EWAN CAMERON picks out two fascinating music shows, fusing the Korean, and the Celtic, with the modern
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‘Excruciatingly funny’
ANGUS REID recommends a show about a dysfunctional provincial theatre littered with infectious silliness
‘BITCHY CAST’: (L to R) Deirdre Davis, Meg Chaplin, Marc Small and Rachael McAllister
[Fraser Band]
BENJAMIN POTHIER suggests that Palaeolithic cave paintings in Spain point to the ceremonial use of hallucinogenic flora
The bard confirms that the right has a humour bypass, and replays the English Revolution on period instruments
MARIA DUARTE and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Sunny Dancer, Tony, Songs of Forgotten Trees, and The End of Oak Street
JOHN GREEN relishes a powerful and moving drama that explores the lived realities of west London’s Punjabi community
MARTIN HALL welcomes a plea for greater compassion between believer and non-believer via the framework of philosophical enquiry
Noises Off
Pitlochry Festival Theatre
THERE is an inexplicable plate of sardines in the centre of Michael Frayn’s farce, Noises Off.
No-one knows why they are there, or what they signify, and they keep getting forgotten, or dropped, or used as weapons as the show falls apart in the hands of a jaded provincial rep company.
There is also a telephone that comes apart from its handset like a cursed prop, a box of tax receipts and a blue BOAC travel bag. And a slippery contact lens. There are noisy stairs, ill-constructed doors and a group of sexual opportunists playing, well… a group of characters hoping to have it off in a tastelessly overblown country retreat.
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If you only see one show in Edinburgh, make it this one urges EWAN CAMERON
GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
ANGUS REID applauds the potential of an ambitious show about Gaza, and encourages it to keep its nerve
MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class