Author Archives: Anne

James III by Rona Munro

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James III by Rona Munro is the third of the James plays and is a co-production of the National Theatre of Scotland, the National Theatre of Great Britain and The Edinburgh International Festival.

Medieval history is a murky place and the feuding Scotish clans are every bit as violent and exasperating as all the other factions of all the other nations that were then emerging. It’s difficult to understand how any one man could have held it together. Apart from the propensity to judicial murder (execution) and the seriously high knife crime stats, there were the vagaries of health that could carry off the most eminent between breakfast and dinner, as one of the servant boys says.

That being so, Rona Munro makes a gallant effort to give the audience a taste of the rumbustious court and the sheer hell of working with an individual like James Stewart III.

Personally, I wanted a clearer narrative. I was interested in the strength and capabilities of Queen Margaret. What a play that would make. I was interested in why Kings so often reject their heirs (the Hanoverians were another example). I was interested in the suggestion late on that the Scots didn’t want a solution, only a gripe.

The device of the mirror was to my taste over played and the bathing scene an unnecessary irritation (although good to see the wonderful Blythe Duff doing pantomime).

The play comes to an over hasty conclusion and I found the nudity offensive – I felt it left the actor, and not the character, vulnerable. Surely this isn’t the intention?

Run continues at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre until 22nd August.

Cuckooed by Mark Thomas

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Traverse One for Mark Thomas’s Cuckooed. It’s a sell-out, but that still doesn’t make the woman in the row in front share a fold-down seat with the young man next to her. Therefore, the whole half-row have to struggle to their feet and allow the last audience member to shuffle precariously along.

Come-on, people. You really are not as important as you think. Unreserved means just that. Get over it.

Okay, sorry about that. You’re here to hear about Cuckooed by Mark Thomas, directed by Emma Callender.

The first one-person play this fringe and it employs all the necessary technology and gadgetry required to get around the absence of cast. Filing cabinets open to reveal screens on which actors tell us about their feelings for and reactions to Martin. For Martin and his fall from grace are the subject matter.

The play is about data. Corporate spying. Infiltration of activist organisations. Loss of a friend. The arms trade.

It’s a cleverly realised script with elements of stand-up. It’s thought-provoking and hilarious. It’s engaging and disturbing. It’s this year’s must-see.

Traverse One until end of the fringe and then touring through October, November and December.

Novels

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CAPITAL STORIES

CAPITAL STORIES

COURTING THE COUNTESS

COURTING THE COUNTESS by Anne Stenhouse opens in the English Border country 1819 and moves quickly to Edinburgh’s George Square, a fashionable address of that period.

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Lady Melissa Pateley is not having an easy time of it.

Her beloved husband Neville has died, and a fire at her London home has left her covered in scars. If it wasn’t for a band of loyal servants, she’s not sure how she would survive. Things take a turn for the worse when one day, Colonel Harry Gunn and his fellow soldier Zed break into her home, bundle her into a coach and kidnap her.
She is at a loss until she learns that Harry Gunn is the cousin of George Gunn, a man who has been stalking her for years, and that Harry’s Uncle John had warned him that as long as George is out there, Melissa is not safe.
Uncle John insists that Harry finds Melissa and keeps her safe.
But that very night George shows up at Harry’s home with Harry’s sister Lottie, who thinks Melissa and George would make a good match.
Perhaps Melissa would have been safer at home after all.
Yet even with her scars, she is certain that the handsome Colonel Gunn is attracted to her. But of course, nothing is ever simple.
Startling revelations rip the family apart, causing everyone to question what they once held dear.
As Colonel Gunn goes in search of George and the truth, he has to wonder – had the keeping of secrets not marred more lives than the secrets would have destroyed?

