Coffee-Table Notes

Cumbernauld Theatre Four stars The rise of the Men’s Shed movement has been a rare glimpse of positivity in a landscape of what we now call toxic masculinity. Clare Prenton’s new play for the recently formed Genesis Theatre Productions takes a peek behind the door into one such sanctuary, where three men of a certain age bicker, banter and bond over tea and biscuits as they gradually share what brought them there. Ex teacher Ken is letting off steam inbetween caring for his wife. Tom is still in mourning for his own spouse. And recovering alcoholic Jimmy may like to joke his way through things, but he is as emotionally raw as his unlikely contemporaries with whom he now shares space.  Opening with a series of out-front monologues from each of the trio, Prenton’s own production of her play draws from real life conversations with shedders to tap into a very real need for men to open up more about their everyday vulnerabilities.  Prenton has her cast play with the audience a little before

Old Kirk, Forgue Five stars   “Not since John Knox called the organ a box of whistles has anybody played like this.” So says Anthony Richardson from the Friends of Forgue Kirk introducing the opening concert of the Aberdeen based soundFestival 2024 twentieth anniversary programme of contemporary music.    As Richardson indicates, Claire M Singer’s approach to the organ is unique, as the Aberdeenshire born composer has proved on her records for the Touch imprint. Drawing from Singer’s walks in the Aberdeenshire landscape, and with many works named after the Cairngorm hills that inspired them, this  makes for a quietly panoramic display.    Singer’s most recent album, Saor, which translates from Scottish Gaelic as ‘Free’, was partly recorded in tonight’s venue, a striking hillside village church built in 1819. With Singer having discovered that some of her ancestors are buried here, this made tonight’s concert a very special homecoming on several levels.    As the moon shines through the

Scottish Arts Club, Edinburgh   Four stars   All life is here in this year’s Scottish Portrait Awards, first launched by the Scottish Arts Trust in 2017. Divided across two rooms of thirty fine art works and fifty photography pieces, every face contained within the show tells a story, whether looking directly out from the frame or else turned away, a reluctant subject.    The familiarity of public figures in some images is an obvious appeal. Studies of Michael Rosen in Daniel Fooks’ painting, and novelist James Kelman in Chris Close’s photograph are both broodingly chiselled and well deserved winners in their respective categories. More playful is The Strange Case of Billy’s Banjo, a painting of the late John Byrne in his studio, while Matt Brown’s photo of Young Fathers shows a band who understand fully the value of image.   Beyond the famous, more intriguing everyday narratives come through many of the works on show. There is the monumental torpor of Frederick du Plessis’ Anhedonia,

When it was announced that Alan Cumming was set to become the new artistic director of Pitlochry Festival Theatre, the wow factor of having such a high profile figure take on such a job instantly raised the Perthshire theatre’s cache, garnering attention at an international level. Not that PFT was shy of having acclaim heaped on it for its annual summer rep seasons it has been entertaining both locals and tourists with since being founded in a tent in 1951. This has been as much the case with outgoing director Elizabeth Newman as her predecessors as they worked through different times.   Aberfeldy born Cumming’s appointment, however, has raised the bar considerably in terms of ambitions for what a rural theatre outside the central belt can potentially achieve. One of Newman’s many achievements during her six-year tenure at PFT since being appointed in 2018 has been to forge links with theatres beyond its immediate locale.   ‘The world has moved on pretty substantially since Pitlochry F

The Studio, Edinburgh Four stars   Growing old gracefully isn’t easy these days. Once you reach that difficult age you are either patronised or else shunted out of the way in the name of care. Some people, however, simply refuse to kowtow to the system they have no say in legislating.    This is the case for James, Agnes and Nancy, Dementia the Musical’s unrelenting trio who are beamed down into a world of bureaucratic regimes and high backed armchairs that are unlikely to have graced their own homes if they were still allowed to live in them.    What follows sees James, Agnes and Nancy put on trial for being dementia activists by the tellingly named Rigid System. As played by Pauline Lockhart, Ms System is a lady not for turning. James, Agnes and Nancy, meanwhile, have their own stories to tell beyond the TV news reports beamed out between each of their testimonies.    It is these stories that count in Lewis based poet Ron Coleman’s play, brought to life by director Magdalena Schamber

Cumbernauld Theatre Four stars   Community spirit is everything in David Greig’s meditation on the aftermath of a mass shooting, revived after a decade in this new collaboration between Cumbernauld Theatre and the Glasgow based Wonder Fools company. As priest Claire attempts a forensic investigation into the reasons behind such a seemingly random attack by the young man who committed it, her quest involves conversations with her partner, her doctor, a right wing politician who may or may not have inspired the killer, and the boy himself.    Beyond this, the community choir she runs and which was decimated by the slaughter becomes a form of salvation. This is embodied by the seventeen-strong on stage ensemble drawn from real life North Lanarkshire communities who become the heart of Jack Nurse’s production.    Greig’s play may have been sired from the wreckage of Anders Breivik’s mass shooting of teenagers at a Norwegian summer camp in 2021, but in the ensuing decade events troublingly

Tron Theatre, Glasgow Five stars   A haunting beauty pervades throughout Ramesh Meyyappan’s slow burning meditation on life, love and loss for this collaboration between the Vanishing Point and Raw Material companies in association with Aberdeen Performing Arts. The loss comes both physically and mentally for Harry, the old man at the heart of the piece. Harry has just taken up residence in a care home, with only his tireless carer May for company.    Harry can only communicate through sign language, which May can only half work out. As even that source of understanding starts to fade, Harry retreats into a world where past and present merge in an elegiac dreamscape shared with his true love, Elise.    Meyyappan’s starting point may be the debilitating effects of dementia, but in partnership with director Matthew Lenton he has created an emotionally driven tone poem full of light and shade. Much of the mood of the piece comes from Becky Minto’s set, which features a remarkable use of m