Coffee-Table Notes

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 f...

It was twenty years ago more or less today when Usurper announced themselves to the world. That was after the duo of Malcy Duff and Ali Robertson joined forces to move beyond their tenure with the rumbling behemoth that was Giant Tank to do something a whole lot quieter. Working with dismantled instruments and what looked like a table full of car boot sale detritus, Usurper mixed an array of off-kilter sound effects with goofy verbal exchanges that made for a kind of Zen art cabaret.   After two decades, Usurper’s Dadaist double act is pulling the plug on proceedings. To say cheerio, they have gathered the clans for That’s That Then, in which friends, conspirators and fellow travellers join forces for one last blowout.   “I guess Usurper died of COVID,” says Robertson of the duo’s parting. “We came out the other end of the pandemic and it didnae feel like something we wanted to continue doing.”   Duff concurs.   “ I've decided to concentrate fully on my cartooning,” ...

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 produc...

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 hi...

O2 Edinburgh Thursday 21st September   Four stars   “’Ello!” hams John Lydon, returning to the stage after he and the rest of Public Image Ltd have ploughed through a glorious rewind as far back as 1979’s Metal Box record alongside songs from their recently released End of World album. By Lydon’s account, the gap since their last one has been “eight years of fucking misery for all of us.”   Sporting a long coat and ornate vintage tie, Lydon looks and sounds every inch the music hall Dadaist provocateur. With lyrics perched on a music stand, he unleashes his guttural declamations over bassist Scott Firth and drummer Bruce Smith’s pounding rhythms and guitarist Lu Edmonds’ torrent of jaggy metal shards.     Having set the scene with album opener, Penge, a backhanded guide to the South East London suburb of the song’s title, the dub echo bass and drums of Albatross, from Metal Box, is a spacey and still startling sounding creation. Similarly, the kneejerk snarl of ...

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 comp...

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...