Skip to main content

Citizens new work panel

The Citizens Theatre has become more commonly associated with its radical reworkings of classic plays, yet there have been some notable premieres here too.

One of the earliest of these harks back to 1967, when Peter Nichols’ groundbreaking study of a couple dealing with their disabled daughter, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, appeared.

During the triumvirate years, in-between adapting a plethora of works by Goethe, Schiller, Proust and Goldoni, Robert David Macdonald somehow managed several original works, including Summit Conference, Webster and Chinchilla.

The 1990s saw a slew of adaptations from Scotland’s fertile contemporary literary scene, with a version of Jeff Torrington’s Swing Hammer Swing a standout.

This trend came on the back of Harry Gibson’s stage adaptation of Trainspotting, which predated the iconic film, and gave rise to further adaptations by Gibson of other Welsh novels, including The Marabou Stork Nightmares, Glue and Filth.

This trend continued through a version of Louise Welsh’s The Cutting Room right up to outgoing artistic director Jeremy Raison’s acclaimed version of Ron Butlin’s novel, The Sound of My Voice.

More rarified, perhaps, was Andrea Hart’s similarly praised version of Nothing, an already dialogue-centred experimental novel by Henry Green, which was originally directed by MacDonald.

Another member of the triumvirate, Giles Havergal, adapted Graham Greene’s Travels With My Aunt in a four person version that went on to travel the world.

More recently, David Greig’s original works for TAG, Yellow Moon and The Monster in the Hall, have enlightened younger audiences.

At this time of year we should also remember the Citz’s stream of original Christmas plays, from adaptations of classics by Myles Rudge right up to new works by Alan McHugh, who this year puts his signature to the main stage production of Beauty and the Beast.

The Herald, November 2010

ends

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) ...

Edinburgh Rocks – The Capital's Music Scene in the 1950s and Early 1960s

Edinburgh has always been a vintage city. Yet, for youngsters growing up in the shadow of World War Two as well as a pervading air of tight-lipped Calvinism, they were dreich times indeed. The founding of the Edinburgh International Festival in 1947 and the subsequent Fringe it spawned may have livened up the city for a couple of weeks in August as long as you were fans of theatre, opera and classical music, but the pubs still shut early, and on Sundays weren't open at all. But Edinburgh too has always had a flipside beyond such official channels, and, in a twitch-hipped expression of the sort of cultural duality Robert Louis Stevenson recognised in his novel, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a vibrant dance-hall scene grew up across the city. Audiences flocked to emporiums such as the Cavendish in Tollcross, the Eldorado in Leith, The Plaza in Morningside and, most glamorous of all due to its revolving stage, the Palais in Fountainbridge. Here the likes of Joe Loss and Ted Heath broug...

Big Gold Dreams – A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989

Disc 1 1. THE REZILLOS (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures (12/77)  2. THE EXILE Hooked On You (8/77) 3. DRIVE Jerkin’ (8/77) 4. VALVES Robot Love (9/77) 5. P.V.C. 2 Put You In The Picture (10/77) 6. JOHNNY & THE SELF ABUSERS Dead Vandals (11/77) 7. BEE BEE CEE You Gotta Know Girl (11/77) 8. SUBS Gimme Your Heart (2/78) 9. SKIDS Reasons (No Bad NB 1, 4/78) 10. FINGERPRINTZ Dancing With Myself (1/79)  11. THE ZIPS Take Me Down (4/79) 12. ANOTHER PRETTY FACE All The Boys Love Carrie (5/79)  13. VISITORS Electric Heat (5/79) 14. JOLT See Saw (6/79) 15. SIMPLE MINDS Chelsea Girl (6/79) 16. SHAKE Culture Shock (7/79) 17. HEADBOYS The Shape Of Things To Come (7/79) 18. FIRE EXIT Time Wall (8/79) 19. FREEZE Paranoia (9/79) 20. FAKES Sylvia Clarke (9/79) 21. TPI She’s Too Clever For Me (10/79) 22. FUN 4 Singing In The Showers (11/79) 23. FLOWERS Confessions (12/79) 24. TV21 Playing With Fire (4/80) 25. ALEX FERGUSSON Stay With Me Tonight (1980) ...