Coffee-Table Notes

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Four stars If you can remember the 1980s, you probably weren’t there. If those who were there need a refresher course, they could do worse than check out this long overdue revival of John McKay’s play, which first graced the Traverse’s old Grassmarket home in 1987. This saw McKay take his work from street theatre combo The Merry Mac Fun Co onto the main stage before embarking on a career as a film and TV writer, director and producer.     McKay’s trajectory might just mirror the future life of young Eck, whose preparations for a job interview with BBC Scotland in 1985 are rudely interrupted by his dad Willie, who makes his unreconstructed presence felt in everything Eck does. This is the case from the interview itself to the local barbers before he joins Eck on his date in a fancy style bar.   This would be mortifying enough for any young shaver with ideas above his station attempting to shake off his roots and make his way in the world. Given that Willie ha

Tron Theatre, Glasgow Four stars The Scots negative in the title of Gary McNair’s audacious new version of Charles Dickens’ rites of passage epic Great Expectations says it all in Andy Arnold’s slow burning production. Here, after all, is a story about how a smart working class boy with ideas above his station is groomed for the success that sees him corrupted before he eventually finds his way home.   By rewriting Dickens’ boy hero Pip as a gallus Glasgow patter merchant, McNair, Arnold and co gives him even more of a common touch. As embodied by a brilliantly rambunctious Gavin Jon Wright, Pip tells his own story in what begins as a motor mouthed stand-up routine full of scurrilous asides and one-line gags. These are brought to life by everyone else on stage who haunt Pip’s imposter syndrome nightmares. Only when he learns to talk proper and acquire the airs and graces of a gentleman does he lose sight of himself.   Karen Dunbar’s increasingly creepy Miss Havisham leads a roll call o

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Four stars Scroungers are everywhere in Dave Johns’ heartfelt adaptation of director Ken Loach and writer Paul Laverty’s 2016 film, in which Johns played the title role of Geordie everyman Dan. Mercifully, none of these appear in the flesh in Johns’ tragic tale of how a humble man with a big heart is broken by the Kafkaesque iniquities of the UK benefits system.   Rather, their state sanctioned platitudes punctuate each scene with a litany of fake news that lays bare their lack of empathy with those caught in the poverty trap. At least three of those voices belong to former Westminster prime ministers. Matthew Brown’s audio-visual design is one of the tricks used by Johns and director Mark Calvert to bring home the fact that I, Daniel Blake has lost none of its currency since the film version first appeared. Things, indeed, have probably got worse instead of better since then. This despite one of the voices pointing out that Loach and Laverty’s film is ficti

Eastgate Theatre, Peebles Four stars Taking a walk is so much more than getting away for the day for Cath, the woman at the heart of Sylvia Dow’s new play, currently touring the country in a production by Sylvian Productions. Cath isn’t so much on the run, but is trying to find herself again following the death of her mother.    What Cath gets as she embarks on her journey is an accidental dialogue with Nan Shepherd, the long deceased real life author of The Living Mountain, the book that when it was eventually published several decades after Shepherd wrote it, became a classic of nature writing. By conjuring Shepherd up as guru and guide, Cath’s thoroughly modern sensibilities are challenged, even as she too embraces the poetry of the great outdoors as a kind of wide open sanctuary.   The result in Dow’s own creation is a dramatic meditation on the need for solitude and space in order to purge old demons and find a sense of freedom and renewal. Becky Hope-Palmer’s production brings th

The Studio, Edinburgh Four stars   Who would be a sixteen-year-old girl on Hogmanay, stuck in a small Aberdeenshire town the day before you see in the new year with a birthday? The chance of partying hard is next to non existent, especially if your over protective Granny has anything to do with it. Such is the lot of Daisy, our seemingly everyday teenage heroine in this pocket-sized but power-balladtastic mini jukebox musical by Katie Barnett and James Siggens, aka the tellingly named AyeTunes! company.   Then again, all it takes is a clap of thunder and an old cassette deck for things to take a turn for the weird, and suddenly we’re not in Fraserburgh anymore. Certainly not as Daisy knows it, anyway, as the Voice of Doric Past transports her to the night before her birth when her mother was the star turn at the leisure centre do before everything went horribly wrong.    What follows is a tender and funny riff on Daisy’s Back to the Future style adventure that has hidden depths beyond

