Coffee-Table Notes

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’...

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh  Five stars    The birds are circling in this new take on one of the greatest children’s stories ever told, but nicely. As the flock of green and yellow plumaged puppets swoop, soar and provide comfort several times over to little orphan Ella, they offer a form of liberation as well to their already free-spirited charge, even as she is under the thumb of her gleefully wicked stepmother and her pair of brattish enfants terrible stepsiblings.   This makes for a delightfully colourful Cinderella in Sally Cookson and Adam Peck’s version of the story, written with their original production’s company when it was first seen in Bristol back in 2011. Jemima Levick’s new look at it for the Lyceum’s Christmas show picks up the baton and invests it with a heart, soul and visual wonder that brings it to joyful life. At the heart of this is a fusion of handsomely realised sound and vision bolstered by a set of deliciously grotesque performances...

Tom Stoppard – Playwright Born July 3, 1937; died November 29, 2025   Tom Stoppard, who has died aged 88, was a playwright of linguistic verve, wild theatricality and an inherent sense of intellectual playfulness that blew the mainstream British stage wide open following the success of his play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Stoppard’s work continued to dazzle right up to what turned out to be his final and infinitely more personal work, the 41-actor epic, Leopoldstadt.   Inbetween came a vast catalogue of work. This ranged from the intellectual riot of Travesties (1974), which looked at the possibilities that might have ensued from the fact that Lenin, James Joyce and Tristan Tzara had all spent time in Zurich during World War One. With Joyce in the midst of writing Ulysses, Tzara in the thick of Dada’s rise, and Lenin at the vanguard of the Russian Revolution, Stoppard depicted a world about to explode on every level. More overtly politically, perhaps, Rock’n’Roll (...

With Herald panto critic Mary Brennan already hotfooting it around the shows of the season, there is alot going on, with a smorgasbord of seasonal fare likely on your doorstep, as outlined below. There is even some non-panto action opening in theatres great and small to see the year out in suitably dramatic fashion.   Baltic Cumbernauld Theatre until December 24. With Cumbernauld Theatre under threat of closure after being turned down for funding, now is probably the time to show some support for one of the most vital arts organisations outside the cities. Jerry Taylor’s new pantomime for Ginger and Jester Productions brings home a very snowy show, as young Elsbeth sets out from the land of Glenfrost to rescue her brother from the clutches of the Snow Queen. Cue a quest loaded with a talking snowman called Nolaff, who’s lost his sense of smell, a seven-foot Yeti and a whole load of storms weathered as Elsbeth discovers her magic powers.     A Christmas Carol Platform, Eas...

13 -   Dawn Sievewright Dawn Sievewright took centre stage this year in a hit adaptation of Nicole Taylor’s successful film, Wild Rose. With an already impressive CV in shows such as Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, Sievewright made the role of wannabe Country music star Rose-Lynn Harlan her own in a towering performance.     24 -  Milly Sweeney Milly Sweeney’s play, Water Colour, had already won the St. Andrews Playwriting Award before had even been produced. When it opened at Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Sweeney’s study of two young people on the brink went on to win the Stage Debut Award for Best Writer.     Alison Watt Alison Watt’s first London exhibition for seventeen years, From Light, saw the Greenock born painter create eighteen brand new works specifically for the  Pitzhanger Gallery in response to architect Sir John Soane’s use of light. The result illuminated Watt’s world as much as that of Soane.     Ramesh Meyyappan Ramesh Meyyap...

P itlochry Festival Theatre Five stars   The hills are very much alive in and around Pitlochry just now, as a new wind blows in care of artistic director Alan Cumming. As a parting shot from the still fresh looking old order spearheaded by former artistic head Elizabeth Newman, Sam Hardie’s seasonal revival of Newman’s final show from this time last year similarly goes out on a high. It also shows how great work can create stars. This comes here in the form of Kirsty Findlay, who returns to the role of runaway nun Maria with the same youthful brio and vocal prowess that sees her apply a maturity and understated energy from start to finish in this just shy of three-hour show.    Findlay is helped, of course, by composer Richard Rodgers and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II's superlative showtunes, which she and a twenty-two strong, all singing, all dancing cast that doubles up as a mini orchestra bring to life with unabashed gusto under musical director Richard Reeday.  ...

