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 Royal Lyceum Theatre
Review by Thom Dibdin
Gritty, earthy and full of the sort of language that ensures it is exclusive to those aged 14 and over, Des Dillon’s Blue Hen tumbles onto the Lyceum stage with a tin of Special Brew in hand and a couple of unopened Buckfast bottles stashed down its trousers.
Des Dillon’s wee Glasgow gadgies, John and Paddy, are brought to life with raw energy by Charles Lawson and Scott Kyle. Their banter is a brilliantly accurate as mourn the death of their pal, Peetsie Finnigan, from who’s wake they have just come, after his tragic suicide.
From before the off, Blue Hen sets itself up to be something special. The pre-curtain music is loud, raucous and sentimental in exactly the way a West Coast wake should be.
For a few fantastic scenes, Dillon sustains that energy. Lawson and Kyle are solid in their creation of two, clearly interdependent misfits. The language drives the production, crude and erudite by turns as the two wonder about what to do next and begin to obsess about turning the drying green of their tenement into a garden with tatties and a chicken coop. … Continue reading Theatre Review – Blue Hen
***
 - Matthew Pidgeon & Maureen Beattie in The Cherry Orchard, Royal Lyceum Theatre. Photo Alan McCredie
Royal Lyceum Theatre
By Thom Dibdin
Uprooted from its original time and place, John Byrne’s new version of Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard transplants the action to Scotland in 1979, on the eve of Thatcher’s first term in office.
It’s a move which leaves Chekhov’s orchard still growing, but transformed.
The trees cross the landscape in lines that are true – but it feels as if the political contours of the Seventies have been altered to fit the regimentation of the orchard, rather than the trees planted so as to fit the landscape.
There’s a lot more that is right about the play and production than there is wrong, however. Byrne succeeds in finding the comic power of Chekhov and although it is sometimes overplayed under Tony Cownie’s direction, it is the laugh-out-loud comedy in the play which makes the tragedy of it seem all the more heartfelt. … Continue reading Theatre Review – The Cherry Orchard
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 Kyle McPhail, Jonathan Hackett, Kathryn Howden, Jenny Hulse & Tina Gray. Photo Tim Morozzo Royal Lyceum
By Thom Dibdin
Tough and emotional, Jo Clifford’s new play for the Royal Lyceum takes an unblinking look into the tragedy of a death in the family, in a production which breaks theatrical conventions and crosses social boundaries.
This is genuinely exciting stuff, which is a touch surprising for a subject so morbid and a staging that, at the outset, is so static. But it is that staging which allows director Mark Thomson to do Clifford’s words such justice.
There is no real break between the audience’s arrival and the start of the show. The house lights don’t dim and the only hint that a performance has actually started is when the ushers close the doors and take their places.
The scenery, such as it is, creates a room at the front of the stage, a box that is barely deep enough to accommodate the five performers who will, after a while, appear. It is walled with dirty, concave mirrored tiles.
Into this box which reflects, after a fashion, both them and the audience, walk the five family members to whom the tragedy will occur. They, in a series of dry, sometimes faltering, always completely natural monologues, reveal who they are and how they came upon the fateful day when…
Read the rest of this review in the Edinburgh Evening News here.
Run ends 10 April
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 Cara Kelly (Maureen), John Kazek (Pato) and Nora Connolly (Mag). Photograph: Alan McCredie Royal Lyceum Theatre
By Thom Dibdin
Hilarious, dark and utterly brutal, playwright Martin McDonagh’s prize-winning look at late 20th century life in rural Ireland is given a most beguiling outing at the Royal Lyceum, under Tony Cownie’s direction.
Here, on one level, are all the clichés of the genre. A lonely house in the back-end of beyond, the spinster Maureen wasting away her life looking after Mag, he curmudgeonly 70 year-old mother; the gentle tongue-tied labourer Pato, who hates his life on the building squads in England, and his feckless brother Ray.
And on this level – in Janet Bird’s mundane kitchen set – a strong and impressive four-strong cast create all the resonance’s of the time while teasing out McDonagh’s wordplay and the Father Ted-level comedy which broadens out the basis beyond mere cliché. … Continue reading Theatre Review – The Beauty Queen of Leenane
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Royal Lyceum
Review by Thom Dibdin
Arthur Miller’s late-Sixties hit provides a thoroughly satisfying start to the Royal Lyceum’s year. It’s a piece which, in the right hands, has comedy and depth, as estranged brothers Victor and Walter pick over their dead father’s belongings with furniture dealer Solomon. … Continue reading Review – The Price
October 20th, 2009
There was a real buzz about the Royal Lyceum tonight, as novelist Ian Rankin joined the theatre’s Artistic Director Mark Thomson on the stage for a pre-performance discussion of Justified Sinner.
Thomson, of course, adapted James Hogg’s novel – indeed this production which he also directs is an updated version of the one he did when he was at the Brunton about ten years ago. Rankin was there by dint of his own fascination with the text. He’s written an introduction to a recent edition of the novel and is in the process of writing a film script from it. … Continue reading Sinning with Ian Rankin and Mark Thomson…
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Royal Lyceum
Review by Thom Dibdin
SCOTLAND’S darkest history is dragged into the light of the Lyceum stage in this new adaptation of James Hogg’s bitter, twisted and murderous Confessions of a Justified Sinner.
This is a tale of religious fanaticism, of cleansing the world of sinners in the name of God. Using God’s name to justify murder would sit with horrifying ease in a modern setting but this is Scotland in 1704 and the fanatics are not al-Qaeda, but Calvinists.
Full review published in the Edinburgh Evening News here.
Run ends November 7th
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