Coffee-Table Notes

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...

Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh Four stars   Election fever may feel somewhat tepid just now in these parts, but with populism on the rise from all sides and out and out crazy people in power, in terms of the future, the bigger picture continues to look increasingly scary. It is not, thank goodness, beyond satire, as Justin Skelton’s DIY construction proves in tuneful fashion with a full six-piece band delivering his song cycle.   Skelton is Beldon Haigh, a former spin-doctor thrown into the industrial prison complex somewhere in Midlothian at the behest of one President Blame. This suspiciously familiar looking demagogue may only want to Make Dystopia Great Again, but his one actual redeeming feature is that he probably plays saxophone better than Bill Clinton.   Like some fantasy latter day San Quentin concert, Beldon hooks up with some of his fellow inmates to form a supergroup of felons that includes a rhythm section of a chicken dancing Donald Trump on bass and a meaty...

Citizens Theatre, Glasgow Four stars   A decade has passed since Ken Loach and Paul Laverty introduced the world to Daniel Blake, the Geordie carpenter stymied into submission by a welfare system that sees his life degenerate into a Kafkaesque nightmare. We know this by the recorded voices speaking the words of former UK prime ministers that are beamed onto a battered billboard throughout this equally powerful stage version by Dave Johns, the original Dan on screen. Given the amount of ex PMs racked up over the last few years, Mark Calvert’s production has had his work cut out to updating their verbatim platitudes, which now includes missives from Downing Street’s latest incumbents. That the action on stage remains unchanged speaks volumes about the state we’re still in.    For those who haven’t seen it, Dan has been signed off work by his doctor after a heart attack. This isn’t good enough for the powers that be, however, who are adamant on cutting every benefit they can...

Tron Theatre, Glasgow  Four stars   Teenage dreams come dead on arrival in Simon Longman’s blistering study of wasted youth, first seen in 2018 and revived here in dynamic fashion by director Anna Whealing and producer Aila Swan. This is delivered by an electrifying trio of young actors who, over the production’s relentless eighty-minutes, don’t let up for a second.    As Longman’s title suggests, the scene is a town on a barely inhabited island where a population of dead end kids alleviate their dead end lives by getting out of it on cheap cider and whatever substances they can get their hands on. Kate, Sam and Pete also have each other, clinging on for life itself with a no holds barred gang mentality that sees them rage with unfocused energy in search of something better.    Having left school with what careers advisors would call no prospects, and with brutal family lives only offering violence of one sort of another, the unholy trinity form a kind of s...