Touching the Void

Touching the Void, Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh

I can recall many theatre performances. But I can only once recall seeing anything quite as accomplished,  astonishing and as well crafted as Touching the Void.* Story. Dialogue. Characters. Lighting. Sound. Set. Props. Movement. Music. All fused together to provide a jaw dropping spectacle that was an immersive and complete work of art. I was…

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Wendy and Peter Pan

Wendy and Peter Pan

The Lyceum’s Christmas production of ‘Wendy and Peter Pan’ is heart warming, funny, with elements of pantomime (but not too overdramatized). The first half of the show follows the traditional storyline of Peter Pan with Peter, John and Michael wanting to do nothing but play games and fight after arriving in Neverland. But there is…

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The Journey

The Journey

This is an excoriating, disturbing and intense hour of theatre in the round, and it highlights the desperate plight of refugees in a hard-hitting and unforgettable way. Three actors play the role of a family who are ‘found by war’ and graphically portray their plight as war comes to their unnamed home and gradually but…

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Cyrano de Bergerac

Cyrano de Bergerac. Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic

Yon Cyrano has a muckle great neb, and this yin’s a pure dead brilliant show. You’re immersed from the start in glorious rhyming Scots with Edwin Morgan’s seminal translation, and it combines with the semi-industrial but inventive set design pulls you into this cracking piece of theatre completely. Brian Ferguson as Cyrano dominates almost effortlessly…

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Twelfth Night

Guy Hughes and Dawn Sievewright. Photo credit Mihaela Bodlovic

Gender-bending, gloriously psychedelic, and deeply, madly groovy. This is a riot of music and colour carried off by a stellar cast, bringing this complex story to life with an energy and flair that is jaw-dropping, and includes the most show-stopping second half opener I have seen in years. The action opens in a debauched 60s /…

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Passionate Machine

Rosy Carrick in Passionate Machine

The evidence about the reality of time travel builds steadily in this engrossing, fabulous story: the book about Mayakovsky really was written by Doctor Rosy Carrick, she really does have a tattoo with a Bowie lyric on her wrist, and she really is wearing a CERN t-shirt. Could all of these seemingly impossibly surreal facts…

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More Moira Monologues

Alan Bissett as Moira Bell in More Moira Monologues

Bisset, male, author. Plays Moira, female, cleaner. Completely straight. And she’s a foul mouthed, deeply funny, chain-smoking delight. It’s easy to see why this show won a Fringe First in 2017. This is deeply confessional, but still light as a meringue, and all at the same time, covers acres, hectares of difficult, sensitive and tricky…

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The Moira Monologues

Alan Bissett as Moira Bell in The Moira Monologues

Falkirk. Or tae be mair exact, Fawkirk. This is a sheer classic, and is both theatre and comedy, making a welcome return 8 years after its first appearance at the Fringe in 2010. And it’s still fast, fresh and very funny. The language is explicit lowland Scots, Fawkirk variety, and Bisset plays Moira Bell, a…

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Creditors

Lyceum Production of Creditors: directed by Stewart Laing: Edward Franklin: Adolph Stuart McQuarrie: Gustav Adura Onashile: Tekla

I really wanted an interval. And I was not alone: one audience member, at the end of the first act, when the stage went dark, started to clap hesitantly before realising that they were all alone, and the lights went up again on stage. An hour and fifty minutes is not an eternity to sit…

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Traverse Theatre announce Traverse 1 Festival 2018

Traverse Theatre Edinburgh Festival 2018 - Underground Railroad Game

The Traverse Theatre has unveiled its flagship Traverse 1 production line up for the Edinburgh Festival 2018 Mark Thomas and Soho Theatre return with political new productions Innovative Headlong visit for the first time, as do The Lowry with their stage adaptation of Nigel Slater’s ‘Toast’ Tickets now on sale  A collection of five vibrant, compelling…

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