Category Archives: The Blog

The Iliad – Mark Thomson- Chris Hannan – Homer

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The Iliad in a new version by Chris Hannan rounds off Mark Thomson’s remarkable tenure at the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh and is directed by Mark.

This work is based on the poem by Greek writer Homer and covers part of the Trojan Wars (they went on a long time, don’t worry about it). My companion settled happily back when the lights were dimming and the wind rose onstage. Anyone who knows the work must feel that thrill. When we visited the site of Troy, our tour guide of the 21st century advised us to take our jackets because it was a windy place.

It’s really hard for twenty-first century minds to enter into belief systems that juxtapose Gods, half-Gods and humans. It’s even harder for twenty-first century women to embrace a time when winner took all and understand that meant the armour of the defeated, but also their women – after killing their children.

Or is it? When we read the reports of war in our life-time, there’s still so much of that going on. Old men flexing waning muscles while the young men tone theirs.

Philosophy aside, Hannan and Thomson make an entertaining and dramatic stab at the text. The audience enters into the long periods of sustained effort and also the long periods of ennui while behind the scenes diplomacy goes on. The Greek singing was quite lovely in parts. Ably led by Emanuella Cole, the Goddess Hera,  as one of Paris’s rejects for that golden apple, the Gods and Goddesses fight among themselves with huge repercussions for the mortals beneath. Richard Conlon as Zeus plays out the bitter infighting of marriage, but never quite pacifies Hera. Peter Bray and Amiera Darwish give us an interesting take on Paris and Helen – ostensibly the cause of the launching of those 1,000 ships. Paris is accused of being not quite ‘all there’ and displays an alarming tendency to wander off when he loses interest.

A towering production to mark the end of Thomson’s hand on the helm.

Run continues 20 April – 14 May. Tickets here

I AM THOMAS Royal Lyceum Edinburgh and touring

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I AM THOMAS is described by the company, Told By An Idiot, as  brutal comedy with songs. More than a nod in the direction of Brecht, then. The question for the audience is whether it works.

I Am Thomas is written by the company. Music is by Iain Johnstone and lyrics by Simon Armitage. Collaboration is the underpinning philosophy and it’s not the way I find the most satisfactory theatre is created. This audience member likes a clear vision – from both the script (writer) and the performance (director). Collaboration to my eye allows for too much dilution and perhaps distraction.

There are a lot of people around in this university town who know far more about blasphemy trials, appeals and the general reluctance of the Establishment to allow anything approaching common sense to rear its head in a courtroom, than I do. They will tell you about what the play missed and missed out on. I, knowing nothing about Thomas Aitkenhead before I went along, enjoyed a lot of what I did find. There were huge positives to I Am Thomas.

I enjoyed the lively music, the way the main character moved around the cast and the sheer contrast to Arthur Miller’s towering achievement so recently seen here, The Crucible. Not all of the population find their religion in Godliness. For some the definition of truth is out there in the skies, yes, but it’s physical not theological.

I still don’t understand the single white shoes and if anyone reading this can help me, please leave your comment, but I so enjoyed the pseudo sports’ commentaries. Having been along to South Morningside School’s great Shakespeare evening, I was receptive to them and might even have recognised the trench coats.

It was great to meet Hannah McPake, Edinburgh born actor returning to her roots.

Run in Edinburgfh now finished, Touring to Inverness Eden Court 12-16th April and Wilton’s theatre, London 20-30 April

THE CRUCIBLE by ARTHUR MILLER

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THE CRUCIBLE by ARTHUR MILLER is The Royal Lyceum of Edinburgh’s flagship production to mark its 50th year. Royal Lyceum audiences have a long and mostly satisfactory relationship with Arthur Miller and this production of the Crucible will have enhanced that immeasurably.

The Crucible is a play ostensibly about witchcraft, but actually about so much that troubles any thinking person over the human condition. Religious fervour, superstition, greed, scapegoating, love, betrayal, the rule of law and the misrule of law. So much more is packed into the fabric of this work that further inklings strike one unawares.