Tron Theatre, Glasgow Four stars When a solitary middle aged drinker called Tommy is distracted from his pint at Greenock Bowling Club by a Glasgow University student doing a dissertation on Britpop’s lesser known never-wheres, Tommy is stirred to rewind on his past gone mad. That was when he was songwriter and guitarist with Battery Park, the band he formed with his brother Ed and their drummer mate Biffy.   Confronted by another woman called Angie at their first gig, female singer Robyn is drafted in to pick up the slack. With success in their sights, however, old demons rear their ugly head. Thirty years on, Lucy wants to know where Tommy’s loyalties lie, and she’s not just talking about Oasis v Blur.   Andy McGregor’s new play is the latest in an ever-expanding rock family tree of dramatic evocations of small town bands that never quite make it. This sense of familiarity doesn’t take away any of the potty mouthed charm of McGregor’s drama, which he writes, directs and composes the

Perth Theatre Four stars Why Ann Marie Di Mambro’s Scottish Italian family saga has never been made into a film is a mystery. First seen in 1990, Di Mambro’s drama charts the lives of the extended Pedreschi clan from just before the Second World War to the 1950s. Through this we see an entire diaspora move from being the core of the local community to becoming pariahs once Italy sides with Germany. As peace falls, an international game of kiss-chase ensues as the play moves into rom-com territory.    At the heart of this are Massimo, Rosinella and their niece Lucia, who sets the tone as a small but defiantly strong willed child. Lucia bonds with local lad Hughie, who ends up helping out in Massimo’s ice cream shop while his sister Bridget steps out with Massimo’s brother Franco. Such alliances, alas, are shattered by war and the prejudices it provokes. For Rosalina and Bridget, the costs are even greater.     Ken Alexander’s production embraces the initial breeziness of Di Mambro’s wri

Kibble Palace, Botanic Gardens, Glasgow Four stars If a king can’t follow rules, suggests Lear’s Fool turned gamesmaster to her old boss and his daughter at one point in David Henry Wilson’s play, it will be chaos. Wise words indeed, as Wilson fills in the gaps of Shakespeare’s historical tragedy, as we see what became of Lear’s much loved jester following their disappearing act mid way through Shakespeare’s play. That this came just as the king descended into madness makes one even more curious.   Bundled into a cell by clearly smitten guard, John, Nicole Cooper’s Fool is always ‘on’, keeping up the act whatever. The Fool’s reflex tomfoolery is used to disguise a huge intellect, a way with a metaphor and much more besides. This goes unappreciated by some audiences, including John. As with every soothsaying comic, however, there is a lot of serious stuff going on behind the mask. Wilson’s one act curio was first seen in 1994, and has been picked up for its Scottish premiere by the ever

Theatre Royal, Glasgow Four stars Winter is coming, and the weather turned in Glasgow on Wednesday night to add atmosphere before and after the National Theatre of Scotland’s new look at Bram Stoker’s endlessly reimagined gothic horror. So embedded into the collective psyche is Stoker’s mythic yarn concerning his eponymous Transylvanian vampire sucking the life out of all around that we think we know the story when likely as not we don’t.    This works to the advantage of writer Morna Pearson and director Sally Cookson, who conceived their version with Rosie Kellagher and an eight strong all woman and non-binary ensemble. Their telling duly becomes a show of strength, in which Dracula’s victims seize control of their own destiny.   Relocated to Aberdeen, and written in a rich and rollicking Doric, Pearson’s story opens with Mina and co incarcerated in an asylum, with only Mina’s former true love Jonathan’s journal for entertainment and enlightenment. Mina’s own experiences unlock a Pan

Pitlochry Festival Theatre Three stars The dead bird carried lovingly by the woman at the centre of Isla Cowan’s new play becomes an unwitting illustration of the dangers of everyday tragedies that might happen if the young stray too far from the nest. The woman is Beth, the absentee landlady who makes a prodigal’s return of sorts to the rural cottage she once called home.   Sitting tenant in the humble abode is Alf, who has embraced the hippy idyll of country life that is the complete opposite of Beth’s city slicker existence. This is the case even if Alf’s young partner Vee has something of the cuckoo about her in their stab at creating an Eden to call their own. While the walls aren’t the only things crumbling, if the cracks could talk beyond the new lick of paint that attempts to wipe out the past, the old ghosts that might emerge could tell quite a story.    Burning down the house in an act of purging looks like Beth’s only option in Cowan’s hour-long prime time psychodrama, perfo

