By Thom Dibdin
Billy Elliot the Musical is coming to Edinburgh with two productions of a shortened, youth version of the show being staged in April and June – and a further showcase of youth groups at the Royal Lyceum in June.
The Lothian Youth Arts & Musicals Company are staging the first production from April 20-24 at the Church Hill Theatre. The makers of the Edinburgh Gang Show are teaming up with the Manor School of Ballet and the Festival City Theatres Trust to stage their version at the Festival Theatre on June 4-5.
The productions and showcase are part of Billy Youth Theatre, a GB-wide event launched by the producers of Billy Elliot the Musical. … Continue reading Billy Youth Theatre comes to Edinburgh
Stephen Skrynka on the Wall of Death. Photograph: Peter Dibdin
By Thom Dibdin
Stephen Skrynka, the visual artist at the centre of the National Theatre of Scotland’s Wall of Death: A Way of Life has fulfilled a lifetime’s dream and ridden a motorbike onto the wall of death.
The show, which features [...]
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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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 Ken Fox on the wall of death. Photograph by Peter Dibdin Royal Highland Centre
By Thom Dibdin
Thrilling and theatrical, the National Theatre of Scotland’s latest piece of sight-specific theatre arrives at the Royal Highland Centre with the piece’s originator, Stephen Skrynka, finally succeeding in riding his motorbike up onto the lipped edge of the wooden wall of death.
Skrynka has achieved his lifelong ambition of riding up onto the vertical wall itself during private training with Ken Fox, owner of the wall of death side-show that lies at the heart of the production. In public, however, he is only prepared to ride up onto the 45 degree angled boards below the wall.
It is Skrynka’s rising to the challenge which makes … Continue reading Theatre Review – Wall of Death: A Way of Life
Winners of the SCDA One Act heats announced
Lighting designer Gordon Hughes wins Edinburgh Playhouse Spotlight Award
 Derek Blackwood, set builder for Leitheatre (Stage Right); Rosalind Becroft, director Leitheatre (Stage Right); adjudicator Alasdair Hawthorn; Ron Cattell, director St Serf's Players; Lynne Hurst, director Livingston Players. Photo: Jon Davey By Thom Dibdin
The Saint Serf’s Players, Livingston Players and Leitheatre ran out the winners at the Edinburgh and Lothians District heats of the Scottish Community Drama Association’s One Act Festival, held at St Serfs Halls last week.
… Continue reading Winter Winners from Edinburgh’s Amateurs
By Thom Dibdin
There’s a pervasive darkness to Edinburgh’s stages this week. Not dark in the traditional theatrical sense of shut theatres, but dark in the sense of calamitous events holding their own in the background. The Lyceum’s early McDonagh, both the Traverse’s new works and even Wilde’s melodrama at the Kings all carry a sense of mortality – albeit one that is spun with differing levels of comedy. On a rather different level, there’s a darkness in the background to Footloose, which EMT are staging at the Church Hill, and children’s show Pobby and Dingan at the Brunton, while thrill-seekers will understand where the NTS’s Wall of Death: Way of Life fits in here, too. The only show not quite keeping in with this increasingly forced theme is Carol Smillie’s new production at the Festival Theatre.
… Continue reading Preview for the week: 22 – 28 February, 2010
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 Kate Dickie in What We Know - photo by Richard Campbell Traverse Theatre
By Thom Dibdin
Warm, honest and beguiling, Pamela Carter’s new play for the Traverse Too strand of experimental productions is also a sharply brutal affair that is capable of leaving its audience utterly dumbfounded.
It all passes through the eating of a meal. Simple, lovingly-created food which, in its consumption with all the formal rituals of dinner-party etiquette, both creates a bonding and exposes the differences between those gathered to eat it.
This is, from the outset, astoundingly mundane. Yet in her recreation of a slice of Friday night-in, Carter’s twists and turns succeed in saying something profound about loss and self – and the way in which those who build their lives together are capable of fusing their identities to the point where neither is visible any more. Something which you could never quite put into words or say out loud. … Continue reading Theatre Review – What We Know
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 Woman in Black publicity shot - Photo by Robert Day By Thom Dibdin
King’s Theatre
Delightfully spine-tingling and leaving a frisson of dread, the stage adaptation of Susan Hill’s novel which tours to the King’s this week, continues to provide the necessary nervous laughs and involuntary shrieks.
Which is no mean feat, given that this production was first performed just over 21 years ago, is still showing in London’s West End and has toured to the King’s several times in the intervening years. Indeed, on a second viewing a decade after first seeing it here, its power remains. … Continue reading Theatre Review – The Woman in Black
By Thom Dibdin
Edinburgh’s stages are choca-block this week with ten different musical, theatre and dance productions hitting town. There’s the first performance at a new venue as Tempo get down at Broughton High School and a completely one-off venue out at Ingliston as the National Theatre of Scotland bring round their Wall of Death. Touring productions arrive at the Kings and Festival; the Traverse and Lyceum have new productions opening; there are one night-stands for dance at the Brunton and Traverse; and its the one act festival at St Serfs at the end of the week. Oh, and Maria is getting high on her hill for one final week at the Playhouse. … Continue reading Preview for the week: 15 – 21 February, 2010
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By Thom Dibdin
Traverse
IT’S laughter all the way at the Traverse this week, as physical theatre company Spymonkey take on one of the great American novels and twist its vast, symbol-laden narrative into a brief encounter with slapstick.
There’s no doubting the audacity of Spymonkey in even thinking [...]
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