The Playhouse, Edinburgh  Four stars   Life’s a scream for Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, the creators and stars of TV anthology show, Inside No.9. Over nine (natch) series’ between 2014 and 2024, Pemberton and Shearsmith mined the ghosts of showbiz past to make something that was nominally a sit-com but which came possessed with a knowingly dark heart. The show’s dramatic marriage of 1970s hammy horror and tales of the unexpected played tricks with form, content and genre that mixed arcane gothic with post modern archness in a way that pushed whatever button was going.    So it goes with this hit stage show, which sees the duo present a bumper sized live compendium designed to keep both diehards and novices equally on their toes. Opening with an extended scene-setter that plumbed the depths of every theatregoer’s worst nightmare, Pemberton and Shearsmith introduce what on one level is one great big theatrical in-joke before framing the bulk of the first half ...

Theatre 118, Glasgow  Four stars   It was all Sheena Easton’s fault. If the Bellshill diva hadn’t made her prodigal’s return to Glasgow for 1990’s free concert, The Big Day, in possession of a transatlantic accent, the girl gang at the centre of Milly Sweeney’s play wouldn’t have ended up in a police holding cell.    To rewind for those who might not have been there, The Big Day brought a quarter of a million people out onto the streets of Glasgow to see some of Scotland’s biggest pop acts of the era, including Texas, Deacon Blue, Hue and Cry and Wet Wet Wet. Coming in the thick of the city’s year as European City of Culture, it also made a statement about Glasgow’s homegrown renaissance. As big and shiny a PR exercise as it might have been, most of the acts had working class roots.    Hence the disgust of Debs, Fiona, Gracie and Kirsty regarding Ms. Easton’s grand entrance. Having grown up beside each other on the same estate, this is the first time the gi...

Theatre 118, Glasgow  Three stars   International football euphoria is on every fan’s mind this week following Scotland’s World Cup qualifying victory over Denmark on Tuesday night. But beyond all that snatching victory from the jaws of defeat type stuff, what about the grassroots teams that slug it out on neglected pitches week in, week out, with little reward other than some dreams of glory and loyalty to those who put on the same shirts.    Loyalty is everything in Patrick Marber’s play, first seen in 2015, and revived here as the debut show from the brand new Paperhat Theatre company. Set in the bare brick dressing room of a small time semi professional non-league football club, that loyalty from all three characters is bought off pretty quickly. Even the saintly Johnny Yates, former club hero turned kit man and informal talent scout, almost gives way to temptation in the face of big talking Jimmy Kidd. An old school manager with the crumpled suit and gobby attit...

Oran Mor, Glasgow Three stars   In the wee small hours, the members of the Full Shilling Social Club gather under cover to share stories and imbibe good whisky. Given that Jimmy and May are the only two members, it’s a pretty exclusive affair, but that is how they like it. The so called retirement village the pair have been decamped to is a pretty good front for such nocturnal activities, even if neither party is being quite as honest as they appear.    May was an actress, and, like anyone of her vintage, has anecdotes aplenty. There’s the one about the wannabe Hollywood starlet with tooth issues for starters. Best of all is the one about meeting Frank Sinatra back stage after ol’ blue eyes’ 1990 show at Ibrox. As for Jimmy, he can match May with gags aplenty. But what will happen if May goes to live with what up until now has been her terminally absent son? And why is she pretty much dress rehearsing her conversations with Jimmy, writing down every bon mot in advance les...

