere between those in Conor McPherson’s 1997 village pub bound play, The Weir, and a seasonal volume of ancient myths. The second half of the play lurches into less certain waters, as Evander and Sorcha seem to be in the midst of some elaborate role play exercise or else are taken over by something far darker.    As the pair slip in and out of speaking G...

Aberdeen Five stars   Storms Boelo may have blown in to Aberdeen with biblical intent this weekend, but the most seismic events came by way of this year’s sound festival , north east Scotland’s festival of adventurous new music. Nowhere was this more evident than in Single Drop, Raydale Dower’s explosive sound work that saw a recording of a solitary drop of water looped, slowed down and stretched out to epic proportions. In just over five minutes, what begins as a guileless plop morphs with each play into a rolling thunder drawn from the deep.    Initiated with the recently formed OFFBEAT organisation, whose aim is to present one-off arts events in neglected buildings, hearing Dower's 2013 work in Aberdeen’s now sadly unused Bon Accord Baths gave it an extra resonance. Here, after all, is one of the city’s great monuments to civic life now devoid of all the everyday noise of those who swam, bathed and dived its waters, with only echoes of that past remaining. As its magni...

Tron Theatre, Glasgow Four stars    A good night out at the theatre comes with a minefield of expectations. Most of these are confirmed as much as they are upended and reimagined in Flemish mavericks Ontroerend Goed’s latest wheeze investigating the felicities of human behaviour and the everyday performance that goes with them. This is done here in Alexander Devriendt’s typically playful production in a way that charms and disarms as the spotlight is turned on the audience.    Fret not, however. No one has to do anything, even as we find ourselves staring back at each other as we are cast as the show’s main protagonists and silent partners in everything that follows. Forget any ideas about audience participation. This is a partnership in telling a different story every time.    First seen on the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, as with all their shows, Ontroerend Goed’s gentle exploration of ways of being relies on the complicity and trust of those who have ...

The Studio, Edinburgh Three stars   If property is theft, there are few better illustrations of legitimised greed in action than a good game of Monopoly. As otherwise unassuming friends and family cosplay ruthless toy town billionaires on the backs of their nearest and dearest who land on their ever expanding empires, there is a wannabe landlord, it seems, within us all.    Beyond the game itself, there is a tale to tell of the real life rip-off merchant who stole a once egalitarian idea and took it to the highest bidder. This is the story shown off here in Jordan & Skinner’s playful pop culture history lesson, in which we learn how early twentieth century free thinking games designer and political activist Lizzie Magie devised what she called The Landlord’s Game. This was to be an educational tool to explain the progressive economic ideas of economist Henry George and the perils of monopolisation. When fellow games designer Charles Darrow stumbled on Magie’s creation...

Òran Mór, Glasgow        Five stars    When a young woman turns up on the steps of the Brussels courthouse intent on putting the state on trial for crimes against women, the odds of victory look hopeless. The woman’s name is Lune, and as her determination makes clear as she sets herself in for the long haul, she isn’t going anywhere.    We are initially told this retrospectively in Belgian writer Pamela Ghislain’s play by Gabriel, the high flying alpha male lawyer who took on her case pro bono. As Lune comes up against the system in the form of the court’s initially officious administrator Darya, her refusal to budge from the steps turns her into a cause celebre. She also becomes a target for the sort of male violence she quietly rails against. This is something the play’s harrowing central monologue in Katherine Mendelsohn’s forensically clear translation makes agonisingly clear.   Wils Wilson’s searing production for A Play, a Pie and a Pin...