ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
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The lost horizons of adolescence
ANGUS REID applauds the portrait of two women in a lyrical and compassionate study of sex, shame and nostalgia
Jess Hardwick and Shauna MacDonald in David Greig's Two Sisters
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JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
MICK McSHANE rubs shoulders with Mod legend Steve Craddock and joins in with the joyous Glasgow choir
DENNIS BROE sifts out the ideological bias of the newest TV series offerings, and picks out what to see, and what to avoid
Two Sisters
Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
THERE is a moment in David Grieg’s new play about nostalgia for the lost horizons of adolescence when the three adult characters, having partied themselves to oblivion, are gently laid to sleep like Bunraku puppets by a chorus of attentive teenagers. It is an unexpectedly moving piece of stagecraft that emphasises Grieg’s theme: that the adolescent, and the memory of adolescence, manipulates the adult.
Emma (Jess Hardwick) a smug and pregnant lawyer, has rented a caravan at the holiday park in Fife where the family once spent summers. She wants to write a novel. Her older sister (Shauna MacDonald) has been caught shagging the plumber and is taking time out from her marriage and kids. And the hippy hunk Lance (Erik Olson) who spun the discs decades before is still there as handyman and DJ.
Thus begins a gentle dance of recognition, rivalry and regret.
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