Æ News – Edinburgh Fringe iPhone app to get upgrade

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Thom Dibdin

New upgrades scheduled to be available by August 4

The current version does not include a search facility for venue listings

By Thom Dibdin

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society has announced that the free Fringe iPhone app released on Wednesday will receive substantial upgrades before the start of the Fringe.

As revealed exclusively in a review in the Annals of Edinburgh Stage, the app begins to make sense of the vast amount of data in the Fringe programme. However, the review expressed concerns that the app is still some way short of its true potential, particularly in its search facilities to access the 40,254 performances of 2,453 shows in 259 venues.

Gavin Dutch, managing director of Loc8 Solutions the Edinburgh-based company behind the app, told the Annals that many of the concerns would be addressed in an update released before the start of the Fringe.

Responding directly to the review, he said: “In fact we have already implemented solutions for quite a few of them, including venue search, and search of events at a specific venue. Finding your nearest show will also be much easier as in the update shows can be ordered by distance from your current location, or any other location you choose. Continue reading →

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Æ News – HATS doffed to Alasdair Gray

Posted on July 22, 2010 by Thom Dibdin

Holyrood Amateur Theatre Society stage rare production of Gray’s McGrotty and Ludmilla

Alasdair Gray's poster for the production

By Thom Dibdin

An amateur production of Alasdair Gray’s early play McGrotty and Ludmilla, to be staged this week at the Roxy Arthouse, has benefited from personal input from the playwright.

HATS, the Holyrood Amateur Theatre Society, are staging the production from tonight (Thursday) to Saturday. Loosely based on the Aladdin story, the play follows the adventures of the uncouth and unpolished young Scot Mungo McGrotty amongst the Machiavellian civil service mandarins of 1980s Whitehall. Continue reading →

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Æ News Review – Edinburgh Fringe launches programme on iPhone app

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Thom Dibdin

The Annals of Edinburgh Stage puts the Edinburgh Fringe iPhone App through its paces

The opening page of the new app

By Thom Dibdin

The Edinburgh Fringe has launched its much anticipated iPhone app, allowing iPhone users to access the wonders of the Fringe programme, with its  2453 shows in 259 venues, direct from their mobiles.

At first glance its looking good, with quick access from the opening panel to Shows, Venues and My Fringe. Further investigation finds a few surprising drawbacks, however. Not fatal ones, it must be said, and certainly things which should be fixed in the next release.

Sitting at home in Edinburgh, the first thing to find out was the closest production to my front door on a random date: the evening of Thursday 12 August let’s say.

I just happen to know that would be the theatre show Decky Does a Bronco by Grid Iron, in Traverse @ Scotland Yard, nightly at 7.30pm, running from 5 to 21 August.

Finding Decky Does a Bronco is easy: tap shows, tap search and type Decky. Show found. scroll through to the 12th and tap – up comes the listing. Tap the wee star on the bottom and it has been added to my favourites for easy access later. Continue reading →

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Æ News – John Paul Jones sails again!

Posted on July 16, 2010 by Thom Dibdin

Hit musical gets rewrite and professional production

The original 2001 production at the Church Hill Theatre

By Thom Dibdin

A stage musical by Edinburgh-based composer Julian Wagstaff takes its first steps towards the West End in September, when a new concert version of Wagstaff’s John Paul Jones will be performed by musicians from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra at the Queen’s Hall.

Wagstaff plans to use the concerts, on September 24 and 25, to raise the profile of John Paul Jones, which recounts the true story of the Dumfries-born lad who became a hero of the American Revolution and is known as the ‘father of the American navy’.

“I am delighted to be working with an ensemble of such quality and renown as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra,” Wagstaff told the Annals. “Their musicians will be joined for the concerts by the vocal ensemble Consort of Voices and guest soloists in what promises to be a wonderful night out for music and theatre fans alike.” Continue reading →

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News – On Screen On Stage

Posted on July 12, 2010 by Thom Dibdin

Short Filmhouse season preps audiences for EIF

By Thom Dibdin

It's Bliss, Opera Australia's production

The Edinburgh International Festival are linking up with the Filmhouse next week for On Screen, On Stage, a short season of four films which tie in with productions in this year’s EIF.

The innovative season, running from Sunday 18 through to Sunday 25 July, is described by Filmhouse as “a short season of films to whet your appetite for the upcoming Edinburgh International Festival’s 2010 programme”.

On Screen, On Stage includes two Scottish premieres. Susanna Boehm’s 2009 documentary Porgy and Me follows the cast of the New York Harlem Theatre on their European tour of Porgy and Bess. Following the company from city to city – where they attract stares from startled Austrians – the film draws out the parallels between the opera and the real life experiences of individual singers in a series of deeply personal conversations. Continue reading →

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Theatre Review – The Women Of Troy

Posted on July 10, 2010 by Thom Dibdin

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Metropolitan Bar, Picardy Place
Review by Thom Dibdin

Dark and sinister, John Naples-Campbell’s updating of the Greek myths surrounding the end of the Trojan war is given a stark and immersive telling by his random ACT theatre company.