It’s very difficult to single out individual performances, but the central love affair played out by Irene Allen and Philip Cairns as Elizabeth and John Proctor has not been bettered in my opinion. (Well, I haven’t seen it quite as often as Midsummer Night’s Dream, but it is around a lot…) Their quiet despair over where the love and trust went and why, is tangible and there can hardly have been a dry female eye in the house at the final scene.

John Dove asks a huge amount from his cast and they respond. The performances are all understated or hysterical as required by the script. The group of girls swayed by the unaccustomed attention to their views, is a terrible thing to watch. How easy it is for mass hysteria, at the time unrecognised, to influence otherwise hard-working and God-fearing (in the best sense) people. Danforth, the Deputy Governor, is unmoved by the obvious breakdown of social order caused by his lunatic questioning and blind adherence to the rigidity of words once uttered. How often do we see this polarisation between head and heart today? The cost remains high.

Run continues till 19th March, catch it!

http://lyceum.org.uk/whats-on

THE DEVIL INSIDE Stuart Macrae and Louise Welsh

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What a lot we owe Robert Louis Stevenson. The Devil Inside, a new opera by Stuart Macrae with an excellent libretto by Louise Welsh is based on his 1893 short story called The Bottle Imp. The Devil Inside is playing for two nights at Edinburgh’s King’s Theatre before touring through the rest of the UK and to Toronto. It is a co-commission and co-production with Music Theatre Wales.

Macrae and Welsh have collaborated before to write two operas for Scottish Opera, Remembrance Day and Ghost Patrol. Macrae observes that the pieces have become longer and The Devil Inside is certainly a beautifully paced re-telling of this older story.

The story is about all those ways in which we can let our moral guard slip. It’s about greed, addiction and ultimately selflessness. Who among us is capable of resisting the promise of a fail-safe investment? Life, as in the Faust legend, is long, and reparation a distant issue to be dealt with as and when.

Apologies to Mr Macrae, but I’m not qualified to judge the score. Those around me who were more musically educated, seemed happy enough. It’s great to encounter so many young people in Scottish Opera audiences. Indeed the young woman next to me was there on a press ticket for an online University newspaper. Didn’t catch her name or the name of the paper, but glad to see this interest.

The libretto, on the other hand, I do feel more at home reviewing and it was good. Excellent story-telling with a straightforward beginning, middle and end on view. Lots of scope for the characters to show their inner turmoil in the drama.

A pared back set was moved around by a black-clad crew who earned their own applause among the curtain calls.

Run continues tonight, 30 Jan, at 7.15 King’s Theatre Box Office 0131 529 6000

The Weir by Conor McPherson

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THE WEIR by CONOR McPHERSON, playing at Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre, is a tantalising web of ghost stories, Irish faery-tales and real-life misery.

In this production directed by Amanda Gaughan, a quintet of Irish actors use their soft voices to tell a series of stories that have impacted on their lives to huge effect. There’s no plot as such, but there’s a wealth of story-telling to hold the audience attentive throughout the 100 minute straight-through performance.

Jack, the died in the wool local man, tells a tale involving Faeries. Like elephants, only smaller, they have their historic routes. If you build your house on one of them then it’s the house that’s in the wrong place not the faery traveller. Finbar, who saw the gaps and made money knows that  some people, often teenagers with their overly sensitive, hormone flushed perception, can see the dead. Call it coincidence to help you sleep, but it may drive the hardest headed man out of his habitat in search of company.

Jim, the odd job labourer met a ghost who would have been buried in a particular grave for a particular reason (I won’t give the spoiler). Jim had flu and a high temperature so maybe there was no ghost. And Valerie, the blow-in with her air of rigid control, has a human story unequalled in its horror by any of the supernatural ones.

