Scottish theatre is on something of a roll just now in a series of hit shows that mark something of a return for big plays with big ideas that don’t tell you what to think. Long may it continue.
Tristan & Yseult
Citizens Theatre, Glasgow until 3 October; Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, 2-24 October.
Theatrical maverick Emma Rice scored an international hit back in 2003 with her epic take on the much adapted mediaeval romance about an illicit liaison between a Cornish knight and an Irish princess. If that sounds old hat, thing again, as Rice transforms the ancient yarn into a circus-like caper that roars with life in the show’s first outing for almost a decade in this latest reboot by Rice’s own Emma Rice Company.
The Steamie
His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen until 3 October. King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, 5-10 October; Pitlochry Festival Theatre, 20-24 October; Alhambra Theatre, Dunfermline, 29-31 October; King’s Theatre, Glasgow, 2-14 November.
Tony Roper’s comedy set on a 1950s Glasgow New Year’s Eve as four women do their laundry in the local washhouse has become a bona fide classic since it first appeared in 1987. Roper returns as director for the Rerr Terr company’s ongoing touring production, which bursts into life like a living picture postcard of a post war Glasgow in the thick of change. While the classic routines remain some of the funniest things ever committed to a stage, there are hidden depths aplenty in a show that reaches audiences theatres across the land are crying out for. Younger theatre makers should attend en masse to see how it’s done.
1984
Dundee Rep until 10 October; His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, 13-17 October; Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, 27 October-7 November.
There is something unmistakably now about Chris Hannan’s new stage adaptation of George Orwell’s very British dystopian classic, brought to life in Dominic Hill’s production with a sense of theatrical largesse on Tom Piper’s set. With Jack Tarlton and Jessica Hardwick leading the cast as Winston and Julia’s pair of rebels with a cause who rise up against the groupthink of a post truth future, Hannan frames the bleak and brutal meat of the play with an appearance by Orwell himself, who finds his views challenged while trying to finish his book from his hospital bed. The result in this touring production led by Glasgow’s Citizens Theatre is unmissable.
Happy Days
Pitlochry Festival Theatre until 10 October.
Siobhan Redmond and Forbes Masson star in Roxana Silbert’s studio production of Samuel Beckett’s classic 1961 play in which a woman buried alive attempts to survive by way of the sound of her own voice while her estranged husband hides behind a newspaper in hat looks like a last gasp second honeymoon gone wrong. Redmond is magnificently brittle in her depiction of Winnie, a woman trying to reclaim her soul as she holds on to memories of how things once were. Masson crawls from the wreckage as Willie, a man as impotent as a Jack Vettriano character. This makes for Beckett as a skewed domestic tragicomedy in another unmissable production.
Antigone
Tron Theatre, Glasgow until 10 October.
Lulu Raczka’s take on Sophocles’ tragedy of rebellious youth reboots things to a twenty-first century living room where princesses Antigone and her kid sister Ismene are having a sleepover before the trouble starts. Finn den Hertog’s new production for the Tron with the young Groupwork company takes Raczka’s set up and runs with it in an immaculately realised take on things which sees Eilidh Loan bring all the youthful fire required for Antigone, with Holly Howden Gilchrist equally terrific as Ismene, who has to mop up the mess her sister left behind.
I’ll Be Seeing You
Pitlochry Festival Theatre, until 11 October.
Liberace was one of showbusiness’s great characters, and here comes under the spotlight in a brand new play by Martin Sherman that stars Simon Russell Beale as a fantasy version of the flamboyant entertainer. Liberace appears in the play care of a young writer played by Fra Fee, who attempts to get behind the sparkly myth of the pianist’s fame, only to be challenged from the grave by the man himself in a play in which its Tony award winning author Sherman upends all received preconceptions about the ultimate entertainer.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, 2-18 October; Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, 21-24 Oct; His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, 29-31; Pitlochry Festival Theatre, 4-7 November.
Muriel Spark’s libertine Edinburgh school ma’am is brought to life by Paisley born Hollywood émigré Gayle Rankin in this new stage version by David Harrower for the National Theatre of Scotland. This sees former NTS artistic director Vicky Featherstone take the helm in the first stage version of Spark’s 1961 novel since Jay Presson Allen’s 1968 adaptation. The crème de la crème have arisen.
East is East
Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, 7-17 October.
Another revival arrives in Scotland by way of Ayub Khan Din’s semi autobiographical 1996 play about growing up in a mixed race family in early 1970s Salford. Brought to wider attention following a hit film, Khan Din’s play is now regarded as a modern classic, with this new thirtieth anniversary co-production by the Citz and assorted partners capturing the play’s sense of cross cultural conflict that remains as pertinent as ever.
When Prophecy Fails
Byre Theatre, St Andrews, 8 October; Dundee Rep, 15 October; Beacon Arts Centre, 23 October.
Running roughly in tandem with their production of Antigone, and following its Edinburgh International Festival run, the innovative Groupwork company continue their short tour of their startling study of faith and believing. Taking its starting point from a 1950s group of self styled seekers who believed UFOs would beam them up and save them from the end of the world, Finn den Hertog and Vicki Manderson’s production fuses text, dance, film and retro music to take a forensic look at what happens when everything you believe in lets you down.
The Tailor of Inverness
Universal Hall, Findhorn, 21 October; Byre Theatre, St. Andrews, 22 October; Royal Four Towns Hall, Lockerbie, 24 October; Eastwood Theatre, Giffnock, 27 October; Perth Theatre, 29 October; Eastgate Theatre, Peebles, 30 October; Corran Halls, Oban, 31 October. Tour continues through November.
Matthew Zajac’s deeply personal solo play about his father’s flight from the then Polish region of Galicia in what is now Western Ukraine tells a remarkable story of exile that sees him eventually land in Inverness. First seen in 2008 in a production by the Highland based Dogstar company, Zajac’s show has itself travelled the world, as it continues on its own cross country journey as part of its latest Scottish tour.
Othello
Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, 27 October-November 7.
Shakespeare’s play of love and war arrives in Glasgow for yet another Citizens co-production, this time with Home, Manchester and Newcastle’s Northern Stage in association with the Royal and Derngate, Northampton. As the Moor general’s secret affair with Desdemona takes over Othello’s life, Anthony Almeida’s production focuses on the couple’s early days, as Iago’s manipulations drives things towards mass destruction
Man to Man
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 29 October-7 November.
Tilda Swinton returns to the Traverse after thirty nine years in her breakout stage role in Anthony Vivas’ translation of German writer Manfred Karge’s play, Jacke wie Hose. Swinton plays a woman called Ella, who pretends to be her dead husband Max in order to retain his job in Nazi Germany. The act goes on for years as history plays out around Ella, with two new scenes added by Karge to illustrate how the new world order played out since the fall of the Berlin Wall. With Swinton reuniting with the 1987 production’s original creative team, tickets for the Edinburgh dates are already like gold.
The Herald, October 3rd 2026
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