Coffee-Table Notes

Citizens Theatre, Glasgow Four stars    When times are tough, secret worlds await in this new look at the classic eighteenth century French folktale, which here de-Disneyfies things to get beneath the skin of the story. In Lewis Hetherington’s version, Israela Efomi’s Beauty is one of two daughters to the widowed Baron Aaron, for whom business is a crash and burn affair, while encouraging Beauty that looks alone are all she needs to get by. Beauty’s sister Bright, on the other hand, has big ideas of her own.    When her dad’s wheeler dealing sees him go bust, the family are forced to move to a woodland shack. A chance encounter with a seemingly scary monster sees the Baron bargain with Beauty, who is exiled to the nearby castle, rendered as a spooky cartoon construction by designer Rachael Canning. With feline friend Mr Mittens in tow, Beauty finds a spooky world of locked rooms and celestial sounds, as well as a Beast whose bark is considerably worse than his b...

Pianodrome, St. Oswald’s Centre, Edinburgh Four stars   What to do when you inherit what was once a vital part of your parents’ world, but which played a key part in destroying it? The answer in Rupert Page and Rob Thompson’s moving meditation on legacy, loss and purging old demons is for the newly orphaned siblings to pass the item between them while all the while wanting to smash the offending item to bits. As the giveaway title of the duo’s drama makes clear, the fact that the hand me down in question is an upright piano doesn’t make dealing with it any easier. This is despite the potential for a dramatic exit that would make it the ultimate auto-destructive art action.    Page and Thompson are more John Cage-like in their approach, in that, rather than making a sound, the piano is imagined on stage by Thompson. The sole performer for much of the play’s fifty minute duration, he relates the instrument’s history as it moves from living room to recording studio and back ...

Theatre 118, Glasgow Four stars   Meet Alex, the twenty something woman whose entire life is on hold in Larissa Ryan’s solo play. Scratching a living answering calls for a company selling the sort of ideal homes she could never afford, the 3pm till midnight shift suits her ongoing avoidance of the entire human race. Her only interactions come from the after hours freaks and weirdos on the other end of the line who really don’t want whatever it is she’s selling. Alex knows this because they tell her so in graphic terms.    Alex doesn’t hold back either in Ryan’s performance, as she confesses all her troubles while craving some kind of way out. Her sounding board for this comes in the form of a bunny rabbit glove puppet recommended by her therapist. The tough love Alex is harangued with by the bunny recalls the co-dependent sparring dished out in ancient TV routines between ventriloquist Shari Lewis and her similarly sarcastic appendage, Lamb Chop. It is the voices in Alex’...

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh  Five stars    The birds are circling in this new take on one of the greatest children’s stories ever told, but nicely. As the flock of green and yellow plumaged puppets swoop, soar and provide comfort several times over to little orphan Ella, they offer a form of liberation as well to their already free-spirited charge, even as she is under the thumb of her gleefully wicked stepmother and her pair of brattish enfants terrible stepsiblings.   This makes for a delightfully colourful Cinderella in Sally Cookson and Adam Peck’s version of the story, written with their original production’s company when it was first seen in Bristol back in 2011. Jemima Levick’s new look at it for the Lyceum’s Christmas show picks up the baton and invests it with a heart, soul and visual wonder that brings it to joyful life. At the heart of this is a fusion of handsomely realised sound and vision bolstered by a set of deliciously grotesque performances...

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...