Coffee-Table Notes

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...

Citizens Theatre, Glasgow Four stars    When times are tough, secret worlds await in this new look at the classic eighteenth century French folktale, which here de-Disneyfies things to get beneath the skin of the story. In Lewis Hetherington’s version, Israela Efomi’s Beauty is one of two daughters to the widowed Baron Aaron, for whom business is a crash and burn affair, while encouraging Beauty that looks alone are all she needs to get by. Beauty’s sister Bright, on the other hand, has big ideas of her own.    When her dad’s wheeler dealing sees him go bust, the family are forced to move to a woodland shack. A chance encounter with a seemingly scary monster sees the Baron bargain with Beauty, who is exiled to the nearby castle, rendered as a spooky cartoon construction by designer Rachael Canning. With feline friend Mr Mittens in tow, Beauty finds a spooky world of locked rooms and celestial sounds, as well as a Beast whose bark is considerably worse than his b...

Pianodrome, St. Oswald’s Centre, Edinburgh Four stars   What to do when you inherit what was once a vital part of your parents’ world, but which played a key part in destroying it? The answer in Rupert Page and Rob Thompson’s moving meditation on legacy, loss and purging old demons is for the newly orphaned siblings to pass the item between them while all the while wanting to smash the offending item to bits. As the giveaway title of the duo’s drama makes clear, the fact that the hand me down in question is an upright piano doesn’t make dealing with it any easier. This is despite the potential for a dramatic exit that would make it the ultimate auto-destructive art action.    Page and Thompson are more John Cage-like in their approach, in that, rather than making a sound, the piano is imagined on stage by Thompson. The sole performer for much of the play’s fifty minute duration, he relates the instrument’s history as it moves from living room to recording studio and back ...

Theatre 118, Glasgow Four stars   Meet Alex, the twenty something woman whose entire life is on hold in Larissa Ryan’s solo play. Scratching a living answering calls for a company selling the sort of ideal homes she could never afford, the 3pm till midnight shift suits her ongoing avoidance of the entire human race. Her only interactions come from the after hours freaks and weirdos on the other end of the line who really don’t want whatever it is she’s selling. Alex knows this because they tell her so in graphic terms.    Alex doesn’t hold back either in Ryan’s performance, as she confesses all her troubles while craving some kind of way out. Her sounding board for this comes in the form of a bunny rabbit glove puppet recommended by her therapist. The tough love Alex is harangued with by the bunny recalls the co-dependent sparring dished out in ancient TV routines between ventriloquist Shari Lewis and her similarly sarcastic appendage, Lamb Chop. It is the voices in Alex’...