Pitlochry Festival Theatre Four stars “But we can’t live as if we believed in nothing anymore!” John Michie’s world-weary academic, Rennie, implores, well into his cups in the second act of Peter Arnott’s new play. “We have to live at least as if we believed in something.”   Arnott’s self-styled attempt at Scottish Chekhov sees him gather his clans in a Perthshire country house on the eve of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. And my, how civilised the world looks compared to the extremes thrown up in the decade since.   The occasion is Rennie’s retirement do, and he has a very special announcement for the focus group of Scotland’s liberal media and academic establishment in waiting who make up the guest list. These include his wife Edie, his London based art curator daughter Emma, Benny Young’s exiled actor Moon and Rennie’s former students Frank and Charlie, who have turned out very differently indeed.     Charlie is a TV populist, while Frank’s partner Kath is a youthful fire

Four stars   When seventeen-year-old Juliane Koepcke took a flight with her mother from Lima to Pucallpa in Peru, little did she know she would be the sole survivor of the plane crash that followed. Over the next eleven days, Juliane navigated a rainforest where hidden depths hide crocodiles and other creatures, fell 10,000 feet, was almost eaten by maggots, and somehow lived to tell the tale.     This remarkable true story is brought to life by Sophie Kean in a near gymnastic display as Juliane. As the script moves back and forth with Juliane’s reminiscences, Kean’s movements seem to embody her life flashing before her in Emma Howlett’s deftly realised production. Moving from the row of aeroplane seats that make up the bulk of Eleanor Wintour’s ingenious set, Kean utilises paper planes, origami creatures and toyshop miniatures to bring the jungle to life. A glossary of some of the local bestiary is flashed onto a screen behind her, as if accompanying a museum exhibit as Sarah Spencer’

Royal Lyceum Theatre Four stars A moment of peace, then pandemonium reigns in this rollicking new look by Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s seventeenth century Spanish classic. Brought to life by England’s internationalist inclined maverick auteurs Cheek by Jowl, here, reality morphs into a spectacular fantasia for its incarcerated hero after being unleashed into the world.   Such is the lot of poor Segismundo, the Polish prince locked up like Rapunzel in a tower since birth lest he turn out to be a wrong ‘un. Once his regal old man Basilio guilt trips himself into cutting his son some slack, an initially befuddled Segismundo launches himself into society like a man who fell to earth running riot as he explores the undiscovered extremities of the big bad world he just landed in. Why? Because he can, and he was always going to turn out that way, anyway. Or was he?     Freedom is a funny thing in Declan Donnellan’s Spanish language production, which puts the lights up on the audience as Alfre

Four stars Two newsreaders sit behind a desk while a dramatic theme music plays out. Scripts are wielded like weapons by the man and woman as they prepare to dole out the headlines to anyone still seeking some kind of truth beyond fake news. Initially strait-laced - and straight-faced - in their delivery, the veneer of democracy soon starts to fade, however, as a litany of atrocities takes in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the 1980s Soviet-Afghan conflict, and a whole lot more, as any pretence at an objective worldview is consumed into the chaos the pair collapse into.   The foodstuffs that fill the desk are used as props for little miniature scenarios projected live onto a screen at the side of the stage. While caviar and vodka are passed out like holy sacraments, toy tanks are abandoned on the woman’s hair, while tiny figurines are burnt like tin soldiers.   This is quietly ferocious stuff in Petr   Boháč ’s production for the Czech Republic based Spitfire Company, which draws its word

  Five  stars Once upon a time, Fred Deakin was a shy kid who started playing records at teenage parties to try and make friends. Within a few years, as a student in Edinburgh, he was running some of the best clubs in town, and had the best posters to boot. And that was before he became a proper pop star as one half of electronic party people Lemon Jelly and a professor in design. Most of this is in Club Life, Deakin’s very personal late night show and tell concerning his life manning the wheels of plastic fronting legendary 1980s and 1990s clubland concepts. These ranged from the nu jazz of Blue to the Easy Listening irony of Going Places by way of heroically named nights such as Thunderball, Devil Mountain, Impotent Fury, and self-styled worst club in the world, Misery. These are all revived by way of assorted potted greatest hits selections, as Deakin takes us on a tour of Edinburgh nightlife from back in the day. Director Sita Pieraccini transforms Deakin’s testimonies into a parti

