Coffee-Table Notes

Holly Howden Gilchrist had yet to graduate from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland when she was cast as Catherine in Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge at the Tron Theatre in February this year. By that time, the then twenty-year-old had already won both the Donald Dewar Award and the Pauline Knowles Scholarship at RCS.     As the daughter of actors Kathryn Howden and Gilly Gilchrist, Howden Gilchrist comes from a strong pedigree.   Since A View from the Bridge, Howden Gilchrist has toured in Sylvia Dow’s play, Blinded by the Light, and appeared in Small Acts of Love, Frances Poet and Ricky Ross’s play that was the first production to play at the reopened Citizens Theatre in Glasgow.   Howden Gilchrist returns to the Gorbals for the Citz’s festive production of Beauty and the Beast. All of which makes for quite a start for what looks like a bright future ahead. The List, December 2025   ends

Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow Four stars   “We’re Saving Grace,” says a playful Robert Plant midway through a set of lesser known folk, blues and rock-pop covers presented with the superlative quintet the former Led Zeppelin vocalist turned global village explorer has been playing with for more than half a decade. “We’ve come to help.”   By this time in the Glasgow leg of what has been dubbed the Ding Dong Merrily tour to accompany the release of the band’s eponymous named album, Plant and co have sauntered through Kentucky blues, English trad, contemporary Americana and more. This wide reaching songbook has been brought to life by way of a meticulously arranged mix of Tony Kelsey’s acoustic and electric guitars, Matt Worley’s banjo, Barney Morse-Brown’s cello and Suzi Dian’s accordion, all powered by Oli Jefferson’s skittering drums.   The heart of this on versions of Addie Graham’s The Very Day You’re Gone and English folk song The Cuckoo is Plant’s vocal duets with Dian,...

Oran Mor, Glasgow Five stars    A wing and a prayer are everything in Morag Fullarton’s ingenious reimagining of one of the festive season’s most loved feelgood films. Celestial interventions aren’t just the order of the day for George Bailey, the small town saviour about to throw himself off a bridge at the start of the play as life gets too much to bear. They are there too for the show itself, which Fullarton confesses to the audience prior to its first night curtain hasn’t had a proper dress rehearsal due to assorted technical glitches. This is all done in mutual good humour, but Fullarton needn’t have worried, as what follows on Oran Mor’s tiny stage is one of the most joyously inventive theatrical experiences on show anywhere just now.    The can-do attitude of Fullarton and her company of four actors is a reflection of the show itself, which opens as a quartet of old school cinema usherettes attempt to pick up the pieces after a screening of Frank Capra’s 1946 ...

The Playhouse, Edinburgh Four stars   A woman’s world has probably shifted on its axis several times over since Catherine Johnson’s ABBA powered musical dramady first stormed the West End a quarter of a century ago. That may have been at the fag end of the ab-fab, girl powered 1990s, but the show’s heart remains in the 1970s, a seemingly more innocent age of free(ish) love without too many apparent consequences as feminism trickled down the class scale.    Or so it probably seemed for forty-something Donna’s generation in Johnson’s story, which, while tailored to Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus’s greatest hits, could probably stand up dramatically on its own. This isn’t to undermine one of the greatest songbooks in late twentieth century mainstream pop history. Far from it. In truth, for Johnson, director Phyllida Lloyd and producer Judy Craymer, the mix of ennui and euphoria that fires the Swedish songwriting duo’s grown up mini melodramas were a dramatic gift.   ...

Dundee Rep Three stars   Jack may not be the only one full of beans in Dundee Rep’s festive reimagining of the classic English fairy story, but they certainly keep him out of view. The star of Jonathan O’Neill and Isaac Savage’s new ‘mooosical’ take on the story is Caroline the Cow, a sassy Highland breed who is milked for all she’s worth to make Jack’s mum and dad’s ice cream business liquid. When Jack’s dad dies everything dries up, alas, as Caroline is farmed out to the Happy Smiles Petting Zoo, where she falls in with a musical trio made up of a hen, a pig and a llama.    While a blinged up Jack and his mum Sherry strike gold from their raids up the beanstalk, it is left to Caroline and her flock/pack/herd to shimmy up and sort things out for good. Throw in a half man, half harp and an increasingly benevolent sounding Giant, and by the end everyone’s back in business, including some for whom it has to be the one of show.    Stephen Whitson’s production is a ...

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Four stars   It’s hard to be a private dancer when your support group mates turn up at the door. No intervention is required, however, for the veteran pocket rocket who soon becomes known to the world as Dancing Donny. Donny may have two left feet, but away from the crowd, he gets the sort of kick from a soft shoe shuffle that the booze he once numbed himself with could never match.    Craig and Jay have never seen the like, with Jay in particular spotting a chance to make a fortune once phone footage of Donny’s shape throwing goes viral. While Donny is none the wiser about some of the less flattering online comments, he loves every second of being the centre of attention.    Stephen Christopher and Graeme Smith’s comic drama plays with expectations about what a show about a bunch of addicts should be like by having its Leith based trio introduce themselves to the audience with a ‘no childhood trauma’ rule. Brian Logan’s speedy reviva...

Theatre 118, Glasgow Four stars   Aoife McDonagh has a dream. Sweet seventeen and a self styled ‘half a virgin’, Aoife can’t wait get away from small town County Kildare and make her mark on the mean streets of London. If that particular city didn’t happen to be in England, Aoife’s family might like it a whole lot better, but she doesn’t care what they think anymore. If she stays that would be the end of her. Especially after what happened with Erin Kelly, the coolest girl in school who she’s been besotted with since they met when they were six. Erin’s going away as well, so who know what might happen next, but at least they’ll always have that moment.    As confessionals go, Rebecca Donovan has written a rites of passage that taps into the hormonal hunger of young women on the verge with a comic dynamism and an unfiltered frankness that could make a nun blush. Performed by Donovan in Georgia Nelson’s production for Theatre 118, Aoife is a guilt-ridden force of natur...

Citizens Theatre, Glasgow Four stars    When times are tough, secret worlds await in this new look at the classic eighteenth century French folktale, which here de-Disneyfies things to get beneath the skin of the story. In Lewis Hetherington’s version, Israela Efomi’s Beauty is one of two daughters to the widowed Baron Aaron, for whom business is a crash and burn affair, while encouraging Beauty that looks alone are all she needs to get by. Beauty’s sister Bright, on the other hand, has big ideas of her own.    When her dad’s wheeler dealing sees him go bust, the family are forced to move to a woodland shack. A chance encounter with a seemingly scary monster sees the Baron bargain with Beauty, who is exiled to the nearby castle, rendered as a spooky cartoon construction by designer Rachael Canning. With feline friend Mr Mittens in tow, Beauty finds a spooky world of locked rooms and celestial sounds, as well as a Beast whose bark is considerably worse than his b...

Pianodrome, St. Oswald’s Centre, Edinburgh Four stars   What to do when you inherit what was once a vital part of your parents’ world, but which played a key part in destroying it? The answer in Rupert Page and Rob Thompson’s moving meditation on legacy, loss and purging old demons is for the newly orphaned siblings to pass the item between them while all the while wanting to smash the offending item to bits. As the giveaway title of the duo’s drama makes clear, the fact that the hand me down in question is an upright piano doesn’t make dealing with it any easier. This is despite the potential for a dramatic exit that would make it the ultimate auto-destructive art action.    Page and Thompson are more John Cage-like in their approach, in that, rather than making a sound, the piano is imagined on stage by Thompson. The sole performer for much of the play’s fifty minute duration, he relates the instrument’s history as it moves from living room to recording studio and back ...

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 ...