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Theatre Review: Twelfth Night - The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, 18 September 2019

19/9/2018

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The Twelfth Night takes a trip back to the Summer of Love at the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh
The Twelfth Night travelled to the Summer of Love in 1967 and back again in a roaring success of a production at the Lyceum Theatre.

The Shakespearean comedy is the tale of an unusual love triangle complete with farcical comedy, toilet humour and gender confusion. Twins Viola and Sebastian are shipwrecked and separated on the coast of Illyria. Viola disguises herself as a man and calls herself Cesario so she can serve the local Duke Orsino. She falls in love with Orsino, who in turn is in love with Countess Olivia, who in turn falls in love with Cesario. Cue confusion, comedy and carnage.

The set for Director Wils Wilson’s production is a rather quaint and roomy 1960s squat, complete with broken staircase, steam flowing through a hole in the wall, a couple of fireman's poles and garden. There’s also an array of instruments and music in there for good measure.

The cast, naturally, are hippies, eccentric lovers, fools, dreamers, and dressed as such. The 1960s were a time when ideologies, genders, and traditional roles were being challenged, so the connection with the Twelfth Night fits tightly. In Wilson’s production female characters, Olivia and Sir Toby Belch (transformed into riotous Lady Tobi), wear suits, while the men wear ambiguous, sparkling outfits, flamboyant coats, clothing or kimonos.

At its heart, Twelfth Night is a character play. The comedy is written into the characters and their relationships, and the show really comes down the casting. Here, the casting was flawless.

There were fantastic performances across the board but highlights included Guy Hughes' pitiful, perfectly-pitched Sir Andrew and his surprising musical talents, Dylan Read's tongue-twisting fool complete with wide-ranging vocal chords and of course Jade Ogugua's Viola, a fantastic centrepiece.

​Our standouts though were Dawn Sievewright's mischievous, bellowing, unstoppable Lady Tobi who brought jokes to life and drew attention with every movement and Christopher Green's Malvolio. Green’s transformation from pompous steward to a character who wouldn’t have been out of place on RuPaul's Drag Race is something that will stick with you - we guarantee - for all the right reasons.
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Guy Hughes as Sir Andrew and Dawn Sievewright as the unstoppable Lady Tobi
The Twelfth Night is one of the most accessible Shakespeare plays to bring into the modern theatre. The Bard's plays were blockbusters of their time, roaring comedies and tragedies written for the masses. It cost a sixpence to get into The Globe. The Twelfth Night is entertainment and this production was that exactly. It’s slapstick comedy, potty humour and literal dick jokes alongside intimate, ingenious wordplay and poignant textual and visual ambiguity.

A lot of people are put off Shakespeare by the idea that they need to understand a deeper meaning, that it is “fine art” for the highly educated or pompous, and by the language. But when Malvolio identifies the handwriting of his Countess Olivia: “these be her very C’s, her U’s ‘n’ her T’s - and thus makes she her great P’s” there is no deeper meaning to it. You are very much laughing at an outlandish, ridiculous, ignorant character being made a fool by reading the word ‘cunt’. Make no mistake people, this is very much Shakespeare’s level as much as epic monologues and sonnets.

This co-production from the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and Bristol Old Vic embodies all this play was meant to do. It updates where appropriate and continues to blur the boundaries of gender roles, questions the depth of our love and how we pursue it, our treatment and bullying of outsiders, and the presentation, acting and delivery of the lines does a service to the language, to bring it out and portray it clearly, and in an accessible manner.

Malvolio’s big reveal - no spoilers - brought literal gasps and cries of laughter from the crowd, and when Green came out at that moment, I couldn’t help but think to myself “I think Shakespeare himself would enjoy this”. There seems little more that needs to be said than that.
5/5
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Stuart Kenny
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DeBrief: Hidden Door Festival 2018

5/6/2018

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Another year has come and gone at Hidden Door festival, and the 2018 edition was nothing short of sensational from start to finish.

If you’ve not come across it before, Hidden Door is a festival that takes over an unused, underused or derelict space in the Scottish capital, transforms it into a habitable venue and then hosts a 10-day festival there. The idea is that by the time they leave, the venue will have a future ahead of it.

