Skip to main content

Victoria 

Dundee Rep
Four stars
If ever Scotland needed a big, intelligent state of the nation(s) play 
to sum up where we're at, it's now. David Greig's three-part 
Highland-set epic may not be it, but it comes pretty close.  First seen 
in 2000 but only now receiving its Scottish première, Greig's play 
spans sixty years and three generations of a rural community in a state 
of social flux, with those both up and downstairs trying to find 
something to believe in.

In 1936, it's the romance of revolution and the Spanish Civil War on 
one hand, and the pseudo-mystical allure of fascism on the other. By 
1974, rock stars are getting their heads together in the country, and 
by 1996 even the land has been annexed by big business. At the heart of 
all this are three vivacious and free-spirited young women called 
Victoria. With all three played by a vibrant Elspeth Brodie, each in 
different ways is looking for a brave new world, but are still drawn 
back to the big red house they pivot around even as they crave a better 
future.

Philip Howard's production, his first as co-artistic director of Dundee 
Rep, is as huge in ambition as the play. While both may be a tad 
unwieldy on Neil Warmington's all-purpose set, Victoria nevertheless 
presents a fascinating portrait of a community that takes things beyond 
the domestic to become something epochal.  As recurring little motifs 
in each act point to how the past informs what follows, and how the 
ghostly energies of that past linger, Brodie leads a heroic 
twelve-strong cast through a play that's about the risks of blind faith 
and the very human consequences of warped idealism.


The Herald, September 9th 2013

ends
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

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) ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
1 comment
Read more

The Passage – Hip Rebel Degenerates: Black, White and Red All Over

Prelude – The Power of Three   Fear. Power. Love. This life-and-death (un)holy trinity was the driving force and raisons d’être of The Passage, the still largely unsung Manchester band sired in what we now call the post-punk era, and who between 1978 and 1983 released four albums and a handful of singles.    Led primarily by composer Dick Witts, The Passage bridged the divide between contemporary classical composition and electronic pop as much as between the personal and the political. In the oppositional hotbed of Margaret Thatcher’s first landslide, The Passage fused agit-prop and angst, and released a song called Troops Out as a single. The song offered unequivocal support for withdrawing British troops from Northern Ireland.    They wrote Anderton’s Hall, about Greater Manchester’s born again right wing police chief, James Anderton, and, on Dark Times, rubbed Brechtian polemic up against dancefloor hedonism. On XOYO, their most commercial and potentially mo...
Post a Comment
Read more