Four stars   When smart kid Mark starts at a rough school, the last thing he expects is to buddy up with Darren, a tough talking bully from a damaged background. Opposites attract, however, as sparring eventually spill over into acts of sex and violence that go way beyond the growing pains of adolescent angst. When the pair are reunited when the old school tie has long been discarded, however, the scars still linger for both of them.    Sophie Swithinbank’s blistering two-hander explores the roots of psychosexual pain in a macho world by way of a script shot through with street-smart exchanges that ricochet between the two boys in a way that recalls the two-fisted barbs of Barrie Keeffe, who explored classroom politics in works such as his 1977 TV play, Gotcha. Things have moved on considerably since then, however, and with no grown-ups on stage in Matthew Iliffe’s production for HFH Productions, things take an infinitely turn. Corey Montague-Sholay as Mark and William Robinson as Darr

Summerhall Three stars When Adam Lenson was diagnosed with cancer aged 34, his first world middle class existence was understandably turned upside down. Having upended the path he was on once already after dropping out of medical school to become a theatre director, Lenson found himself taking stock of both his past and potential selves if he had only jumped another way. As Lenson’s life flashes before his eyes by way of a series of TV monitors rewinding the days, the end result in Hannah Moss’s production is a playful offloading of assorted what-ifs amidst the sliding doors of one’s own mortality. Using a microphone and loop pedals to create a kind of karaoke lecture, Lenson channels his experience into a focussed meditation made even more life affirming by the fact that he is even here at all.   In a show developed at Camden People's Theatre, geeks might also pick up on the lesser spotted connection between children’s comedy gangster musical, Bugsy Malone, and Daft Punk (simples,

Festival Theatre Five stars   Love and money are everything in Australian maverick Barrie Kosky’s audacious new look at Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s ‘play with songs’, drawn from Elisabeth Hauptmann’s translation of John Gay’s eighteenth century romp, The Beggar’s Opera. Almost a hundred years on from its 1928 premiere, Kosky’s Berliner Ensemble production breathes new life into the show, as he does away with Weimar style trappings and drapes it in an infinitely more modern looking if still decadent gloss. Set in a poverty strapped world where appearances matter, Kosky opens proceedings in front of a full length silver curtain, where local gang boss Peachum holds court before Macheath and Peachum’s daughter Polly make their entrance. The revolt into style that follows resembles a 1980s Soho-set pop video dreamt up by an unholy alliance of Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Julian Temple. Gabriel Schneider’s Macheath, aka Mack the Knife, is a big suited city boy spiv forever on the make or

Unlike the 1960s, if you can remember the 1980s, you were almost certainly in the thick of some protest or other. Breach Theatre’s Ellice Stevens and Billy Barrett’s new verbatim musical looks back in showtunes at the implementation by the UK government in 1988 of Section 28, a hysteria-led legislation which prohibited the so-called ‘promotion of homosexuality’ by local authorities.   By making a song and dance of things using four performers, two musicians playing a brand new synth-led score played live by Frew and Ellie Showering, Barratt’s production excavates an important piece of social history before celebrating those who protested against it prior to its eventual repeal in 2003 (2000 in Scotland).     The result, as Stevens, Tika Mu ‘tamir, EM Williams and Zachary Willis lead us on a whistlestop tour of invading TV studios, abseiling into the House of Lords, and the irresistible rise of marching for gay and lesbian rights, is a piece of old-school pub theatre agit-prop, but with

Church Hill Theatre Edinburgh International Festival Five Stars The wind blows hot and cold in the assorted worlds brought to life in this ingenious 75-minute comic meditation on the climate crisis, presented in a collaboration between award winning Belgian mime and puppetry companies, Focus and   Chaliwaté . As white clad human figures pop up aloft a similarly pristine terrain, they don’t so much inhabit as become the picture postcard landscape, with miniature houses and forests embedded in upturned boots that become mountains seen from a distance.   A TV crew drive through hazardous conditions in an epic display of car seat choreography set to a Paul Simon soundtrack, only to fall prey to the elements twice over. A beautifully realised puppet polar bear and its cub come blinking into the light, only for the icebergs they are settled on to split. Meanwhile, in a more domestic interior, the walls may not quite be sweating, but when the furniture starts to melt and a hurricane makes Sun