Coffee-Table Notes

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 ...

Theatre 118, Glasgow  Four stars   It was all Sheena Easton’s fault. If the Bellshill diva hadn’t made her prodigal’s return to Glasgow for 1990’s free concert, The Big Day, in possession of a transatlantic accent, the girl gang at the centre of Milly Sweeney’s play wouldn’t have ended up in a police holding cell.    To rewind for those who might not have been there, The Big Day brought a quarter of a million people out onto the streets of Glasgow to see some of Scotland’s biggest pop acts of the era, including Texas, Deacon Blue, Hue and Cry and Wet Wet Wet. Coming in the thick of the city’s year as European City of Culture, it also made a statement about Glasgow’s homegrown renaissance. As big and shiny a PR exercise as it might have been, most of the acts had working class roots.    Hence the disgust of Debs, Fiona, Gracie and Kirsty regarding Ms. Easton’s grand entrance. Having grown up beside each other on the same estate, this is the first time the gi...

Theatre 118, Glasgow  Three stars   International football euphoria is on every fan’s mind this week following Scotland’s World Cup qualifying victory over Denmark on Tuesday night. But beyond all that snatching victory from the jaws of defeat type stuff, what about the grassroots teams that slug it out on neglected pitches week in, week out, with little reward other than some dreams of glory and loyalty to those who put on the same shirts.    Loyalty is everything in Patrick Marber’s play, first seen in 2015, and revived here as the debut show from the brand new Paperhat Theatre company. Set in the bare brick dressing room of a small time semi professional non-league football club, that loyalty from all three characters is bought off pretty quickly. Even the saintly Johnny Yates, former club hero turned kit man and informal talent scout, almost gives way to temptation in the face of big talking Jimmy Kidd. An old school manager with the crumpled suit and gobby attit...