As July sees the theatre season wind down into something of a calm before the August Edinburgh storm, there is nevertheless a fair bit of on stage action on offer. Bard in the Botanics and Pitlochry Festival Theatre lead the charge with at least one show that will feature a storm, so not that calm at all, really.
Twelfth Night
Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, Until 11 July.
Lovers and Madmen is the theme for Bard in the Botanics’ silver jubilee summer season of outdoor Shakespeare. This new production of the bard’s contrarily sunny comedy probably falls very much in the former camp, as shipwrecked twins Viola and Sebastian are separated on the island of Illyria, embarking on assorted mistaken identity sired adventures until the inevitable happy ending brings them and their respective squeezes together once more. All this is likely to be upstaged, in Jennifer Dick’s production, mind you, by the figure of the yellow stocking clad Malvolio in a production featuring some Bard in the Botanics irregulars, including Rebecca Robin as Viola and Stephen Arden as Malvolio.
Othello
Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, Until 11 July.
This stripped back look at Shakespeare’s tragedy is the third time Bard in the Botanics artistic director has presented the play since 2007, when it was the first production to be performed in the Kibble Palace Glasshouse. This latest iteration sees Barr and his cast of five tackle the play’s racial tensions head on as Manasa Tagica portrays a camouflage clad Othello, with Adam Donaldson’s Iago kitted out in similar fashion in a world where the Union Jack flies proud and a migrant success story causes a jealous Iago to whip up fake news with deadly results. Of course, it could never happen here.
Big Bad Riding Hood
Òran Mór, Glasgow, 1- 19 July
If you go down to Woodlands Road today and for the next couple of weeks, you’re sure to get a big surprise. Not as big a one as the Gran does in Gary McNair’s uniquely Glasgow take on the classic European folk tale, perhaps, but, in a show that comes with a title that sounds like a Leo Baxendale comic strip, a surprise, nevertheless. This may stem from the fact that panto season appears to have come very early indeed in Òran Mór’s annual summer special, in which Gran awaits the first visit from her scarlet clad granddaughter for years. Much huffing and puffing follows in a show that, to be clear, actually takes place on stage in the venue on the corner of Great Western Road and Byres Road.
Lear
Pitlochry Festival Theatre, 4 July- 1 August
The last time we saw a woman take the title role in Shakespeare’s storm ridden classic in these parts was when Janette Foggo took it on in Bard in the Botanics’ production of what was styled as Queen Lear back in 2017. This time out, Finn Den Hertog’s new look at the play sees Maureen Beattie put on the crown as the aging monarch with three very different daughters. This sees her inadvertently create havoc, not least with her own faculties. With Beattie on the throne, her commanding mix of power and vulnerability promises much in a show that also features Forbes Masson as Gloucester.
I Can Die Too
Pitlochry Festival Theatre, 11 July- 2 August
Tony award winning actress Frances Ruffelle stars in a brand new musical play co written by her with actress Sally George and PFT artistic director Alan Cumming. Based on Jean Cocteau’s La Voix Humaine, I Can Die Too takes it’s title from Cocteau’s words after he heard that Edith Piaf had died. It focuses on leading actress Lily, an actress whose rehearsals take a very wrong turning in a play about music about a play about music. How meta can you get?
Emma
Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, 16 July-1 August
“I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like,” wrote Jane Austen prior to penning her 1815 novel, Emma. Not a promising start, perhaps, for readers looking for the latest blockbuster, but Austen’s girl powered proto chick lit rom-com romp has endured enough for this new stage version to grace this year’s Bard in the Botanics season in a stage adaptation by Jennifer Dick. With Austen's story known to many as the inspiration for 1990s teen flick, Clueless, it will be interesting to see how much Dick's version stays true to the story’s posh frock roots in a show that features Esme Bayley in the title role.
The Duchess of Malfi
Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, 16 July-1 August
If opposites attract, John Webster’s brutal Jacobean revenge tragedy is the perfect flipside to Emma in Bard in the Botanics’ five actor version of the play, in which the not always merry widow who gives the play its title embarks on a not quite secret love affair with her steward. This cross class romance gives the Duchess’ brother the right royal hump enough for bloody consequences to ensue. Webster was as full on with his rich poetic dialogue as he was with on stage violence, so it will be interesting to see how this translates to Jennifer Dick’s stripped back adaptation, which takes place in the Kibble Palace Glasshouse where the action is set to be played out without a safety net, and with nowhere to hide.
The Singer
Dundee Rep, 29-31 July
New songs by K.T. Tunstell are just one of the attractions of this new play with music receiving a trio of preview dates prior to a full Edinburgh Festival Fringe run and subsequent tour. Presented by ±Dundee Rep and the Solar Bear company in association with Aberdeen Performing Arts, the show tells the story of an accidental alliance between a deaf artist who ‘sings’ with his hands, and a washed up musician hungry for a comeback, it charts the tensions between ambition, compromise and a music industry with a serious blind spot. The show is based on a film made by Cora Bissett, herself no slouch in the music and lyrics department, and who here directs.
The Herald, July 1st 2026
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