The Playhouse, Edinburgh  Four stars   When little Anna Mae Bullock caused a commotion in church when she started freestyling on the hymns, her destiny as a soul singer with one of the biggest voices in town was assured. Or at least that is how this epic homage to that little girl who morphed into Tina Turner tells it, with a bunch of greatest hits to go with it. One of them, Nutbush City Limits, is here the number that got Anna Mae into so much trouble. Reinvented here from the go-go groove created with her creative partner, husband and nemesis Ike Turner, it becomes the gospel hymn that always lurked beneath.   Now embarking on its first UK tour since its initial West End run in 2018, Phyllida Lloyd’s production of a book by Katori Hall with Frank Ketelaar and Kees Prins is a warts and all look at Turner life and work that sees her combat prejudice, misogyny and abuse to become a triumphant figure.   Deserted by her angry mother and left with an even angrier father...

Òran Mór , Glasgow Three stars   Everything is up in the air for Liam, the twenty-something stoner in Kevin P. Gilday’s new play, this week’s lunchtime offering at A Play, a Pie and a Pint. Liam is the sole surviving resident of a condemned inner city high-rise about to be demolished, with or without his presence.    Only when social worker Joanne turns up at Liam’s door does he realise he’s been made the figurehead of a protest against the demolition he wasn’t aware of being a part. All he wants is to stay in a room where the presence of his lost mum still lingers in the plants and the black and white films he watches.    As Joanne attempts to ensure Liam won’t throw himself out of his flat window, she reveals ghosts of her own that she is attempting to lay to rest. From Liam’s initial suspicion of Joanne, the pair form a bond that occasionally misfires before the plug is finally pulled on what Liam used to call home.    Gilday’s play takes a look at ...

King’s Theatre, Glasgow Four stars   The warm up guy has done his bit, the recording light is on, and anticipation is high for a live taping of one of the best-loved sitcoms of all time. Except, as the title of writers Bob and Tobly McSmith and composer Assaf Gleizner’s musical highlights like a prompt card waved at a studio audience, we are about to witness a loving pastiche of the show that inspired, not just catchphrases, but haircuts and lifestyle choices too.    Over a decade from 1994 to 2004, David Crane and Marta Kauffman’s flatshare comedy concerning the lives and loves of a goofy sextet of upwardly mobile late twenty and early thirty something New Yorkers saw a generation of fans do their growing up alongside them.    Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe and Joey are all here in Michael Gyngell’s production of a show which has now been on the go almost as long as the programme it parodies prior to this UK tour. And it is a cr...

  Ian McKenzie Smith – 1935-2025   Ian McKenzie Smith, who has died aged 90, was a visionary curator, whose leadership in Aberdeen’s artistic and civic society saw the city’s art collection transformed. As director of Aberdeen Art Gallery from 1968 to 1989, then as Aberdeen’s City Arts Officer and Director of the Arts until 1996, McKenzie Smith married his historical artistic knowledge and forward thinking sensibilities to focus on constantly reinventing the institution with contemporary work by living artists.    McKenzie Smith gave quietly determined support to young artists across all disciplines, doing so with an understated Zen-like calm that betrayed his own influences as an artist. This made for a bold programme that was rooted in the North East of Scotland, but which looked outwards in a way that made for the basis of a world-class collection in a transformed artistic landscape.   Ian McKenzie Smith was born in Montrose, the younger of two brothers to Ma...

Theatre 118, Glasgow Three stars   When Jeanie met Tam, it was love at first song in Helen Fox’s new play, which charts the life and times of two friends who bond over music, but who never quite get to sing the same tune. Jeanie and Tam are just seven years old when they first hear each other back in the 1970s. Their world is one of bubblegum pop from Brotherhood of Man to ABBA, finding mutual ground over the all-conquering Queen, even if Tam doesn’t know the right words.    Even at that young age the pair understand the power of finding a kindred spirit, and swear to meet at the same time and place every five years, come what may. As musical tastes change, this works fine for a while. Jeanie and Tam even form a band, and while the music never stops for Tam, Jeanie’s world falls silent, and for all they try to stay true to their five-year promise, things are never quite the same again.    At first glance, Fox’s play is classic rites of passage stuff, a nostalgia...