And that brings us full circle to hear just why Jack never left the country-side. Presided over by the young barman, Brendan, the group bat their stories and memories to and fro. It’s a huge pleasure to listen to. Difficult human frailty wrapped in myth without the need for protagonist and antagonist. It’s a gem of a play. I recommend it.

Box Office 0131 248 4848

The Weir Run continues till 6th February

The Crucible 18/02 – 19/03

Fringing and Other Crafty Pursuits (3) How To Keep An Alien

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Sonya Kelly’s How to Keep an Alien, directed by Gina Moxley was a great treat. Sonya is an actor struggling to dance in a fur coat and talk in an upper crust English accent while pretending to be Russian. Acting is a curious way to earn a living. The assistant stage manager, Kate from Queensland, shares her frustrations and a romance based on how they might commit suicide to get out of the contract, develops.

It becomes love. Kate is Australian and her visa is about to run out. The play then traces the path of people from different countries trying to get a resident’s visa for one of them and is richly woven with their actual day-to-day loves and insecurities.

Justin Murphy is the remainder of the cast, playing everything from Sonya’s sound track operator to the immigration official. Their rapport is evident all the way through and their comic timing spot on.

The script contains a wealth of hilarious one-liners while by no means relying on them to be funny. There’s a lot of physical and situational comedy, too. Taken all together, a wonderful afternoon. Oh, and if you want to apply for a de facto Irish visa, the dossier needs to be around four inches thick and contain EVIDENCE. Letters from friends and relatives, tickets for shows, receipts from meals out, photographs…

Run continues, Traverse 2

Fringing and other Crafty Pursuits (2)

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AUSTENSIBILITY written by Alan Richardson is the 2015 offering from Fringe regulars, The Mercators.

Richardson has dramatised the main events of Jane Austen’s life as we know them and created a pleasant work of fact together with readings and dramatised snippets from her writings. At times achingly familiar, but often rendered fresh and insightful.

The cast includes a new and talented young actress playing Jane, Josie Duncan  Her portrayal was by turns sweet and waspish – much in fact, as we understand the writer to have been in life.

The Mercators are always on the look-out for new blood. They include the Scottish community Drama one-act lay festival in their yearly round, too. Rehearsed and dramatised readings are a good way for the older actor to continue without the fear of forgetting the words or drift. I recommend it.

Wardrobe mistress May Kelly has excelled. Jane’s cap and dress were instantly recognisable form the famous (and only?) portrait by her sister Cassandra. The red outfit worn by Angela Binnie instantly captured Regency excess and Lady Catherine De Berg. gets my vote as the costume of the Fringe so far and I think it’ll take quite something to surpass it.

An entertaining interlude for all Jane Austen and Regency lovers all round. If you want to continue in that vein, see my run of novels above. Like many another author, my work is richly inspired by hers. Oh, and lift one of the book flyers – you might find a freebie download for your kindle, nook, i-pad.

Run continues at Venue 11, Mayfield Salisbury church halls until Friday. 7.30pm Many buses on Minto Street, 42 & 67 to Ratcliff Terr.

Contact the Mercators at douglascurrie@btinternet.com

Visit their website www.themercators.org.uk

It’s Official (1)

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ENCOUNTER by Simon McBurney and Complicite was the water into which I dipped my first toe of 2015.

When Dominic Cavendish interviewed McBurney for The Telegraph – with ten days to go – he claimed the show wasn’t finished. He claimed it was waking him up at 4am and the stage manager was clamouring for a script.

Okay.

Complicite, Théatre de Complicite, is about collaboration, but it defies my understanding that a show of the complexity I saw performed last night was so unfinished ten days ago, it was wakening the creator and performer up. What did he mean?

Did he mean one or two loose ends needed tying? Did he mean he’d read the book, Amazon Beaming, some time ago and a few ideas were floating about? Clearly, there’s room for misunderstanding about what ‘finished’ means.