At its best, this is ferocious stuff, which takes its audience deep into the bowels of the destroyed Troy at the end of the nine year-long siege by the Greeks.

The women of the title are, as followers of Greek mythology will be unsurprised to discover, Hecuba Queen of Troy, Cassandra her daughter, Andromache her daughter-in-law and Helen, wife of the Greek Menelaus. It was Helen’s elopement with Hecuba’s son Paris which precipitated the war.

The women pace up and down the darkened basement bar of the Metropolitan into which the audience, divided up by gender, are delivered as if they were prisoners, too. Continue reading →

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Theatre Without Walls

Posted on July 8, 2010 by Thom Dibdin

Police called to murder scene – Women of Troy implicated

By Thom Dibdin

The reality of using found spaces for theatre productions came home to Edinburgh’s Random ACT theatre company last night during their preview of The Women of Troy at the Metropolitan Bar on Picardy Place.

Members of the public walking past the bar on Wednesday night were so concerned by the noises eminating from the bar  that they called the police and no amount of protestations from cast or director could calm them down.

Random ACT director John Naples-Campbell said: “we had ran it without any problems at all and then tonight three people, who heard shouting from the bar, called the police, banged on the fire door shouting ‘we’ve called the police’.”

Having succeeded in opening the firedoor, Continue reading →

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Musical Review – Evita

Posted on June 16, 2010 by Thom Dibdin

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Daniel Williamson as Juan Perón and Monica Reeves as Eva Péron

George Watson’s College
By Thom Dibdin

There is a genuine tune-hummer of a production of Evita up at George Watson’s College this week, one which is strong and forceful where it needs to be – but is also fully-rounded on the musical front.

Minimal and unfussy staging makes good use of side-projected slides and video to help give the whole a well-judged political edge. It shows, without pulling its punches and while exploring the cult of Evita, where Perónism lies on the totalitarian spectrum.

It is music which lies at the heart of the production’s strengths, however. Having a large orchestra is something of a luxury in musical theatre circles and the company makes full use of the depth and texture a 32-strong band can provide – despite the odd wayward note in the more complex parts of the arrangement. Continue reading →

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Dance Review – Brendan Cole: Live and Unjudged

Posted on June 7, 2010 by Thom Dibdin

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Brendan Cole and Nicole Cutler

Festival Theatre
By Thom Dibdin

It was strictly entertainment at the Festival Theatre on Sunday night when ballet badboy Brendan Cole brought his big bro, big band and a quartet of fellow Strictly Come Dancing professionals to Edinburgh.

That Cole is a passionate, gifted and generous ballroom and Latin dancer is in no doubt after eight series of Strictly, during which he has risen from being just another of the professional dancers who partner the celebs to being a celebrity in his own right.

A Festival Theatre packed with Strictly fans, dressed to impress and gagging for a sight of Brendan, certainly knew so.

When he put the question “what would you like to see now?” during the evening’s first pause it was purely rhetorical, given that this is a scripted and choreographed show. The answer from the front of the dress circle was not in the least rhetorical, however.

“You!” came the shout for all to hear. There can’t have been many in the audience who did not agree – and for those who didn’t, Nicole Cutler, Hanna Haarala and Izabela Hannah were more than adequate compensation. But the loudest screams of delight were reserved for Brendan, not least when he made his buttocks shimmy while demonstrating the Salsa a few dances later. Continue reading →

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Musical Review – Billy Elliot

Posted on June 5, 2010 by Thom Dibdin

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Matt Hall as Billy Elliot, Louise Hunter as Mrs Wilkinson and ensemble. Photo credit: company publicity

Festival Theatre
Review by Thom Dibdin
Bright, exuberant and boasting a cast that mixes the singers from the Edinburgh Gang Show with the dancers of the Manor School of Ballet, the second Billy Youth Theatre version of Billy Elliot to hit Edinburgh is a thoroughly entertaining production.

This is a show which plays straight to its participants’ strengths. Having made a big name for himself by giving the Gang Show’s variety-style format a 21st century outlook, director Andy Johnston now brings those abilities to a full-blown musical on the vast expanses of the Festival Theatre stage.

It sets off with great deliberation and a big, strong telling of scene-setting number The Stars Look Down, which speaks of the unity in the miners in the face of adversity – now standing together against Thatcher in the great miners’ strike of 1984.

The whole company is in fine, clear voice. First hearing of Matt Hall as Billy Elliot with Ian Sutherland as his best pal Michael confirms that singing has been Johnston’s priority in casting the lead roles, while the direction and choreography of the ensemble set the story up perfectly. Continue reading →

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