This year, for the second year running, Hidden Door was back at the Old Leith Theatre. Last year Hidden Door rejuvenated the space and it’s since been dubbed “the best live music venue in the country” by national newspapers. Not bad. It’s hard to argue with that once you get down and see the sheer size and style of the building too. On top of this, the festival had this year renovate the Old State Cinema on Great Junction Street, soon to be demolished, for one last hurrah before it turns into student accommodation.

The ideology and importance that Hidden Door places on spaces felt particularly important this year given the ‘Save Leith Walk’ campaign so prominent in the local area.

When it comes to the entertainment, Hidden Door has a bit of everything. There are big name musicians, spoken word performers, theatre productions, dance and film on every night, with art in all shapes and sizes scattered around the buildings as well. It really is a breath of fresh air - and best of all, it’s a local art festival that’s for the local area.

Not only does Hidden Door prove that Edinburgh is still vibrant in the arts outside of August, for many local performers and enthusiasts it eclipses the Fringe, because it’s a festival that highlights and benefits local talent, and, crucially, the local area, instead of the landlords, hotel chains and so forth that take the brunt of the benefit in August. It is, of course, a lot less cluttered than the (albeit still wonderful in many ways) August festival.

2018 saw everything from immersive theatre to interpretive dance amongst heaps of soil to one of the biggest trios in music right now, Young Fathers, returning to their home.

You can read our full review of the Young Fathers gig here, as the Leith locals sold out the Leith Theatre that would have been shut when they grew up next to it. It really was a special moment and one that will go down indeed as a “moment in time in Edinburgh’s musical history”. Sylvan Esso was a similar success story, selling out the theatre, while other musical highlights included the all-female opening line up of Stina Tweeddale (Honeyblood), Nadine Shah and incredible rock group Dream Wife, who made a real impact on the crowd.

Also particularly memorable was “Vox Liminis presents Distant Voices”. The project saw acclaimed songwriters and singers from across Scotland paired with prisoners, prison staff, researchers and social workers to created art which drew from their unique experiences. Louis Abbott was the main man behind the project, but the likes of Kris Drever, C Duncan, Emma Pollock, Admiral Fallow and the inimitable Rachel Sermanni made it truly unmissable.

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Theatre Review: Creditors - The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, 2 May 2018

2/5/2018

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Warning: The following review contains spoilers

If you like high, often somewhat inexplicable levels of drama, then August Strindberg's ‘Creditors’, adapted by David Greig at the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh, is the play for you.
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‘Creditors’ features only three real characters. The protagonist Adolph (Edward Franklin), who is married to beautiful novelist Tekla (Adura Onashille), and the mysterious Gustav (Stuart McQuarrie), who throws a spanner in the works of Adolph and Tekla’s marriage.

First and foremost, this is a very well staged play. The scenery is simple but beautifully worked. The actors are also all commendable throughout. It’s just a shame that the text they are enacting is, at times, utterly - utterly - absurd. The play of course premiered in Denmark long ago, in 1889, and it's a bold choice to revive it. We found the play a really mixed bag.

The play opens with Adolph - and let’s not pretend that when you hear the name Adolph said aloud, you don’t get caught a little off guard - completely lovestruck and suffering as he is talked into becoming a frankly pathetic jealous wreck by Gustav, who Adolph naively believes to have saved him.

This discussion is almost like Gustav is a figment of Adolph’s imagination; the devil on his shoulder, egging him on with, amongst other things, shocking misogyny. Adolph lets him talk him into a state of horror verging on non-existence.

Where the problem lies is in Adolph’s absolute gullibility, which is exemplified nowhere better than in the fact that Gustav even manages to talk Adolph into believing that he will be struck down by epilepsy, with which he has no prior history, if he has sex with his wife in the next year. Adolph, for one reason or another, does not question this. It’s fairly ridiculous.

You could argue that this gullibility in medicine in particular comes from the fact they're in the late 19th century, but this time period really isn't established. Anyone watching could think it was 2018, making this entire plotline just downright odd. It takes away from both characters.

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Theatre Review: Miss Saigon - Festival Theatre, 19 January 2018, Edinburgh

22/1/2018

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Cameron Mackintosh's ‘Miss Saigon’ opened with a bang at Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre.

The curtain draws back to stick you right in the heart of the action - amidst the hectic, war-torn streets of Vietnam, lined by stunning sculpted scenery, soundtracked to perfection and brought to life by a huge, perfectly choreographed cast.

