Coffee-Table Notes

Graham Maule – liturgist, writer, artist, musician Born September 28, 1958; died December 29, 2019 Graham Maule, who has died aged 61, was a visionary, whether as youth worker, artist or musician. In the main, and at its most public, with his creative partner John Bell, Maule was co-creator of some of the most powerful, inclusive and socially engaged Christian liturgies across the globe. Throughout all of this, he brought an instinctive desire to reach outwards and bring people into everything he did. Driven by a deceptively quiet dynamism and a willingness to engage with everyone and everything that interested him, Maule fused art, activism and worship into a rich life in which his modesty and generosity of spirit shone through. Graham Alexander Maule was born in Glasgow, the eldest of four children to Tom and Margaret Maule, and showed artistic inclinations from an early age. This manifested itself first at Glasgow High School, then at Glasgow University’s Mackintosh Sch...

Theatre Royal, Glasgow  Four stars When boys and girls come out to play in Yasmina Reza’s lacerating comedy of (bad) manners, you just know someone is going to get hurt. It’s not the actual children who cause the damage in Reza’s play, relocated to bourgeois des-res London in Christopher Hampton’s deft translation, first seen in 2008. Rather, it’s the two sets of increasingly desperate mums and dads who convene in an attempt at conflict resolution after their respective 11-year-old sons have what they probably wouldn’t call a square-go when one wouldn’t let the other join his gang. Boys will be boys and all, but as Lindsay Posner’s touring revival, originating from the Theatre Royal, Bath, lays bare, it’s pretty easy to blame the parents when they’re as ghastly as the quartet presented here. Elizabeth McGovern’s Veronica is initially charm itself as she and Nigel Lindsay’s rough diamond Michael hold court with Alan and Annette, whose little darling seemingly did the dama...

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh Five stars  Isobel McArthur’s audacious and thoroughly (post) modern pop-tastic remix of Jane Austen’s girl-powered rom-com has already cleaned up in terms of audience and critical acclaim. This has been the case both when the Blood of the Young company first brought Paul Brotherston’s breathless production to the Tron in Glasgow in 2018, as well as throughout its current UK tour. This time out, and with the Lyceum on board as co-producers, the sisterhood has been expanded for McArthur and co.’s turbo-charged pot-pourri of proto-feminist fire and prime-time cork-popping froth. Where before there were five performers play-acting Austen’s dissection of love and life in nineteenth century ballrooms from a servants’ eye view, now there are six. The addition of Felixe Forde to the fold doesn’t in any way demean the quick-fire romp through the romantic merry dance that plays out between ferocious she-punk in waiting Lizzy Bennett and mono-syllab...