The evening begins with McBurney talking the audience into their individual headphones – ‘This is a conference centre, not a theatre.’ he says with a laugh. Then he wanders around his stage and introduces us to a head on a stand. The technicalities will be familiar to many, but binaural technology was new to me. So when he introduced us to noise in our left ear and noise in our right ear and later when there were mosquitoes buzzing around the back of my neck, I was hugely impressed. I kept my eyes closed for much of the two hours and missed the occasional visual joke, but the effect was all-encompassing.

Without the nausea of 3-D cinema, the effect is so realistic I was just stopping myself slapping the ants and running from the rising flood-water. It’s wonderful story-telling.

Amazon Beaming is a 1991 book by Romanian author Petru Popescu. It recounts the remarkable period American photographer Loren McIntyre spent, 20 years before, in the captivity of an Amazon tribe. This is what McBurney based Encounter on.

In addition, he personalizes the creation of the story and the telling of the story by introducing his sleepless daughter and her pointed questions. The child’s voice punctuates the arc of the main plot as the artist creating the work tries to create while baby-sitting, and introduces some levity into the profound nature of Loren McIntyre’s experience.

Two hours on and McBurney has earned a standing ovation. It all looked finished to me. He took time to commend his technical crew and I’d second that. Perfect cues, great stage-effects (I was looking sometimes) and sympathetic or dramatic lighting added hugely to the production. Highly recommended.

Run continues various dates till Sat 22nd 7.30pm and 4 matinées. Performance has no interval. Edinburgh International Conference Centre. Morrison Street.

 

Fringing and other crafty pursuits (1)

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The Christians by Lucas Hnath directed by Christopher Haydon was one of the plays opening the Travere Theatre’s 2016 Fringe programme before a sell-out audience in Trav 1.

Set in a huge church somewhere in the US, the play is about the crisis Pastor Paul brings down on his followers when he preaches a sermon telling them God has made him see everyone will go to Heaven. Yes, that includes not only the good but non-Christian, but also Hitler et al.

A sterling cast is led by William Gaminara and Stefan Adegbola and as we didn’t have a cast list (meanies going to the preview) we weren’t sure whether the cast was American or not. The accents held all the way through.

Hnath tackles the age-old issue of those who are not with us being against us, with care for the opinions of all and presents our human frailty in stark terms. Surely sacrifice in this life means reward in the next? And if we find those who didn’t sacrifice are also rewarded, then what was it all about?

Great performance, too, from the community choir. It must take hours of practice to ensure no one is moving in the same direction as their neighbour. Well done!

Run continues as part of the Traverse Fringe till August 30th. Get along and have your thoughts provoked. Oh, and it’s nearly 90 mins straight through – you know what I’m saying here.

Home and Beauty Somerset Maugham

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Home and Beauty by Somerset Maugham is one of this year’s line-up at Pitlochry Festival Theatre.

Directed by Richard Baron the play takes on accepted social norms of 1919 and trashes them conclusively.

Victoria, played with wonderful energy and total self-belief, by Isla Carter is a monster. She manages to equate marrying two DSOs with war-work and Maugham spares us nothing in her hedonistic outlook on life which sees her hogging the coal to have a fire in her bedroom while the rest of the house freezes.

Mayhem ensues from the moment her dead first husband, Major Cardew returns and in a scene of unalloyed farce, takes a wee while to learn that his wife has married his best friend in his absence. Major Lowndes then makes sterling, but ultimately futile, efforts to leave his wife to her first husband.

The play is a delight of exploding social norms, human frailties and that age-old maxim – Be careful what you ask for, lest you achieve it.

The audience need only remember what’s predictable in today’s climate of hapless males being taken to the cleaners by the women in their lives, was by no means expected in 1919. Mark Elstob gave a joyful performance of the divorce lawyer, AB Raham, trashing any regard for the law a lawyer might be expected to hold. In this character, Maugham shows remarkable prescience. Indeed taken as a whole, the celebrity culture of today is laid out by him.