All the Edinburgh Fringe iPhone apps reviewed
By Thom Dibdin
Updates came in thick and fast for the handful of iPhone apps which launched early for this year’s Edinburgh Fringe – with more venues promising apps for their own programmes, and even more updates in the pipeline. So I succumbed to Fringe madness, went off to see and review my shows, and rather left this on the back burner until a few more apps and their promised updates arrived.
They haven’t materialised, so here’s the story so far: … Continue reading App-tastic Edinburgh Fringe
Juliet (Charlotte Wakefield) and Romeo (James Barrett)
By Thom Dibdin
Romeo and Juliet is being brought into the social media revolution in a brave new experiment from the Royal Shakespeare Company called Such Tweet Sorrow.
Directed by Roxana Silbert – one-time Literary Director at the Traverse in Edinburgh and most recently artistic director at Paines Plough – the “production” will be played out on Twitter and other social media in real time, over the next five weeks.
The production will be performed by six Twitter characters – Juliet Capulet, her sister Jess and brother Tybalt, Romeo Montague, his best mate Mercutio and Friar Laurence. As the action unfolds online, the cast will improvise the dialogue between themselves and engage with each other and their virtual audience communicating via their tweets.
To be honest, this seems like a brilliant idea. So much so that I’ve spent the day looking at the different tweets, following the characters, finding new ones – who is this jago-klepto? – checking out Juliet’s You Tube video and debating whether this really is theatre.
When I first started following the different characters this morning, they had about 60 or so followers. As I write this, Juliet – julietcap16 – has 1,884 followers. … Continue reading Such Tweeting Sorrow
Wall of Death: Way of Life. Pic: Peter Dibdin
First published in The Stage, March 18 2010
Now entering its fifth year, the National Theatre of Scotland has suffered considerable criticism in recent times through the press, with accusations that it is failing to fulfil its duty as a promote of Scottish theatrical tradition. Such vilification is misguided, argues Thom Dibdin, and in fact the NTS is abiding by the very principles it was founded upon.
There is a delicious irony about a theatre company founded on the principle of “theatre without walls”, marking its fourth anniversary with a piece called Wall of Death: Way of Life. It should have been the perfect peg around which to celebrate the National Theatre of Scotland’s many successes, and ponder on where it might be going next.
Yet, just as the National Theatre of Scotland has done that thing, a pernicious and niggling little attack on it and its management team has reared its ugly head in the Scottish press under the pretence of a debate over very nature of the company. It is an attack which has turned that irony sour.
Had the NTS under its dynamic artistic director and Chief Executive Vicky Featherstone become lost – heaven forfend – in some moribund mess, then such a question might well need to be addressed. It quite clearly has not. … Continue reading The Vicious Circle
Moby Dick takes the Pequad down - photograph by Robert Day
By Thom Dibdin
At the Traverse on Wednesday night, to see the very wonderful Spymonkey’s Moby Dick for a review in Friday’s Evening News, and it seemed that the place had been flash mobbed. Not only was the performance sold out but they were turning people away.
The full house certainly enjoyed themselves, with the laughter levels rising so high at the zany, physical comedy that the actors were in danger of losing control … Continue reading Of Whales, Goats and other Literary Officers…
Kerri Cameron on the wall of death. Photograph: Peter Dibdin
By Thom Dibdin
When you call your show the Wall of Death and open it on a Friday night in Glasgow, you’d have to expect the cast of Taggart to turn up en masse, on the lookout for a Murrderr.
In fact, nothing of the sort happened at the SECC last night – at least not a killing spree. Not even when the cast of River City trotted over the wibbly wobbly bridge from the BBC to join them for the first night of the latest production from the National Theatre of Scotland. … Continue reading Wall of Death or Way of Life?
By Thom Dibdin
Taking young C to see the Singing Kettle last week was a real eye-opener. It was the first time we’d gone alone to the theatre – without her mother – and I was slightly nervous about being able to take the whole show in without being distracted. … Continue reading Take your kids seats please…
By Thom Dibdin
Up to the Edinburgh Playhouse last night to have a quick chat with Connie Fisher for the Edinburgh Evening News, after she had come off stage from her professional Edinburgh debut in The Sound of Music.
Although I’d seen her on the BBC’s Maria programme, I’d forgotten until today that I had actually seen her on stage before – back in 2001 when … Continue reading Connie, Constance, Maria and Me