This opening snapshot may only last a couple of minutes, but it’s a good indication of exactly how strong the musical is going to be for the remaining two hours and fifteen minutes.

Miss Saigon follows the tail of Kim (Sooha Kim), a young Vietnamese girl who disoriented by a bombing, is taken from her hometown to work as a bargirl in 'Dreamland', a bar and brothel run by 'The Engineer' (Red Concepción), close to the end of the Vietnam War.

Chris Scott (Ashley Gilmour), a sergeant out of his comfort zone in the bar, is encouraged by his friend John Thomas (Ryan O’Gorman) to pick up a girl in the club. He eventually meets Kim and they fall in love. The script follows their time together and struggles after they’re seperated.

Miss Saigon is nothing less than heart-wrenching. It's a whirlwind of a performance. From start to finish, there’s reason to feel sorry for near enough every character on stage - an indication of just how impressive the writing of this musical (by Boubil and Schonberg) really is.

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Theatre Review: The Arabian Nights - The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, 1 December 2017

2/12/2017

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Imagine a city where storytelling is banned, you get arrested if you sneeze in public and where pretty much every immigrant in the state has been arrested just for their mere existence, despite the fact that the entire city actually relies on them to keep society running.

No, we’re not describing a dystopian future where all the Donald Trump critics have mysteriously disappeared, Donald has become immortal and will rule America forever (sorry for the nightmares), we’re describing the setting for The Royal Lyceum’s festive production of 'The Arabian Nights'.

The new take on the old classic, adapted by Suhayla El-Bushra and directed by Joe Douglas, had its world premiere at The Lyceum at the end of November.

The play follows protagonist Scheherazade (Rehanna MacDonald), a child who enchants the cruel ruling sultan (Nicholas Karimi) with her fanciful legends and stories ranging from genies and Sinbad to chess-playing monkeys. Scheherazade’s mother is one of those imprisoned under the relentless laws of the sultan, and though the play is really a series of fun little stories which run one after another, the overarching narrative is of the young girl’s quest to free her mother.

It’s a production which is aimed at families looking for a festive theatre trip and is child-friendly - the language is simple and the performances over the top for a lot of the production. 

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Theatre Review: Trainspotting - King's Theatre, Edinburgh, 17 November 2017

20/11/2017

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It’s not easy taking ‘Trainspotting’ to the theatre stage. Not when everyone in Scotland knows the story almost scene for scene by now and there’s already been an off-the-wall, Edinburgh Festival Fringe edition which has toured the UK to mass critical acclaim.

Safe to say though we were pleasantly surprised to see just how different Harry Gibson and director Gareth Nicholls' approach to Irvine Welsh’s famous novel was to that of the 'Trainspotting Live' production which has already entertained theatre-goers in the capital for several August's passed.

Whereas the Fringe production is in-your-face, techno-heavy throughout and pushes the vulgarity and unashamed-uncensorship of Welsh’s book to the extremes, the production we watched at the King’s Theatre felt more measured, more considered and more focused around Welsh's actual writing.

Anyone who has read the book will now how it jumps from scene to scene and chapter to chapter almost without narrative - providing little windows into the lives of each of Welsh’s protagonists and using brilliantly-unique, original working class narrators to keep you hooked.

Gibson and Nicholls took this formula and stuck it on stage. This was very much a literal interpretation of the book. Some scenes were even acted with just a spotlight on the one actor or actress in question, reading their monologue with no more than one prop in hand.

​The genius of this is that with the right cast - and the cast really were magnificent - the words do all the work for you. The most notable exception of this was Alison’s (Chloe-Anne Tylor) darkly humorous explanation of how to deal with pretentious university goers early in the second half. 
The set was minimal for Tylor's scene - one spotlight and one chair, but the audience was in stitches throughout and it’s maybe one of the most memorable scenes of the play.

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Theatre Review: Love Song to Lavender Menace - The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, 13 October 2017

16/10/2017

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‘Love Song to Lavender Menace’ is a two-man play which tells the tale of the eponymous ‘Lavender Menace’ - a lesbian, gay and feminist bookshop that opened on Forth Street (just off Broughton Street) in Edinburgh in 1982 and became the heart of the LGBT community in the Scottish capital before moving to a new location and changing names in 1987.

