theatreSCOTLAND

SCOTTISH THEATRE REVIEWS AND ARTICLES

27 April 2012 The Guardian

King Lear

By William Shakespeare. A Citizens Theatre review.

THERE'S a sense of impermanence about Dominic Hill's austere King Lear. The very tables and chairs seen temporary, forever being overturned and whisked away, as if in response to Lear's unstable plan to split his kingdom three ways. Tom Piper's stark set of planks and windows dissolves at the edges, giving way to a netherworld populated by a brooding underclass and the hulks of old pianos that echo ominously.

Stewart Lee appears at the Assembly Rooms under new management

25 April 2012 The List

Edinburgh's Assembly Rooms to reopen in time for Fringe 2012

Preview of George Street venue under new management for the Fringe

SAY what you like about modern-day dress sense, but when Edinburgh's Assembly Rooms returns to life, today;s fashionistas will have some stiff competition. Yes, they'll be excited about the opening ceilidh in July and the high-profile Fringe line-up that includes Stewart Lee, the National Theatre of Scotland and Phil Nichol, but will they be any match for the audience of August 1822, when King George IV came to town?

Cumbernauld Theatre's Kidnapped

25 April 2012 The Guardian

Kidnapped

Adapted by Ed Robson. A Cumbernauld Theatre review.

ROBERT Louis Stevenson's 1886 novel is a lot for a dramatist to contain on stage. It kicks off at the creepy House of Shaws, where the recently orphaned David Balfour finds himself at the mercy of an acquisitive uncle, before taking us to the port of Queensferry and on to the Covenant, a slave ship on which the young man finds himself captive.

Gary Gardiner's Thatcher's Children Pic: Niall Walker

24 April 2012 The Guardian

Thatcher's Children/Beats

By Gary Gardiner and Keiran Hurley. An Arches Theatre review.

FOR those of us who fought in the Thatcher wars, there's a worry the younger generation won't appreciate what was at stake. But if this inspirational double bill by the latest winners of the Arches' Platform 18 directors' award is any measure of the times, our political future is in safe hands.

3 April 2012 The Guardian

The Steamie

By Tony Roper.

THERE is no funnier piece of writing in the theatre than the Galloway's mince set-piece in this delirious 1987 comedy by Tony Roper. It involves the elderly Mrs Culfeathers breaking off from her labour in a 1950s Glasgow washhouse to explain a theory about her husband's preference for the meat from a particular butchers. Roper takes a banal anecdote based on wobbly logic and bad communication and pushes it to a sublime level that, in the context of wash-day drudgery, verges on the surreal.

Wonderland by Vanishing Point premieres in the EIF

15 March 2012 The Guardian

Edinburgh International Festival 2012: my pick of the lineup

Blog after the programme launch

YOU'VE got to admire Jonathan Mills's sense of mischief. While politicians north and south of the border fret over the case for Scottish independence, the artistic director of the Edinburgh international festival is reminding us what it means to be British. To top and tail his 2012 programme, just launched this morning, the Australian director has included stirring English patriotic favourites by Frederick Delius, William Walton and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Sally Reid, Jimmy Chisholm, Paul Riley and Greg Hemphill in An Appointment with the Wicker Man Pic: Manuel Harlan

23 February 2012 The Guardian

An Appointment with the Wicker Man

By Greg Hemphill and Donald McLeary. A National Theatre of Scotland production.

MENTION The Wicker Man and people tend to snigger. Something in the movie's anachronistic juxtaposition of Scottish island setting, English folklore and early 70s period detail – not to mention Britt Ekland's naked frolicking – make it a guilty pleasure. But a pleasure it is, giving a genuinely creepy edge to the story of the policeman who stumbles into a pagan enclave where the population is hungry for human sacrifice. It may be uncool to admit it, but it is quite compelling viewing.

10 February 2012 The Scotsman

The Port Glasgow family who made a five-star theatre hit

Interview with Jess Thorpe and Tashi Gore about Hand Me Down. A Glas(s) Performance preview.

WHEN Jess Thorpe and Tashi Gore put the advert in the paper, they had no idea what to expect. They knew they wanted to do a show involving different generations of women from the same family and they imagined they'd find perhaps a grandmother, a daughter and a granddaughter who'd be up for it. So the email they received came as a shock.

Mark Fisher, author of The Edinburgh Fringe Surival Guide Pic: Lotte Fisher

1 February 2012 The List

Mark Fisher on The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide

Five things I learned while writing the book

CHOOSING a title takes ages: It's as straightforward as they come, yet The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide was a title born of months of discussion. The subtitle, How to Make Your Show a Success, was arrived at no quicker. My editor couldn't believe it.

30 January 2012 Northings

The Captain's Collection

By Hamish MacDonald. A Dogstar Theatre review.

YOU probably heard the fuss kicked up by fans of the Smiths in the run-up to Christmas. They were outraged with department store John Lewis for using one of the indie band’s finest songs, ‘Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want’, as the soundtrack to an advert. What greater insult than using a song of heartbreaking yearning as a way to get people to buy things? If Smiths fans were up in arms, just think how Jacobite sympathisers must have felt about Captain Simon Fraser.

The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide by Mark Fisher is published 16 February

8 January 2012 Scotland on Sunday

Survival guide is just the ticket for Fringe acts

News piece about Mark Fisher's Edinburgh Fringe Surival Guide

IT IS a gruelling three-week marathon with more than 1.9 million tickets sold for 40,000 performances in 250 venues. So no wonder first-time Fringe performers arrive in Edinburgh with a sense of trepidation. But now help is at hand with the publication of an independent 'survival guide' for rookie artists bringing a show to the world's biggest arts festival. Based on insights from Fringe veterans, including comics Ed Byrne and Mel Giedroyc, magician Paul Daniels, and actresses Siobhan Redmond and Cora Bissett, the book covers every aspect of Fringe life, providing tips on budgets, promotion, finding a venue and avoiding pitfalls.

6 January 2012 The List

New Citizens Theatre boss Dominic Hill brushes up his Shakespeare

Interview with Dominic Hill. A Citizens Theatre preview.

TAKE on the Citizens Theatre and you take on the past. Any artistic director of the Glasgow institution can only be aware of the building's history. Opened as the Royal Princess's Theatre in 1848, it became home to James Bridie's Citizens' company in 1945 and was where Giles Havergal, Philip Prowse and Robert David MacDonald sealed their international reputation during a 34-year reign.

theatreSCOTLAND © Mark Fisher 2009–2012