As the theatre season moves into November, Christmas shows and pantomimes prepare to open for the festive season. More of that in December, but there is plenty to see in shows great and small before things kick in towards the end of this month.
A Play, A Pie and a Pint
Oran Mor, Glasgow, November 3-22.
Glasgow’s lunchtime theatre phenomenon brings their latest season to a close with three brand new shows. Death of An Influencer (November 3-8) sees Matt Anderson’s play focus on a bit part actor upstaged by his social media star son in a comic drama about success and failure within the family. Gravity (November 10-15) sees Kevin P. Gilday set his new play in an about to be demolished high-rise block where one man refuses to leave. Only social worker Joanne can save the day. Finally, Strangers in the Night (November 17-22) is a play by Alan Muir set in a retirement village where two people find solace in each other’s stories before one of them must decide whether to leave the other behind. Cora Bissett directs.
Arlington
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, November 6-8
Enda Walsh has long been a dynamic playwriting voice ever since the Cork based Corcadorca company brought Walsh’s play, Disco Pigs, to Edinburgh back in 1997 starring a young Cillian Murphy. This Scottish premiere of a more recent work by Walsh is presented by the Shotput company, who fuse theatre and dance in a story of a young woman held in a dystopian high rise facility where she tells her dreams to an anonymous man while waiting for her number to be called. Walsh’s rich demotic gives voice to the woman’s inner demons as she attempts to find hope for the world.
Hamlet
His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, November 6-8.
Few have shapeshifted what is arguably Shakespeare’s most quotable works than Peruvian company Teatro La Plaza, in a which a cast of actors with Down syndrome take the tormented prince’s ‘To be or not to be’ speech as their starting point and run with it. And my how they run, in a riotous show and tell that sees Hamlet’s crown passed around the show’s eight performers. Since it arrived at Edinburgh International Festival in 2024, Chela de Ferrari’s production has toured the world. As the Herald said in its review of the show in Edinburgh, ‘beyond the fun and games, a very serious point is being made’ in a unique and unmissable show.
Friends! – The Musical Parody
King’s Theatre, Glasgow, November 11-15.
As era defining television goes, David Crane and Marta Kauffman’s flat-share sitcom captured a generation moving from being feckless twenty-somethings to being forced to face up to responsibilities of your thirties alongside your besties. As Ross, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Chandler and Joey bickered, sparred, wisecracked and fell in and out of love through life from the nineties to the noughties, for all they did their growing up in public in hilarious fashion, they also left themselves open to pastiche. Cue this hit Broadway musical that condenses all 236 episodes into two hours in a fond revisitation that plays to the original’s strengths enough to leave you with a warm glow of remembrance for the way they were.
The Sound of Music
Pitlochry Festival Theatre, November 14-December 21.
A speedy seasonal return for one of the big hits of Pitlochry’s 2024 season sees Kirsty Findlay return as Maria, the singing nun turned nanny and freethinking educationalist in this classic tale of the singing Von Trapp family in 1938 Austria just before the world goes to war. Rodgers and Hammerstein’s songbook featuring My Favourite things, Edelweiss and Climb Ev’ry Mountain remains as fresh as when first sung on Broadway in 1959 before being immortalised by Julie Andrews and co in Robert Wise’s 1965 film. Let’s not forget either that Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse’s book tells a story about how a family are forced to flee the Nazi annexation of Austria, seek sanctuary in other countries and live in exile. Of course, it could never happen today.
The Red Lion
Theatre 118, Glasgow, November 18-22
Patrick Marber’s play is set in the dressing room of a non-league football club, where a hotshot striker is torn between the dreams of a local hero kit man and a more money minded manager on the make. It was sired after Marber got involved with Lewes FC, a club one on its uppers but which was saved by a supporters buy-out. Presented by the shoestring Paperhat Theatre in Theatre 118’s former office space that is slowly becoming one of the liveliest grassroots theatre spaces in the country, one might argue that there is a parallel here with theatre venues.
Gallus in Weegieland
Tron Theatre, Glasgow, November 19-January 4 2026
Few have transformed pantomime for the modern age than Johnny McKnight, who this year brings the Tron panto home with a typical mixture of tradition and reinvention. Here, would-b ballet dancer Gallus goes in search of her lost cat Dinah before falling down a pothole where a winter wonderland of power hungry monarchs and Harry Styles rip-offs lead Gallus on an incredible journey towards true love and much more.
Inside No 9 – Stage/Fright
The Playhouse, Edinburgh, November 25-29.
Era defining TV comes in many forms. Where Friends appealed in part because of its cosy familiarity for those who had grown up in an age where mates become family, Steve Pemberton and Reese Shearsmith’s meticulously observed anthology series used the familiarity of creepy TV shows past to subvert those antique forms by taking things too far. This new stage show brings in some familiar characters alongside new material to deliver something that sounds part Jean Paul Sartre’s Huis Clos, part Tales of the Unexpected.
CINDERELLA: A Fairytale
Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, November 28-January 3, 2026.
As the theatre season slips into panto land, for all that the all-encompassing role-call of thigh-slapping hilarity is irresistible, it’s worth checking out some more formal Christmas plays. Take the Lyceum’s new look at Cinderella, in which Sally Cookson’s script first seen in London in 2023 stays true to the original by way of the second half of the title while de-Disneyfying things somewhat. Here, young Ella has to deal with her widowed dad, who, once he remarries, sees Ella hang out in her tree house with her bird friends when a mysterious young boy turns up along with a life changing invitation to the royal ball.
Jack and the Beanstalk
Dundee Rep, November 29-December 30
Another brand new take on a classic tale comes in Dundee Rep’s Christmas show, which sees Glasgow based musical theatre duo Jonathan O’Neill and Isaac Savage bring their new version to the stage. This puts Caroline the Highland Coo at the centre of the action as narrator of O’Neill and Savage’s - ahem - moosical - spilling the beans on Jack’s ascent to take on the Giant. O’Neill and Savage are both graduates of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where they began writing together. While director Stephen Whitson also comes from a strong musical theatre background, one should cock an ear beyond the showtunes to check out the voice of the Giant, provided by a local boy done good enough himself to become a bit of a Hollywood giant in his own right.
The Herald, November 1st 2025
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