Skip to main content

Wonderland


Royal Lyceum Theatre
4 stars
On a movie screen, a terrified young woman is pleading for her life in 
what could be a scene from a lo-fi horror flick. The next time we see 
the woman we find out is called Alice, she’s in front of a camera 
again, just as scared as she auditions for a hard-core porn film. Is 
Alice for real here, or is she faking it, to death if necessary?

These are some of the questions being asked by director Matthew Lenton 
in Vanishing Point’s look at the dark side of pornography, co-produced 
with two Italian companies and Trmway, Glasgow. Here, as Alice’s tale 
is paralleled by an internet porn addict’s own descent, performers, 
directors and consumers become complicit in some psycho-sexual rabbit 
hole where love, erotica and even cheap thrills are forsaken in favour 
of what looks like extreme forms of mutual abuse.

The third in Vanishing Point’s loose-knit trilogy of impressionistic 
works seen largely behind glass, where Interiors and Saturday Night 
looked at the public and private tics of human behaviour, Wonderland is 
the dirty little secret lurking behind both. While there is much more 
heard dialogue here than in the other two pieces, the images played out 
on Kai Fischer’s set and pulsed along by Mark Melville’s brooding score 
are snapshots from the grimmest of fantasias.

As Alice, Jenny Hulse is unflinching as she leads a Scots-Italian cast 
of seven through some of the play’s starker, more naturalistic moments. 
The “normal, healthy individual” played by  Paul Thomas Hickey’ is even 
more troubling. It’s the matter-of-factness that scares the most in a 
brave and deeply serious theatrical meditation on the uglier aspects of 
the sex industry today.

The Herald, August 30th 2012

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) ...

Myra Mcfadyen - An Obituary

Myra McFadyen – Actress   Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024   Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.”   For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...

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) ...