Amazon UK  US  CA DE AU

 

Daisies

Daisies

 

DAISY’S DILEMMA from:

MuseItUp and amazon. Links are below. What’s it about? Back to London for this one, 1822, when Lady Daisy, sister of Tobias, Earl of Mellon, is recovering from food poisoning.Lady Daisy was one of those secondary characters who simply cried out for a place to tell her own story. So, here it is:

Lady Daisy should be ecstatic when her brother, the earl, allows Mr. John Brent to propose. She’s been plotting their marriage for two years. However, she is surprised to find herself underwhelmed and blames their distant cousin, Reuben, for unsettling her.
Reuben Longreach wonders whether the earl understands the first thing about Daisy’s nature and her need for a life with more drama than the Season allows. It’s abundantly clear to him that Daisy and John are not suited, but the minx accepts his proposal nonetheless.
Meanwhile, Daisy hatches a plan to attach Reuben to her beautiful, beleaguered Scots cousin, Elspeth. Little does she know that Elspeth is the focus of a more sinister plot that threatens Daisy too.
Will Reuben be able to thwart the forces surrounding Daisy before she is irretrievably tied to John? Will Daisy find the maturity to recognise her dilemma may be of her own making before it’s too late?

amazon UK and US or  MuseItUp or kobo

 

Mariah’s Marriage Mariah Fox is dedicated to being a teacher in 1822 London, but when Tobias, Earl of Mellon saves her from a charging pig, her world view is disturbed forever.

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Bella’s Betrothal comes north to Edinburgh in 1826. Bella is fleeing scandal and an unhappy home when architect and laird, Charles Lindsay invades her room at the inn. Is he a rescuer or a danger?

An Edinburgh skyscape for Bella

An Edinburgh skyscape for Bella

Spoiling John McCann

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Spoiling at the Traverse and by John McCann takes the moment when Scotland’s new Foreign Secretary Designate is about to welcome her English counterpart, following a ‘Yes’ vote in the independence referendum.

Minister, played by Gabriel Quigley, is pregnant. She is also thought, by her unseen fellow party members to be seriously off-message. So they send her a ‘minder’ or ‘special adviser’ or ‘bully’. What are these young unelected folk who run the country actually called? And why do they use words like dispositive.

Richard Clements plays the Ulsterman, Henderson, who was out of there and whose Scottish accent wouldn’t be attractive. Henderson wasn’t ready for the new foreign minister designate, but he leaves a wiser man – for a ‘minder’, ‘special adviser’ ‘bully’, that is.

Full of wonderfully theatrical comedy and laced with thought-provoking one-liners, Spoiling is one to catch. I won’t tell you the spoiler. It’s so obvious and you so don’t think it, it takes the breath away.

Till 24th August, times vary. Traverse 2.

Sleepsound

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SLEEPSOUND by emerging Edinburgh Composer and harpist, Fiona Rutherford, is supported by Made in Scotland and was a commission for Celtic connections.

Described as genre crossing music, the small orchestra featured two fiddles, viola, keyboard, cello, double-bass and two harps. Three of the ladies sang in parts.

Sleepsound was a lovely ending to a Festival/Fringe day at Summerhall and the audience in the Demonstration Theatre enjoyed every moment. Rutherford is self-assured and confident in performance, but diffident in accepting the warm applause showered on the group at the conclusion. I do hope we’ll be hearing more of her work.

 

Run continues 13th and 14th at 10.30pm. £12/£10

 

Inala

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Inala is a Dance Ballet. produced by the collaboration of Sisters Grimm and the Ladysnith Black Mambazo Choir, it’s an exciting evening.

There’s no claimed narrative structure, but it’s fun to recognise cocks crowing, people fishing, a street scene. The stage at the Playhouse theatre in Edinburgh is large and it easily houses the nine man choir, five person musical ensemble and a host of athletic and classically trained dancers. Some of the early morning sets with their backdrop of glowing red are particularly evocative. South Africa may see visitor numbers increase.

A soundtrack overlaid the live music and created a believable tropical ambience with cicadas and roaring beasts.

Choreography by Mark Baldwin and Composition by Joseph Shabalala and the choir.

Run ended.

Fringe and Festival 2014

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Memoir by JMB

A shared moment for those in the know.

So, a little late into the action, but enjoyed BLOODY TRAMS by The People of Edinburgh at the Traverse last night.

Bloody Trams is a cabaret rendition. David Paul Jones on the piano plays and sings while actors Nicola Roy and Jonathan Holt perform a script compiled from interviews with folk encountered in Edinburgh.

They made a great hour’s entertainment and the audience hung on every shared joke breaking into laughter at the more recognisable ones. My own hobby horse over the tram debacle has always been the disregard of the small traders whose lives were, and for all we really know, may still be, blighted. The Birthday candle for one of Leith Walk’s holes – mined and then undisturbed for a year – did not feature, but it is remembered.

