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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
By Thom Dibdin
 Brian Ferguson and Nicola Jo Cully in the Traverse' multi-nominated The Dark Things Photo credit: Richard Campbell Edinburgh’s theatres and production companies have made a strong showing in the shortlist for this year’s Critics Awards for the Theatre in Scotland, picking up 15 of the 40 possible nominations, in 8 of the 10 categories.
Leading the field is the Traverse, with six nominations for last Autumn’s The Dark Things, three for the recent The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?, and a single nomination for Orphans, the co-production with Birmingham Rep, in association with Paines Plough at last year’s Fringe.
The Royal Lyceum has to make do with only two nominations, for The Beauty Queen of Leenane and The Beggar’s Opera. Huxley’s Lab, the co-production between Lung Ha’s and Grid Iron, Pobby and Dingan by Catherine Wheels and Testament of Cresseid from the Edinburgh International Festival all receive a nomination each. … Continue reading Cream of Edinburgh’s theatrical talent top CATS nominations
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 - 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 [...]
 Elevator Repair Service's The Sun Also Rises Photo: Mark Barton By Thom Dibdin
This year’s Edinburgh International Festival brings the New World to Edinburgh’s old stages, with a programme that Festival Director Jonathan Mills described as a festival about sensuality, texture and flamboyance.
“There are very important and serious messages imbedded in it, to be sure,” he said in his announcement of the programme at the Hub yesterday. “But it is a riot of colour, it is an enormous amount of fun.”
“This year the Festival takes us on a journey around the contemporary cultures of the Americas and Australasia,” according to the Australian-born Mills. “We have shifted our centre of gravity from Europe towards these intriguing and complex continents. As these diverse cultures, separated by vast oceans, converge in Edinburgh, I hope you will join us to celebrate the synergies and revelations they offer.” … Continue reading EIF Launches New World onto Edinburgh’s stages
By Thom Dibdin
Things are looking a little brighter on Edinburgh’s stages this week with a spot of hot football action down at the Bongo Club, always a great venue for fringe shows, TV’s Dinnerladies making their stage transfer up at the King’s, a quartet of classical ballets coming to the Playhouse and the new season of Play Pie and a Pint opening at the Traverse with Heaven. Elsewhere at the Traverse, Pobby and Dingan arrives for a short run, while the Lyceum continues with the brutal, dark Beauty Queen of Leenane. The Brunton welcomes one-night stands by Lotty’s War and dance piece One Up One Down, while the opera, Cunning Little Vixen continues at the Pleasance. … Continue reading Preview for the week: 1 – 7 March, 2010
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
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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
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
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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