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Theatre
PREVIEW REVIVAL STONES IN HIS POCKETS Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Thu 5–Sat 21 Jul
Marie Jones may be one of Ireland’s most lauded living playwrights, but her works remain underperformed in the UK. In fact, Stones in His Pockets – which won Olivier and Tony Awards in 2001 – has never had a Scottish production. But thanks to the enthusiasm of Tron artistic director Andy Arnold, that will be rectified in July. ‘It fits in perfectly with our desire to stage more comedic pieces in the summer,’ explains Arnold, who also directs the play. ‘I love Irish theatre as well of course, and Marie Jones is a brilliant writer. I just feel it’s the type of play we can do particularly well if we get our actors involved.’
The play focuses on a rural community in County
Kerry, which is chosen as a filming location for a Hollywood movie that seeks to portray a deeply romanticised version of Ireland.
Everyone, from movie stars to local villagers, is played by just two actors – here, Robbie Jack and Keith Fleming, who starred in the Tron’s pantomime Mister Merlin last Christmas.
‘It’s a great challenge,’ admits Arnold. ‘I’ve
never quite done a piece of theatre like it, where it’s going from one character to another at such a speed, yet making sure we take the audience along so they know exactly who they are at every moment. It’s very cleverly done. Robbie and Keith work brilliantly together so that’ll bring a lot to it.’
As will Arnold’s evident passion for the piece. ‘What’s beautiful about it,’ he says, ‘and it’s in the best plays always, is that you have a wonderful balance of tremendous humour – it is very funny – with very sad, poignant moments. It is as sad a piece as it is a funny piece, and that’s juxtaposed very cleverly. It’s very well done.’ (Yasmin Sulaiman)
REVIEW MUSICAL OLIVER! Edinburgh Playhouse until Sat 23 Jun ●●●●●
Lionel Bart’s musical phenomenon was always Dickens-lite, the composer jettisoning much of the source novel’s gritty social commentary and satire in favour of a slightly cloying ‘lor’ love us’ attitude. In its opening scenes at least, Cameron Mackintosh’s revival does have something of the high-class panto about it, the misery and horror of Oliver’s predicament in the workhouse, and as apprentice to the undertaker, trivialised by too much onstage mugging and repetitive jokes, not to mention a frantic pace that will leave even the mightiest of attention spans reeling.
The show gets into its stride when our hero arrives in London, with Totie Driver and Adrian Vaux’s multi-layered set weaving in and out of Matthew Bourne’s crisp choreography. Brian Conley provides some much-needed depth as Fagin, projecting a mix of warmth and sadness beneath the villain’s sinister façade. Major song-and-dance numbers such as ‘Consider Yourself’, which at times involve 30 members of the ensemble, are impressively staged. And, if the titular orphan is rather insipid, there are moments of darkness, embodied in the tragic relationship between Nancy (a striking Cat Simmons) and rotten Bill Sykes (Iain Fletcher). (Allan Radcliffe)
PREVIEW DANCE/MUSIC SHOWCASE PILRIG PARK SCHOOL: THE AMERICAN DREAM Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Tue 26 Jun REVIEW CLASSIC MACBETH Tramway, Glasgow, until Sat 30 Jun ●●●●●
From the costumes to the choreography, there’s not a single aspect of Pilrig Park’s annual showcase that pupils don’t have a hand in. Largely because, unlike other schools where drama and dance are tag-ons, at Pilrig, the arts are embedded into everything they do. Home to 80 pupils aged 11–18, Pilrig Park (and in particular, inspirational head teacher, Ellen Muir) has found a way to teach numeracy and literacy in a creative way. So when it comes to staging their annual Festival Theatre production, all the skills required for creating a great show are already in place – including their own critics. ‘The children really demand quality of each other,’
says Muir. ‘They understand that they’re on a big stage with a big audience, and they’re good at giving a critique of the piece.’ This year, the focus is the United States, with pupils
looking at American street culture, Disneyland, patriotism and Hurricane Katrina amongst other things. Catering for children with moderate to complex learning needs, Pilrig Park is often labelled a ‘special school’. Which it really is – but for a whole other reason. (Kelly Apter)
Alan Cumming’s celebrity status and many sidelines, including as a novelist and campaigner, sometimes threaten to eclipse the fact that he’s an incredibly versatile actor. There aren’t many other stars with the courage, energy and charisma to pull off this (nearly) one-man version of Shakespeare’s Scottish play. But Cumming manages it, with a mesmerising performance that at times makes you forget he’s the only person on stage. John Tiffany and Andrew Goldberg’s production
employs simple motifs (an apple, a doll, water, a towel), as well as screens suspended above the stage showing scratchy footage of Cumming shot from different angles, to differentiate between characters. While not all of the shifts work, with a lack of clarity applied to some peripheral characters and scenes, the setting – a vast tiled space that recalls a crumbling 19th century madhouse – makes a chilling backdrop to the actor’s shape-shifting as well as the bard’s meditations on the nature of psychosis. Cumming is stunning, by turns commanding, fragile, grotesque, and in the role of the tyrant king, finding a disarming balance of vulnerability and menace. (Allan Radcliffe)
21 Jun–19 Jul 2012 THE LIST 113
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