Chekhov's life has provided rich dramatic material for other playwrights, as has Joe Orton's – who else might suit the treatment?Is it wise to write a play about a playwright? We accept it…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:07PMTron, GlasgowIt's the end of the world as we know it and Catherine Gillard and Nancy Walsh feel fine. The two actors are washed up on a tiny cabaret stage for one last vaudeville turn before…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:12AMCumbernauld theatreIt's a road that really exists. Nearly two miles long, it goes from South Arnish to Brochel Castle on the Inner Hebridean island of Raasay. Built in the 1960s, it is the s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:40AMEden Court, InvernessImagine Last of the Summer Wine set on a Clyde puffer and you'll be close to the mild-mannered territory of Neil Munro's Para Handy stories. Written initially as a newsp…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:12PMRoyal Lyceum, EdinburghWhat sets Liz Lochhead's 1987 play apart is the way past and present rub up against each other, setting off sparks of recognition as text-book history clashes with mod…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:08AMCitizens, GlasgowThe tenement flat is claustrophobic, cramped and colourless. There is no room for manoeuvre between sink, table and bed, yet new people constantly arrive and are somehow abs…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:40PMTron, GlasgowBorderline theatre company is brandishing a lethal comedic weapon with DC Jackson's workplace rom-com. The first gag comes after less than 10 sentences and, from then on in, the…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:30PMOnce the sultan of sleazy synth pop, Marc Almond's new Edinburgh show Ten Plagues examines the Black Death. Gloomy? 'We're all dropping off the end of a conveyor belt,' he saysThirty years a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:31PMPitlochry Festival TheatreIntroducing the Pitlochry festival theatre's 60th anniversary gala night, Joss Ackland began by telling the audience about his time as an actor in the first company…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:04PMDundee RepWe're in the kind of room where Jack Bauer tortures enemy agents. Concrete walls. Featureless surfaces. No windows. Stark shadows. Bleak directional light. Fearsome rumbling soundt…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:43AMTraverse, EdinburghThere was I thinking Knives in Hens was one of those plays that didn't change much from production to production. David Harrower's astonishing 1995 debut is set in an unsp…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:44PMTron, GlasgowThere used to be an argument that a play couldn't be called feminist – even one with an all-female cast – if its characters' lives were defined by men. Gary Owen's three-han…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:34AMDundee RepWhen Anna Karenina takes up with her lover Vronsky, someone says she has "gained a shadow". She is not the only one. The characters in Jemima Levick's production are forever being …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:45PMCitizens, GlasgowAfter his recent arrest, Dominique Strauss-Kahn was described as a man who had "a difficulty in controlling his impulses". Whatever the outcome of this particular court case…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:11PMAn independent study has confirmed the economic benefits of Edinburgh's festivals but, most importantly, it quanitifies the value of the experienceOn the surface, it looks like another of th…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:55AMTron, GlasgowTommy McMillan is "as thick as shite, an ugly wee bastard and as common as muck". He is also 28 years unemployed, which makes him an ideal candidate for a job with the departmen…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:19PMRoyal Lyceum, EdinburghThe battle appears to be won. Some kind of peace is taking hold. But the war has thrown up unforeseen problems. The word goes out: "Tell the men we'll be in Scotland a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:00PMTron, GlasgowIn his hits Knives in Hens and Blackbird, David Harrower stripped away the extraneous details to leave characters who could be from anywhere. His latest play isn't like that. Al…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:15PMVarious venues, EdinburghYou can't fault the Imaginate children's theatre festival for variety. On Monday alone, you could see tutus for two-year-olds, postmodern Irish storytelling for the …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:31PMVenues in Glasgow and Edinburgh played politics with pieces on the AV referendum and the country's parliamentary electionsFor anyone interested in theatre and politics – and the relationsh…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:41PMTraverse, EdinburghJulie tells her husband why her willow-pattern teacup meant so much to her. He sees only broken crockery. Online, Lin Han pours out her heart to a business contact. He thi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:44PMBrunton, MusselburghWhen Des Dillon's comedy premiered at Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum, it had such brash popular appeal that I predicted it would be fewer than five years before we saw it again…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:01PMRoyal Lyceum, EdinburghOn its debut three years ago, Liz Lochhead's reworking of Molière's L'Ecole des Femmes came across as cheeky, witty and linguistically playful. Theatre Babel's stagin…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 01:29PMHow director Pol Heyvaert was forced to rethink his ideas about disability. By Mark FisherIt's early 2008, and the National Theatre of Scotland has asked Belgian theatre director Pol Heyvaer…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:59PMKing's, EdinburghWhen Tom McGrath died two years ago, he was commemorated for many things: editor of International Times, counter-culture poet, founder of two Glasgow theatres and musical di…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:29PMThis year's far eastern programme harks back to cultural events from the past, encouraging audiences to question the very idea of exoticism and othernessSince he took over in 2007, artistic …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 10:49AMTraverse, EdinburghWhat do you have left when you strip away your home, your personal possessions and your loved ones? For some, it might be a sense of selfhood, spirituality or oneness with…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:55PMShould it be run by writers? Take over the King's? With director Dominic Hill heading for Glasgow, now is the time for the Traverse to get experimental once againThe rumours were right. Domi…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:09PMBrunton, MusselburghOne man produces semen that smells like a dead seagull's armpit. On the other side of the valley, the boils on his brother's chest seep fluid that tastes like nectar. As …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:23PMCumbernauld, N LanarkshireWe're in the territory of Dennis Kelly's Orphans, a chic middle-class home, kitted out with hi-fi and Wi-Fi, with a sense that behind the venetian blinds is a lawle…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 02:15PMTraverse, EdinburghRobert Softley is telling the true story of a girl whose parents put her through surgery rather than let her face the onset of an adulthood which, they felt, would only ma…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 12:07PM
