His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen 4 stars Robin Jenkins’ World War Two set novel is a broodingly strange affair. Peter Arnott’s new adaptation takes all of Jenkins’ concerns about class, good, evil and the self-destructive fear of otherness on the one hand and an empathetic desire to transcend one’s own station on the other, and makes a big serious statement on the human condition that retains its human heart. Set on a remote Highland estate, the leafy splendour occupied by what are here referred to simply as Lady and Captain, as well as Lady’s liberal-minded twelve year old Roddie, is ripped asunder by the rude intrusion of two brothers, the dour Neil and his brother Callum, the latter of whom would be classed today as having learning disabilities. Watching over all this is game-keeper Duror, who, with a terminally ill wife in her sick-bed, resembles a contemporary vigilante on the verge and is already on the shortest of fuses. In Callum, Duror recognises imperfections he can’t bear, with tragic consequences as he goes into psychological meltdown. With enough space left for the play to breathe through a set of fine turns led by John Kielty and Ben Winger as the brothers, Ireland brings all this to rich poetic life on Hayden Griffin’s mighty-looking set awash with back projections that lend a panoramic scope from the play’s opening image. Duror’s wife Peggy, played by Helen Logan, moves as if operated by puppeteers. The deer being hunted down becomes a Bambi-esque solo dance by Maxine Hamilton. It’s Duror’s speech betraying his own potential fanaticism, however, juxtaposed here with Pathe news footage of Hitler’s holocaust, which chills the most. The Herald, September 17th 2012 ends
Edinburgh Playhouse Five stars A big National Coal Board sign looms large at the opening of Lee Hall and Elton John's decade-old musical stage version of Hall and director Stephen Daldry's hit turn of the century film. In a tale of one little boy's liberation as a dancer against the backdrop of the 1980s miners strike, however, the Durham Miners banner and the 'Save Our Community' sash held aloft matter more. It is this call to arms that forms the heart of Daldry's production, as Billy becomes a potty-mouthed beacon of hope in a situation where picket line, thin blue line and chorus line rub uneasily up against each other. Given such a context, there is bound to be some pretty grown-up stuff going on here, be it the institutionalised homophobia in Billy's village, the class war going on within it, or Billy's grieving for his dead mother that drives his every move. And, as so magnificently choreographed by Peter Darling, what moves they are. Watch...
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