Coffee-Table Notes

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh  Four stars    Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you. Joseph Heller’s deadpan maxim from Catch 22 could easily apply to Alec Leamas, the down at heel anti hero of John le  Carré ’s 1963 best selling novel. Set two years earlier, le  Carré ’s forensic study of secret agents shot by both sides of the Berlin Wall remains a darkly unsentimental piece of Brit-noir pulp fiction.   David Eldridge’s stage version heightens the light and shade of Leamas’ plight in Jeremy Herrin’s stiff-backed production. Played out by a cast of twelve on designer Max Jones’ array of black painted walls, this is where Leamas’s handlers in the below radar organisation known as The Circus pull the strings. As Ralf Little’s pugnacious Leamas sets out the story’s historical context, he is revealed as the ultimate burnt out cannon fodder this side of Harry Palmer. Whisky laced, tobacco stained and heavy coated, Leamas is forever caught...

Òran Mór, Glasgow Three stars   Maggie is going round in circles. It’s the morning of her thirtieth birthday, and she has somehow found herself on a slow train to Aberdeen. As she reflects on how she got here, a series of brief encounters forces her to go beyond her original destination and make connections with what has been on her doorstep all along.    Maggie thinks she is on a one-way trip to  Norway in her search for some kind of sanctuary where she can be alone. From hen parties to handsome himbos to wise old sages, alas, all life seems to be amongst these strangers on a train, as each arrival and departure bestows their unique brand of wisdom on Maggie as they go.    So much for the quiet carriage in Stephanie MacGaraidh’s new solo mini musical, which she performs as part of A Play, a Pie and a Pint’s latest lunchtime theatre season. Part of this, of course, is that Maggie’s story is told largely through MacGaraidh’s canon of indie-folk-pop song...

The Playhouse, Edinburgh Four stars    Things have changed in the thirty-odd years since Stephan Elliott’s flamboyant road movie, The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, helped liberate Australia from the Fosters and Castlemaine XXXX swilling hordes and dragged up the world. In the two decades since Elliott first transposed his pink neon vision to the stage and added the campest soundtrack on the planet, the culture depicted therein has become even more ubiquitously mainstream.    None of this stands in the way of director Ian Talbot’s new touring reboot, which explodes with colour even as it stays true to its show bar backdrop. For those living in a closet for the past two decades, the story concerns a cross-country road trip undertaken by drag queens Tick and Felicia and transgender woman Bernadette. While ostensibly the trip is to play a residency at Tick’s ex wife’s casino, it is really an excuse for him to be reunited with his young son.  ...

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh  Four stars   Ally is a woman pregnant with possibilities as much as with child throughout Jess Brodie’s new play, a solo piece wonderfully performed by Jessica Hardwick. As Ally prepares to be a first time mum, she feels like she is about to burst on several levels. As well as navigating her way through an increasingly stifling home life with her husband Kevin, this woman’s work also includes an illicit date with a female sex worker in a Cambuslang hotel.    What follows in Ally’s monologue is an exploration of her sexuality that liberates her even as it leads her into temptation beyond her humdrum home life. This sees Brodie’s script tap into the erotic psychology of a woman whose body has been taken over, but which has left her with a deep rooted yearning that needs to be acted on.    The sound of a heart beating pulses the opening of Becky Hope-Palmer’s production. On stage alone for the play’s seventy-five minute duration,...

Òran Mór , Glasgow  Four stars   Coming up for air isn’t always easy for Michael and Pat, the cross generational duo at the heart of Séan O'Neil’s new play, the latest lunchtime offering at A Play, a Pie and a Pint. If Michael can hold his breath in a bucket of water, he’ll get into the Guinness Book of Records. As his coach, Pat can share in some of the glory. The people from Guinness, alas, are running late. While this doesn’t prevent Pat from necking down several cans of the black stuff, when Pat’s daughter Grainne shows up at the pool, it becomes clear that all concerned are drowning in a mire of grief from which they will never fully surface.   What begins as a comedy fused by Michael and Pat’s deadly exchanges in Fraser Scott’s production gradually morphs into a meditation on loss, guilt and the extremes one pushes oneself to in order to try and get beyond the absence. Michael and Pat’s pursuits may seem trivial, but at the heart of their endeavours t...

‘The Royal Scottish Academy,’ as captioned by way of explanation at this group show curated by its former president, Arthur Watson, ‘is made up by artists and architects elected by their peers and is in essence a collective.’ As the caption also points out, George Wyllie, in whose honour the building we are in was created, was considered an anomaly. As a     customs officer and jazz musician turned late blooming sculptor, he was a wild card and joker in the pack who was nevertheless welcomed into the RSA club with open arms.     For all Wyllie’s bunnet and overalls bonhomie that came with his work, it must never he forgotten that his environmental sculptural interventions are some of the greatest public artworks of recent times. He is also  probably the only RSA member to have a purpose built museum created in their honour.   This show was brought together by Watson to celebrate the RSA’s 200th anniversary with something of a greatest hits compendium that j...