The narrative follows two shop assistants at the bookshop - Glen and Lewis - who are packing up the books from Lavender Menace in the run up to its fifth birthday, just before it is set to shut up shop, move home and change name.

As they pack, Lewis runs through a planned homage with Glen that he wants to perform as a present/farewell to the owners of the shop, Bob Orr and Sigrid Neilson. The playful homage explores the history and significance of the Lavender Menace and gay culture in Edinburgh in the 1980s, and does so by delving into the personal relationship and history between Glen and Lewis as well.

If that all sounds a little bit serious or mundane, it really couldn’t be less so.

This is one of the most entertaining plays we’ve seen in some time. Matthew McVarish and Pierce Reid are sensational as Glen and Lewis. The narrative dictates that, because of the manner in which they talk us through the history of the shop (through Lewis’ homage), they must play a range of characters each, however briefly. And through quick voice changes, exaggerated movements or even occasionally through dance, they manage to succeed in doing this not only clearly and naturally but often with great comic effect.
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The setting is established wonderfully through both a minimalist but cosy set and a playful, fast-paced soundtrack from the time period. 

The set is a selection of creatively designed bookcases with glowing books that darken one-by-one as the play goes on and more books are packed away. The soundtrack meanwhile is all played diegetically through a cassette player, and is inspired largely by the character’s memories from ‘Fire Island’, a nightclub which was formerly on Princes Street, and in the cloakroom of which the Lavender Menace was originally formed (the club was later bought over by a Waterstones, which still stands on Princes Street now).

Long story short, there was a lot of energy around the performance and the soundtrack. Sometimes it was used for comedic effect, as with the perhaps predictable inclusion of ‘It’s Raining Men’ or ‘YMCA’, or sometimes just to ramp up the mood for a while, as with Jimmy Somerville’s ‘You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)’.

The writing from James Ley really is intelligent, informed and witty. The narrative does so well to time travel so convincingly and explore so much - from chilling legal acts, and how Section 28, a piece of criminalising legislation in the Thatcher era, threatened so many, to light-hearted former flings and police interaction at the time - while never feeling forced or breaking away from the personal connection between Glen and Lewis that drives the play.

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Theatre Review: Cockpit - The Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, 10 October 2017

12/10/2017

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Walking into The Royal Lyceum Theatre to catch Cockpit in Edinburgh is like being transported back through time and space.

Bridget Boland's lost drama explores the story of a British officer who arrives at a provincial playhouse in Germany, 1945 which is being used as a housing spot for displaced people following the end of World War 2. He is charged with getting them all into groups to travel back to their respective homelands, but as you can imagine, not all people based geographically near one another are also so close on the political spectrum.

The play itself being set in a theatre, Cockpit is then staged across the entire space of the Lyceum - from the stage to the balconies and at seat level as well. Whole rows of the audience are seated on makeshift stalls at the back of the stage, looking back at the traditionally seated audience, and actors/actresses prowl all areas of the theatre throughout.

While most of the action still takes place on stage, there are regularly shouts, murmurs and conversations which take place elsewhere in the theatre.

The audience are then cast in the role of refugees also. They’re very much in the centre of the staging of the play. It creates an atmosphere much more engulfing than the usual audience vs. stage. There’s a feeling throughout that anything could happen, and that it could happen anywhere.

And the Lyceum was transformed suitably for the occasion.

Instructive banners (“No arms may be carried”, etc.) were draped all over the theatre, at every level, taking it back to the time and place. The fact that all of this is in place not just from the get go but from before the play has even begun - and that the set extends not just to the theatre house but to the stairs and entrance as well - provides a stronger sense of setting than we’ve experienced in some time.

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Theatre Review: Sunset Boulevard, The Edinburgh Playhouse, Edinburgh, 3 October 2017

3/10/2017

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If you ever need proof that the staging and performance of a musical can salvage a lousy script then look no further than the Curve production of Sunset Boulevard.

Let’s talk briefly about the characters and plot in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tony Award winning musical. Lord knows how the script made it off the cutting room floor nevermind found its way into an award ceremony.

