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The Electrifying Mr Johnston

The Studio, Edinburgh Four stars History is a fickle beast, and the states-people who stride through it can be lionised one minute, reviled the next. Such complexities and contradictions are thrown into the air for serious contemplation in Robert Dawson Scott’s fascinating dramatic study of one-time Scottish socialist firebrand Tom Johnston, who drove the creation of hydro-electric power stations in the Highlands. While it is taken for granted that this changed the social landscape for the better, some of the collateral damage left in its wake begs to differ. Dawson Scott calls Johnston to account through the figure of Sandy MacKenzie, an idealistic young journalist, who as a young student lends his political idol a copy of Johnston’s own book, Our Scots Noble Families, but never receives the return he once expected. Such is the way of real-politick in Dawson Scott’s script for Alasdair McCrone’s Mull Theatre production, currently on a suitably energised. cross-country t

good dog

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Four stars Life’s a riot for the bullied teenage boy at the centre of Arinze Kene’s solo play, first seen in 2017 and now remounted for this touring remount of Natalie Ibu’s production. Looking down on a turn of the twenty-first century inner city housing estate from the safety of his balcony, the boy we meet in the play’s first half may be wide-eyed about the world he observes in messy motion beneath him, but he’s as un-street-smart as he could possibly be. At the root of this is his unwavering belief in doing good no matter what is thrown at him. Only in the second half does he toughen up to the everyday conflicts he can no longer avoid before everything around him erupts into life-changing turmoil. Brought to captivating life by Kwaku Mills, the boy presents a vivid picture of communal disaffection and disenfranchisement, which he delivers in Kene’s rich word pictures. This is occasionally broken up by Helen Skier’s inventive soundscape, so a c

Kieran Hurley – Beats the Movie

Kieran Hurley never planned for Beats to become a film. When he first wrote and performed his solo stage play about the personal and political coming of age of the 1990s rave generation, it was just him and a DJ up there with a criss-crossing narrative that told how hedonists were politicised by default. This happened in response to section 63 of the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act, which, by legislating against gatherings of twenty or more people (100 in Scotland) in close proximity to repetitive beats, effectively aimed to criminalise outdoor raves. Seven years on, the big-screen version of Beats has seen Hurley and director Brian Welsh broaden out the story to make it an era-defining rites of passage. With Steven Soderbergh as one of the film’s executive producers, Beats premiered in Rotterdam, and comes home next month when it closes the Glasgow Film Festival prior to a general release scheduled for May. “It wasn’t something I went looking for,” says Hurley, “bu