THEATRE | Previews & Reviews
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REVIEW NEW PLAY THE ARTIST MAN AND THE MOTHER WOMAN Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, until Fri 17 Nov ●●●●●
At first glance this new play from Elgin-born dramatist Morna Pearson resembles a treatment for a grotesque sitcom. Geoffrey Buncher (Garry Collins) alternates between his job as an art teacher and a claustrophobic home-life with his mother, Edie (Anne Lacey), who has so infantilised her son that he still runs to her in the night for a spooning. After reading that his is one of the top ten sexiest professions, Geoffrey wonders if getting a girlfriend will help alleviate the bullying he suffers at school, and, following a couple of false starts, meets kooky, lonely Clara (Molly Innes) – much to his mother’s distaste. The opening scenes of Pearson’s play are an odd mix of domestic comedy and crude double-entendres that appear to have wandered in from a Carry On film. Orla O’Loughlin’s production is further hampered by an inelegant set that rumbles back and forward between scenes, though the unevenness of tone is leavened by the overall richness of Pearson’s dialogue, which is infused with an understated Doric. However, just as the play is settling in as an enjoyable enough, if heavily caricatured, black comedy, the plot does an abrupt volte-face that takes it into tabloid territory, and the sensational ending, when it comes, feels less tragic than a sign that the plot has run out of steam. (Allan Radcliffe)
REVIEW ADAPTATION THE LADYKILLERS Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Mon 19–Sat 24 Nov. Seen at King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, Tue 6 Nov ●●●●●
It was a wise move of Graham Linehan’s to retain the period setting for his stage version of The Ladykillers. That way he could focus on filling it with more gags than the classic Ealing black comedy contained when it was released in 1955. And after a slightly sluggish first half, he more than succeeds as the play races towards its heady conclusion, with the gang of thieves being whittled down as their aim to kill off a gentle old lady who has rumbled their plan backfires spectacularly. A uniformly excellent cast (including Michelle Dotrice as the
law-abiding Mrs Wilberforce and Paul Bown as the sinister ‘Professor’) are lodged into the action by Sean Foley’s inventive production featuring a lopsided house, which swings round to throw us onto a precarious ledge or deep into a steam-filled railway tunnel. Only a heavy rotation physical gag and Shaun Williamson’s
dubious Romanian accent ring false notes in a piece which proves that you can put a classic movie onto the stage with success by retaining its spirit and simply giving it a shake. (Brian Donaldson)
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PREVIEW SEASON FUELFEST Tramway, Glasgow, Tue 20–Sun 25 Nov
Since 2004, theatre company Fuel has worked with a range of artists – from the exiled Belarus Free Theatre to Perrier Award winner Will Adamsdale – to produce challenging and exciting theatre for global audiences. And in 2012, the company has brought together a range of their current shows to create Fuelfest, which began in Liverpool in March and takes up residence at Tramway in November.
‘We work with a really exciting range of different artists and have a number of shows available to tour at any one time,’ says Fuel producer Christina Elliot. ‘The idea behind Fuelfest was to take these shows to a venue and group them under a festival banner so audiences can make the link between shows, and hopefully come and see something they might not otherwise have chosen.’ Fuelfest’s programme includes three plays: Ring, by Shunt co-founder David Rosenberg,
Make Better Please by Lewis Gibson and Uninvited Guests, and Black T-Shirt Collection by Inua Ellams. There are also two digital installations, two sheds from The Simple Things in Life – the site specific work first performed at Edinburgh’s Botanic Gardens in 2011 – and even a launch party featuring DJ Miaox Miaox. The company plan to tour Fuelfest – it’s already slated for Bristol’s Old Vic in Spring 2013 – to open up new audiences for Fuel’s work across the country. And Elliot is excited to see how audiences in Glasgow will react. ‘It’s not just a series of shows in theatres,’ she explains. ‘Ring is an experience that takes place in complete darkness, and the audience listens to what’s happening on headphones. Make Better Please is an unusual example of audience participation in that it’s about news stories that have been chosen by the audience members. Hopefully anyone who’s interested in new theatre will have a really good time.’ (Yasmin Sulaiman)
REVIEW CLASSIC A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh, until Sat 17 Nov ●●●●● Vanishing Point artistic director Matthew Lenton has come up with a wonderfully cheeky conceit for his first ever Shakespeare production, zeroing in on Titania’s reference to a world that ‘now knows not which is which’ to relocate the Bard’s heady comedy in a wintry landscape. This ramps up the sense of a topsy-turvy reality to create a kind of sexually- charged Narnia where the intoxicated characters must now battle the elements as well as their own confused passions.
Kai Fischer’s stylised forest set and Mark Melville’s stark, sci-fi soundscape further enhance the sense of an off-kilter universe, while the framing device of Bottom drowsing off into reverie while tending to his sick wife adds dignity and depth to the character, which actor Jordan Young rises to in a compelling performance. The only jarring note comes from the treatment of the four young lovers, who are over-choreographed at the expense of the language. Their busy onstage antics are amusing in parts but ultimately have an alienating effect. They’re eclipsed by other strong elements, most notably the kinship and repartee between the rude mechanicals, which culminates in a laugh-out-loud, X-Factor-style rendition of Pyramus and Thisbe. (Allan Radcliffe) 104 THE LIST 15 Nov–13 Dec 2012