Coffee-Table Notes

When Alan Ayckbourn's play, Woman in Mind, first appeared at the writer's spiritual home of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in the Round, Scarborough, in 1985, this first-person tale of Susan, a woman in the throes of a breakdown living duel lives initially confounded critical expectations. Here was a virtual theatrical institution, after all, who had long been regarded, however unjustifiably, as a doyen of middle-class mores, who now seemed to be changing tack, in terms of both form and content. As Dundee Rep prepare to revive Woman in Mind almost thirty years after the play's initial outing in a new co-production with Birmingham Rep directed by Marilyn Imrie, Ayckbourn's thirty-second original stage work can now be regarded as a modern classic. “I was initially interested in writing a play told entirely in the first person,” Ayckbourn recalls of the play's origins. “That is to say, one in which all the action is seen through the eyes of its central character. It’s an i

Tron Theatre, Glasgow Three stars There are few directors in Scotland who have more fun with large-scale acting ensembles than Gerry Mulgrew, whose mixing up of theatrical forms has defined his Communicado company for more than thirty yeas now. Seeing Mulgrew apply this approach to such a multi-faceted text as Timberlake Wertenbaker's 1990 look at how transported convicts in an eighteenth century Australian penal colony find emancipation through theatre is a treat, then, in the Tron's second collaboration with Royal Conservatoire Scotland for the theatre's Mayfesto season. In a world where a hanging is the only entertainment going, liberal Second Lieutenant Clark convinces his superiors to allow him to produce a play with the convicts put in his care. After facing initial resistance on all sides, Clark decides on George Farquhar's restoration comedy, The Recruiting Officer, as his directorial debut for a company of thieves, prostitutes and hangmen, all of whom eventuall

Tron Theatre, Glasgow Three stars If there is one important thing highlighted in Andy Arnold's new production of Shakespeare's tale of shipwreck, magic and exile, it is who the real monsters are in Prospero's self-appointed kingdom. In a production presented in association with Royal Conservatoire Scotland for the Tron's Mayfesto season that focuses on colonisation and the spoken word, Caliban's enslavement is put to the fore, however kindly her master may look on her, while Aerial is treated more like a pet. In a punky-looking  production in which both Prospero and Miranda sport elaborately bouffanted blonde barnets, Prospero is an over-protective father and slave-master, while Gonzalo is an old-school toff mourning the death of a dog eat dog empire which even abroad rears its predatory nature. Trinculo and Stephano are akin to a pair of Ealing Comedy spivs who would sell off London Bridge to American tourists, and are quite prepared to exploit Caliban for their ow

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh Four stars Talking about the weather may be the great British talking point, but storm and sunshine become matters of life and death in David Haig's new World War Two set play. Based on real events leading up to the 1944 D Day landings, the play focuses on Dalkeith-born military meteorologist James Stagg and his sleepless quest to convince General Eisenhower to postpone the assault until a favourable climate prevails. Stagg's main obstacle to being taken seriously is his flamboyant American counterpart, Irving Krick, whose glamour-chasing allure is in stark contrast to Stagg's oddball demeanour. Throw in the fact that Stagg's wife has just gone into labour, and the stage is set for an increasingly urgent culture clash, where victory is celebrated with doughnuts and whisky. Set in a solitary room awash with charts, ringing telephones and a coterie of generals, Haig has constructed a grippingly pacey adventure yarn on the one hand, with Hai

Citizens Theatre, Glasgow Four stars When a troupe of actors wander the stage in civvies and modern-day attitudes before the lights dim and they switch into character, it's a commonplace enough theatrical device these days. When the cast of Stephen Jeffreys' period romp concerning the Second Earl of Rochester's stubborn flight into self-destruction top and tail Dominic Hill's production with such an approach, however, it becomes a device that matters. Jeffreys' version of Rochester, after all, is a man who courted infamy like the most indulgent of rock stars, whose entire crash-and-burn lifestyle was a performance to die for. Unlike the coterie of preening fops, literary groupies and even Elizabeth Barry, the actress he fell for, however, he refused to play to type. Rochester's excesses were no act, but something that fuelled his soul, even as they killed him. Hill's revival of Jeffreys' twenty year old play casts Martin Hutson as an initially charming b

Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh Three stars Like Brit Pop, the resurgence of interest in the 1990s wave of 'in-yer-face' theatre among a new generation perhaps points up a lack of anything else to grab hold of, however much some of the originals might have faked it. If playwright Philip Ridley was at the vanguard of that Thatcher-sired storming of the barricades, this revival of his most controversial work from 2005 by the St Andrew's University sired Riot Productions in association with Edinburgh's Black Dingo company makes clear that its brutal mix of gangster movie iconography and dystopian future-shock has lost none of its edge. Twenty-something Elliot bursts into an abandoned flat at the play's start like he's seeking sanctuary from a war zone. In fact, Elliot is pushing a rare and transformative drug that comes in the form of butterflies, and he and his brother Darren are alternative party planners for adrenaline-junky city boys who want to live out Vietnam fanta

There's a joke doing the rounds of the internet as jokes do, but which originated in America. It's about a man waiting in line in a grocery store behind a woman, who's speaking on her mobile phone in a foreign language. Once the woman has finished her call, the man approaches her, and points out that, as she's in America, she would need to speak English. “Excuse me?” says the woman, before the man very slowly, as if talking to a child, suggests to her that if she wants to speak Mexican, then she should go back to Mexico. To stress his point, the man points out that the woman was in America, where they speak English. “Sir,” says the woman. “I was speaking Navajo. If you want to speak English, go back to England.” Despite its locale, this joke seems to be the perfect illustration of the themes behind this year's Mayfesto, the Tron Theatre's annual look at politically tinged drama, which this year themes its programme around the all too timely notions of Colonisati