Tag Archives: Traverse

A Play A Pie and A Pint

Posted on by
Reply

A Play A Pie and A Pint travels from its spiritual home in Glasgow for the Edinburgh season and I caught up with Outside In by Chris Grady, today. Playing to an almost full house this 50 minute gem is an hilarious look at a, well several really, difficult subject(s).

Jo does not go out and so is at the mercy of downstairs’ cat which does not go out either. Coco is a wannabe gangster and Kayleigh an ‘I’ve done that now’ police officer.

You can catch it tomorrow or Saturday. Tickets here

Tomorrow night Theatre Broad bring their double bill of Clifford Bax plays, LUDUS to The Studio at Edinburgh Festival Theatre 7.30 tickets here

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

Posted on by
Reply

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

Spoiling John McCann

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Letter of Last Resort and Good With People

Posted on by
Reply

Traverse Theatre: Letter of Last Resort and Good With People are two excellent pieces from two of Scotland’s best contemporary voices, but what they have to do with one another is a moot point. Certainly the nuclear threat comes up in each and that may be that. My companion speculated that they were too short to stand alone – maybe.

Letter of last Resort exploits the Yes, Prime Minister format, but with a female PM. Dear John takes on a quite other and sinister opening to a letter. Philisophical musings raised issues of chilling importance, but rendered them laughable.

Good With People featured the impeccable Blythe Duff who is really an underused theatrical actor of extraordinary skill – more please. The script had moments of pathos, beauty and illumination, but was eventually unsatisfying. The effect of bullying on the relatives of the bullied could be explored to greater length. The creation of a bully could also have been probed more clinically and perhaps more sympathetically. Yet again, I wondered why there were so few characters. Has drama become only story-telling?

I came out feeling I had had a really good theatrical experience, but yearning for another show like Austentatious (I see the Scotsman have given it a well deserved **** – you read it here first, folks) where I could laugh in amusement – and relax. I’m sort of longing for entertainment at this stage in the Festival experience, rather than clever occasional, in-jokes.

By-the-way why have cast lists/programmes gone out of fashion?

Edinburgh Fringe and Festival 2012

Posted on by
Reply

TOE DIPPING TIME

Don’t you just love eating standing up – waiting for a bus that’s already late/lost/re-directed – finding box offices – finding venues – queuing in the rain?

It’s August. It’s Edinburgh.

First up was Ronan O’Donnell’s ANGELS starring, indeed he’s the only cast,             Iain Robertson at Traverse 2

Wonderful performance from Iain playing the wrongly accused security guard who writes porn in the library, the DI who sees the porn as corroborating evidence (of murder?), the Brief, the Irish ma, the drug addict shop-lifter and Scarlett Johanson. All on a bare stage with music and lighting changes.

The story is told by the accused acting it out. I wanted a little more of why the shop-lifter was obsessed with the guard and a little less stereotyping of the DI and Brief.

Powerful work. Worth your time.

 

Next I saw BLINK by Phil Porter, a two hander. Harry McEntire and Rosie Wyatt gave lovely performances of two very strange young persons.

Again the cast were called upon to act several other characters and move the props and furniture around the stage. Not bare this time, but rather oddly provided with two office desks, two cardboard boxes and a lawn.

A thoughtful piece that lingers…

 

Hi-Kick at the Main Hall, Assembly Hall was a play/dance/match for three generations. Performed by Seol and Company and choreographed by Lee Lanyoung, the high energy performance showed off breath taking football and acrobatic skills as well as wonderful dancing.

There’s a plot of sorts and audience participation – Dads beware – or at least brush up your keepie-uppie skills before going.

Great fun.