MARIA DUARTE recommends a remarkable study of the friendship between a Palestinian and a Pakistani, broken by a hostile state
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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]
MATTHEW HAWKINS rakes through un-fancy words and flair-free summaries to find who and what might be flamboyant
PETER MASON is exhilarated by an exciting, well-considered and historically minded tribute to the great Trinidadian instrument
Reducing historical lives to ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles, we lose the nuance of those lives and a clearer understanding of past societies, suggests CLAIRE ISABELLA GILMOUR
CHRIS SEARLE relishes the genius of pianist Alexander Hawkins, his many ensembles, and his new album
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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GORDON PARSONS appreciates fine performances and a feel for ambiguity, but misses the music of the dialogue
MARIA DUARTE, JAMES WALSH and ANDY HEDGECOCK review The Invite, My Father’s Island, Nirvanna: the Band, the Show, the Movie, and Oh My Goodness!
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