Coffee-Table Notes

Citizens Theatre, Glasgow Four stars   When idealistic young aid worker Samira leaves Glasgow for Jordan in 2010 in the wake of the Arab Spring, she is on a mission to change the world she thinks she understands. As a mixed race Muslim abroad, however, bearing witness from afar may be one thing, but squaring up to frontline atrocities on a daily basis as she moves rapidly from one crisis to another is traumatic enough to leave her profoundly affected by the events around her.    The world may have moved on since Mariem Omari’s solo play inspired by her own experiences first appeared in 2021, but in terms of the fall out of what has happened in the Middle East since then, things have only changed for the worse.    A vibrant performance from Olivia Hemmati forms the heart of Shilpa T-Hyland’s production for the Citizens’ Theatre’s associate company, Bijli Productions, which steps out for a full tour in this redeveloped version of the play. As Samira becomes engulf...

Òran Mór , Glasgow Four stars   Eyes are very much down for a full house in this new play by Marc Pye and Gayle Telfer Stevens, the latest lunchtime extravaganza as part of the current A Play, a Pie and a Pint season. Angie and Linda are pretty much addicted to the allure of the bingo hall, which offers some kind of lifeline, as well as potentially sorting out their respective financial woes. If Angie doesn’t get to call ‘House’, chances are she’ll lose hers.    Linda and Angie’s daughters Stacey and Amy, meanwhile, have other plans, and perish the thought of following in their mothers’ footsteps. With a cool 40k a winning number away, however, Stacey could bankroll her online influencer lifestyle and get some work done on herself, while Amy could kick-start her dog grooming business in style. All it takes to change their lives is one stolen membership card.    There is a lot more going on than meets Kelly’s Eye in Pye and Telfer Stevens’ sit-com style affair. ...

One could be forgiven for thinking that Alan Cumming has been in post as artistic director of Pitlochry Festival Theatre longer than he has. Such has been Cumming’s public profile of late, be it hosting events, starring in a stage musical of his and Forbes Masson’s 1980s sitcom, The High Life, or being interviewed on these pages after being named the most influential person in Scotland's art scene for 2026, his ubiquity goes before him. As it is, Cumming’s first season that he’s programmed for the Perthshire based theatre actually only opens this month. This will also mark the 75th anniversary of PFT, when visionary impresario John Stewart first put on theatre in a tent. Cumming’s programme celebrates in spectacular style. This comes with Once, a new production of the hit musical that reunites the original creative team led by director John Tiffany for this multiple Tony winning show. This is followed by Inexperience, a new studio play by Douglas Maxwell, while Maureen Beattie will...

Òran Mór , Glasgow Four stars   What happened one sunny day in 2021 on Glasgow’s south side when agents of the UK Home Office were thwarted from removing two Sikh men of Indian descent from their homes has become an inspiration for our times. The spontaneous show of mass solidarity that rose up that day has already been documented in Felipe Bustos Sierra’s film, Everybody to Kenmure Street. Playwright Simon Jay has here picked up the baton with a verbatim approach to his new play drawn from the day’s events. The result in this latest lunchtime production for A Play, a Pie and a Pint mixes interviews and anecdotal accounts with a little old school polemic to tell the story.    Key to this is the song by Kenmure Street residents Craig and Rachel Smillie written within days of the event, and which here acts as a folksy refrain as actors Nesha Caplan, Kal Sabir and Betty Valencia replay what happened. This moves from the initial response to the eventual release of the men fro...

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh Five stars   For those on side, Cowdenbeath Football Club may never have been premiere league material, but they have always occupied a field of dreams. This is made clear in Gary McNair’s wonderful new stage adaptation of Ron Ferguson’s 1993 book, ostensibly a love letter to the club that becomes a funny and profound meditation on the collective power of football fandom as a form of everyday devotion.   So it goes with McNair’s version, which sees Cowdenbeath native Sally make a reluctant prodigal’s return to the Fife mining town following the death of her football daft dad. The deal is that Sally is to scatter her old man’s ashes onto the pitch at CFC’s home ground of Central Park, but only after they win a game. As historical statistics show, alas, the 1991/92 season when Sally made her promise wasn’t exactly a walk in the park in terms of getting a resuls, which is why she finds herself spending more weekends than she bargained for on t...

The Playhouse, Edinburgh  Four stars   Everybody wants a piece of Jenna in Jessie Horton and Sara Bareilles’ smash hit musical, which celebrates its tenth anniversary on its latest UK tour. Based on the late Adrienne Shelly’s film of the same name, writer Horton and composer Bareilles’ confection is a bittersweet affair served up in Abbey O’Brien’s all singing, all dancing restaging of Diane Paulus’ original production with all the trimmings.    Jenna is the waitress of the show’s title, who may bake the best pies in the American South in Joe’s Pie Diner, but who remains stuck in a dead end marriage with abusive husband Earl. With a baby on the way, Jenna looks set to be even more trapped. Also working in the diner are Becky and Dawn, with whom Jenna forms an unbreakable trio in the face of assorted men folk. While Jenna finds Dr. Pomatter has an impeccable bedside manner, geeky Dawn does a whole lot of re-enacting with oddball Ogie, while Becky gets behind the ...

Perth Theatre Four stars   Everyone is a star in Morag Fullarton’s latest remake of a Hollywood classic. Following Casablanca The Gin Joint Cut and It’s a Wonderful Life… Mostly, this reimagining of Billy Wilder’s 1950 showbiz noir  is scaled up to something more suitably epic after being  first seen back in 2015 as a lunchtime show at Oran Mor.    The appeal of putting it back on stage isn’t hard to fathom. Here, after all, is a big picture that mythologises its own world by way of what happens to screenwriter Joe Gillis. Gillis has become the accidental toy boy of faded silent movie queen Norma Desmond after being drafted in to write her back into the spotlight. While Norma is watched over by her devoted butler, Max, Joe teams up with script reader Betty Schaefer, who has her own plans for Joe.    As if such a tangled web wasn’t already a multi-tiered potboiler, Fullarton gift-wraps her production by framing it with Wilder casting his new opus, and t...