The musical is the story of down-on-his-luck Hollywood screenwriter Joe Gillis (Danny Mac), who stumbles upon the mansion of faded silent-film star Norma Desmond (Ria Jones). Norma lives alone with her loyal-to-a-fault butler Max Von Mayerling (Adam Pearce). She’s effectively the Opera Ghost from Phantom of the Opera, but instead of torturing other people for love, she’s intent on killing herself over it.

She convinces Joe to live in her mansion/lair to help her polish and shine the film script she’s been working on while she’s been hiding away from the world. Joe agrees and is paid handsomely for his efforts. He inevitably ends up in a romantic relationship with the actress, who is twice his age, and Norma threatens to commit suicide anytime he tries to leave. Seriously, there are increasingly few scenes as the musical goes on where she’s not trying to commit suicide.

Meanwhile, Joe also continues to help Betty Schaefer (Molly Lynch), the fiancee of seemingly his only friend Artie Green (Dougie Carter), work on adapting an old story of his for the big screen behind Norma’s back. While doing this [spoiler], he also falls in love with Betty, and she with him, and they end up having an affair. This builds towards the inevitable confrontation which takes place at the climax of the musical.
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The only problem with all of this? All of these characters are ridiculous, unsympathetic and incredibly dislikeable, which means by the time you reach the climax, you don’t much care what happens.

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Feature | We Speak to Michael Pedersen of Neu! Reekie! About the Rise and Rise of Poetry at Music Festivals and Beyond

5/9/2017

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"You mentioned poetry at this music festival? I actually thought there was a bit of music at this poetry festival!"

The man correcting our tongue-slip is Michael Pedersen, a familiar face on the Scottish poetry scene and one half of Neu! Reekie! - a literary, music and animation collective with an international output and regular nights across Scotland.

We're chatting to him at Electric Fields festival, where Neu! Reekie! have put on two full day-time line-ups across Friday and Saturday on a stage bearing their own name.

Now in it's fourth year at Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfries and Galloway, Electric Fields boasts a whole heap of both big-name musicians and poets, from headliners Frightened Rabbit to former Scottish makar Liz Lochhead, Band of Horses to British poetry royalty Hollie McNish and Glass Animals to a woman quite familiar with both forms of art, Kate Tempest.

The article-opening quote from Michael came after we had asked him how he set about putting together the bill for the Neu! Reekie! stage, at a weekend which while perhaps not a straight-up music festival, is certainly one that most punters turn up to with music in mind.


"We're very particular," he says. "So we've put on poets and artists that we know can go head to head with the musicians and who can win eardrums back from DJ-sounds spiralling into the back of our tent from elsewhere at the festival.
"We're sort of going to war with music today. Just between the hours of 13:00 and 18:00. Outside of that we're completely zen!"
"We're sort of going to war with music today. Just between the hours of 13:00 and 18:00. Outside of that we're completely zen!

"But aye, we're booking people who we know can handle these audiences and these crowds and this fluidity of audience, and people who we know can bring people in and get them to stay. We're armed to the teeth in this fight for your affection."

They certainly were. As well as the aforementioned Lochhead and McNish, Michael himself was reading poetry on the Neu! Reekie! stage alongside none other than Scott Hutchison from Frightened Rabbit. Michael armed with his book, Scott with his guitar.
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Michael continues: "It's about luring them in with the likes of Scott doing a wee acoustic set in the tent before he then goes and headlines the whole fucking festival with Frightened Rabbit, and then all of a sudden it's flowing into Hollie McNish and our old makar Liz Lochhead and the people who were there to watch Scott do not leave.

"It's a cliche but people are always coming in and saying 'I didn't really expect to like that' or 'where can I buy her book?' or 'I only meant to pop in and stay for 10 minutes but I ended up staying an hour'. We're taking people by surprise and that's the way we like it."

We can vouch for Michael's reasoning as well. A packed-out tent did indeed watch him read from his latest collection 'Oyster', which Michael describes as "a big, sexy book of poetry", and which is illustrated by Scott Hutchison, the Fightened Rabbit frontman.

"He's done illustrations throughout it and a cover wrap around it," Michael tells us. "I guess a lot of people don't know that Scott did illustration at art school. It's technically, in his words, the only thing that he's trained to do. So it's really nice to collaborate on something which is outside what he's commercially known for, and I think he relishes the opportunity to do it too."

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