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Review: Dorian Gray

King’s Theatre, Edinburgh

It’s no surprise Matthew Bourne picked Edinburgh and its International Festival to launch what will likely be another of his bestselling ‘dancicals’. Sixteen years ago in the very same King’s Theatre his production of The Nutcracker had its premiere and signalled the beginning of a meteoric rise that would propel him to worldwide success. Read more

Review: The Bird & The Bee – The Bee

Underbelly

The Bee, whilst just half of The Bird and the Bee at the Smirnoff Underbelly, is not noticeably so. Each play having been written by different writers means that you get, in effect, two different stories and two different perspectives. Read more

Review: 365

Edinburgh Playhouse (EIF)

Writer David Harrower spoke in an interview a month or so prior to this production about how most of the script was still unwritten at that time, as the truths being brought out by the young actors made most of his work seem out of touch with reality. Certainly, it is a frighteningly difficult task to try and encompass the varied experiences of the many teenagers in care in Scotland today in a balanced and yet dramatically interesting way, but the resulting collection of stories, abruptly-told tales of lost and confused youths making their first steps into the outside world, seems as if it could have benefited from a longer writing period. Read more

Review: Mathilde

George St Theatre (venue 37)

There aren’t enough musicals about depression, disappointment and loneliness. Or maybe there are, but they aren’t commercial enough for a full run. Perhaps that’s why Connor Mitchell’s ravishing new piece, loosely based on a de Maupassant short story, is only on for four shows in concert. I want to see a full production now – but I also left deeply satisfied by this semi-staged offering. Read more

Review: Class Enemy

Royal Lyceum Theatre (EIF)

In adapting Nigel Williams’ incendiary 1970s classroom drama, director Haris Pašoviæ has sought to express the often-unheard voice of a disaffected and violent youth, which is given especial relevance in the remnants of the war-scarred Balkans. Read more

Review: Dark Grumblings

Underbelly

Parody is hard to do well, there being such a fine line between intelligently toying with the conventions of a genre and merely becoming a weaker, sillier version of the very material which is supposedly being spoofed. Dark Grumblings quite clearly falls on the latter side of this fence. Read more

Review: Carl Hiaasen’s Lucky You

Assembly @ Assembly Hall

A spirited attempt to bring best-selling US novelist Carl Hiaasen’s book to the stage, Lucky You is halfway between a Tarantino-style American social horror story and a simple morality tale. The play’s aim is admirable: to bring gritty social realism to the stage. However the fragmented distortion of the plot blurs its messages. Read more

Review: Greenstick Boy

Assembly @ George Street

Maggie Cronin’s Greenstick Boy takes the form of a narrated love letter to a soul mate tragically addicted to heroin, uncovering long-buried memories and confessing her true feelings. This personal journey, performed by Cronin, has all the makings of a bittersweet love story but there is an unnecessary weightiness to the delivery that is ultimately unconvincing. One would expect the author to have a real command of her own words and actions, but there is an inexplicable distance between the two. Read more

Review: Funk It Up About Nothin’

Musical Theatre @ George Square

Dope, fly, sweet, wild – even the most extensive rapper’s vocabulary would lack the superlatives to sufficiently describe the sheer ball-busting kick-assitude of this magnificent production. The self-titled ‘ad-RAP-tation’ of D’Bard’s classic comedy, Funk It Up (from the team who set the precedent with The Bomb-itty of Errors) does more than what it says on the tin. It pours it out, shakes it up and serves it up in style. Read more

Review: George Orwell’s Coming Up For Air

Assembly @ George Street

I have to admit I don’t usually like watching monologues, and more often than not find my own self-indulgent ramblings more interesting than the action on stage. However, George Orwell’s Coming Up For Air at the Assembly Rooms proves itself a shining exception. Read more

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