Did the script give us enough? It’s undoubtedly the way we think and sound as the utterers of the instant sound-bite. Some are reluctant, some are over-keen and at least one was twelve.

I left the theatre with my own prejudices undisturbed – South-side resident who hasn’t been on an Edinburgh tram and will only be on one when bullied into it by the family/friends. The tram truly makes no difference to the way I travel around the city and I’m not yet understanding the ways all the extra council tax will be justified.

I was also a little down-hearted. Edinburgh has an arguably unrivalled public transport system. A huge number of later evening buses could be taking us all over for the cost of those rails.

Sad News Indeed:Kenny Ireland dies

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Kenny Ireland, a talented actor and director, has died. Aged 68, Mr Ireland had been battling cancer.

Kenny Ireland was based at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh between 1992 and 2003 as its director. More recently he’s been known for his role as a swinger to an appreciative television audience of the sitcom, Benidorm.

 

Perfect Days: Pitlochry Festival Theatre

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Perfect Days by Liz Lochead and directed by Liz Carruthers is a play of its time: the biological clock as a topic of conversation was once very hot. In the Director’s cut for Perfect Days in the programme, Liz Carruthers confesses she was aware of it throughout her own thirties and had her first child aged forty-one. So one is not surprised by the wonderfully sympathetic tone of the production.

Perfect Days is also about obsession. What is it like to be obsessed by something to the extent that all pride and dignity are set aside by the compulsion to satisfy that obsession? And it’s about a lot of the other small things of life that make a complete personality. Mothers and daughters have their ups and downs, but there’s always time to resolve matters, isn’t there? When we are THE ONE helping with something, we deeply resent anyone else muscling in, don’t we?

And Perfect Days is about language. Sharp Glasgow patter updated to encompass the passage of time since the play made its first appearance.

Everyone adores Barbs, the celebrity hairdresser, and wants a share of her – their share. Her perfect cleaner (Mum), her perfect ex, Davie, her perfect friend, Alice, employee, Brendan and lover, Grant. Barbs wants a baby. She doesn’t want to go on living her perfect life as it’s seen by these others, without that tiny person.

One of the most powerful scenes in the play is Barbs’ attempt to make her mother understand the depth of her longing for the unknown baby. Why won’t her mother agree that single mums can do a good job – didn’t she?

It’s a gleeful celebration of modern urban life and the new family realities. A strong cast, wonderful set and sympathetic direction made the whole production an entertaining and thought-provoking afternoon. Truly worth catching, if you can.

Run, in rep, at  Pitlochry Festival Theatre till Thursday 16th October 2014 at 8pm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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DICK BARTON: SPECIAL AGENT

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Dick Barton: Special Agent by Phil Willmott is enjoying a short season at Edinburgh’s Church Hill theatre, Morningside road. I caught it on Wednesday’s opening night.

Edinburgh People’s Theatre are enjoying their 71st year of productions and fielded a large cast for this production. Although the name, Dick Barton, evokes the great age of radio drama and nonsensical comedy, I’m not quite old enough to remember listening to it. There are plenty who are.

Graham Bell reproduced that evocative BBC broadcasting voice impeccably in his anchoring moments in front of the blacks. His necessarily quick changes from mandatory dinner suit to Colonel Gardener’s more relaxed style occasionally left him breathless, but it all adds to the fun for a loyal audience.

Doubling was the order of the night and the cast handled the complications of that well. Ronnie Millar’s pseudo cockney was better than his RP. The ladies of the cast ventured into some wonderfully daring costumes for their cabaret type scenes.

Some nice singing enlivened the spotlight moments, but I had reservations about one or two and felt the dancing could be sharper. Perhaps that’ll come as the run progresses. Mairi Beaver gave a great rendition of femme fatale (don’t know the German equivalent phrase, sorry) Marta Heartburn.

Great touches from director Iain Fraser and musical director, Anne Mackenzie.

Excellent props.

Run continues Friday at 7.30 and Saturday at 2.30. EPT are to be congratulated for offering a matinée.

Edinburgh People’s Theatre

E-novels by Anne stenhouse

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