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Well, Broadway is also far from civilisation but that hasn't deterred theatregoers.

Picnic at Hanging Rock - Royal Lyceum

An Australian production rolls into Edinburgh for a show based on the book and film. Its cast with five females playing all of the roles and the stage has been reduced in size to heighten the tension. Its certainly different as it starts as a five person monologue, if that makes sense, until the girls go missing then it becomes the five actresses playing male and female characters as they depict scenes from the aftermath of the Picnic. Very well played by a young cast and certainly never dull at 80 min straight through with a nice scare in there as well to pep you up.

The only show I've ever seen where the Stage Manager got taken on stage to be part of the curtain call and very deservedly so. I cant explain why without spoiling the production. 8/10



Fisk - Traverse

A man stands despondent upon a small boat, is he about to kill himself? Matters are taken out of his hands when a talking fish jumps on board and proceeds to try and cheer him up.

Right then, he's clearly a metaphor for the sea and is upset about pollution (as shown by the oil tumours on his body) and various other slightly heavy handed hints during the course of the show and it’s the marine life that comes in to save him from despair to show him that even if mankind is horrible that the sea must never give up hope. In the end with the help of some gauze and a puppet baby the fish manages to ensure that the sea is reborn at the end.

It was never boring but this was a Fringe show masquerading as Theatre, with a run time of 50 minutes and 10 minutes at the start being spent with the man sitting with his hands in a bowl of water whilst crying as some sombre music plays in the background. It was OK but if you asked me whether or not you should go and see it then I'd probably say save your money. Of course in my eyes it was slightly flawed in that the fish character looked like uncannily like a Blakes 7 cast off.

6/10


Cuttin' A Rug - Citizens

Two years after their fundamentally flawed version of The Slab Boys (allowing the Director to cast his son in the lead was a major mistake) comes the Citizens production of the middle section of the Paisley trilogy by John Byrne.

With a new Director in place, Caroline Paterson formally of EastEnders, and a virtually new cast - only Scott Fletcher as Hector is retained from the previous production - this is a joyous, funny, miserable and sad piece.

Its the night of the works dance and Phil having just been sacked decides to have one last night out with his colleagues Spanky and Hector. Meanwhile Hector is in lust with Lucille but she has her sights set on better things and arrives with the University student who is working in the factory over the summer. Meanwhile two middle aged ladies deal with problems of their own, Sadie is upset that the boss has asked her clean his house whilst Miss Wilkinshaw is still tied to the apron strings of her 85 year old mother.

Over the course of the night relationships will be explored, speeches made, lights will go out, fights will take place and by the end of the piece someone will have a knife stuck in them. An earthy west coast humour ebbs through it and most will be able to recognise people from their workplace (the dreamer, the worrier, the fool and the social climber) and yet the laughs hide a dark undercurrent as one character is assaulted, ignored and eventually stabbed following what for them is a night from hell.

It was certainly overall a better production than the first of the prequel, being far lighter of touch and having a couple of characters who were harsh and abrasive first time round be more well rounded and interesting. I'm not sure if that's because of a change of director or if the script for this one is just a funnier piece.

John Byrne was also in attendance last night, sadly now looking every inch of his 77 years. A Scottish legend though and long may his slab boys paint the town red.

9/10

Judgement in Stone - Kings, Edinburgh


Its Bill Kenwright touring a Ruth Rendall adaptation having lost the rights to the Agatha Christie's - so its one set and a cast stuffed full of people you've probably already seen touring with other Kenwright shows. Couldn't see a thread for this one and I doubt many people will be rushing to see it so here we go.

Disposable fluff that has a cast giving its all, Sophie Ward playing against type as the downtrodden dowdy housekeeper and Deborah "Bergerac" Grant having a whale of a time playing to the Balcony as the local postmistress being the highlights of the names in the cast but it was the unheralded Rosie Thomson who impressed me the most as the jolly hockey sticks upper middle class mother.

Without any spoilers - two detectives meet up to interview the suspects to a multiple murder that took place five weeks previously. An entire family was gunned down in their own home, we then flashback over the last 9 months of their life's as we are shown the circumstances that lead to their deaths.

Now then whilst its all entertaining fun and the cast are clearly enjoying themselves (a nice bit of claret when we get to the shootings as well!) the one minor negative point that I do have is that or maybe its a and while that's not a problem in the general scheme of things it does mean that its just a bit too linear - if that makes sense in a show that's told in flashbacks.

Whodunit spoiler -

The lady behind me was also clearly a Blue fan as when Antony Costa made his entrance onto the stage I thought she was going to hyperventilate herself into a coma!!

If its coming your way its a nice way to spend 2 hours but you'll not really be missing out if you see something else instead.

7/10

Wow, that sounds like a busy weekend and one to look forward to, Phantom! Making me think I should raise my game, too, as I only do weekend breaks for leisure with my OH or sister, and think I'm doing well to include one theatre visit. Maybe the way to accommodate more is to go alone...

Dancing Bear, Dancing Bear (Gameshow) is recommended if you like fresh and intelligent performance.

The last showing of the tour is at mac, Birmingham on Fri 10 March.

Two men perform onstage while we, and they, experience a soundtrack, delivered by a woman, on our headphones.

The audience was meagre for this too, perhaps because it was so different from the usual theatre at Royal Welsh College.

Watching The Nether at Chapter in Cardiff tonight, the notion crossed my mind that someone sitting opposite me might be emicardiff. As the play continued, I became increasingly convinced of the likelihood of this possibility. It seemed spookily appropriate for a play about real and online identities. So, at the end, as we left the theatre, I bounded up to them.

- Excuse me, you're not Emily, are you?

- Wha'?

- Er, you're not Emily, are y'?

- Ah, no, No, No!!!

But was it really emicardiff? Or Parsley on holiday? Or mrslovettsmeatpie? Or ... ?

10. - Girl in the Machine - Traverse

The opening week of the world premiere run of the new play by Stef Smith.

Polly and Owen are a happily married couple until the new piece of must have Tech "Black Box" arrives, it makes it users feel euphoric and Polly soon becomes addicted to it. But what happens when people start dying because of the Box, does Polly love Owen enough to live without her fix?

From the above synopsis you can probably work out the whole show for yourself. Nothing really new here at all - if you've seen the relevant episodes of shows such as Red Dwarf and Star Trek : TNG then it does come across as very samey (and not better than life) but sadly without a cameo from Ron Pember.

It’s the tale of man loves woman, woman loves man but then technology comes along and ruins it for everyone and that's it really. The cast of two give it there all and you can believe in the relationship but as the entire play is set in their flat you don't get an adequate feeling of what's going on in the world outside - we hear about the first death from Black Box in Korea and then we sort of jump from that to society being on the verge of breakdown.

The stage was in the middle of the stage with seating on both sides and set within a shipping container (it’s a play in a box, see what they did there!!) that opens out to reveal the set and cast at the beginning and then closes up again at the end.

7/10 - enjoyable enough but nothing new.
Running until April 22nd.

Oh no! And I've only just noticed this! I promise it wasn't me!

I did however try and spot you from my balcony perch at Rent the other night! 

18 - Charlie Sonata - Lyceum (Edinburgh)



The last night of the World Premiere run of this new play.



Alcoholic Chick comes back to Scotland, somewhere its not specified, from London after the daughter of his best friend is injured in a car crash. Alongside a mentally disturbed ballerina who he meets in the hospital he sets out to save her life whilst learning some important lessons about his own.

This is all over the place - it cant decide if it’s a comedy or a drama and as such it falls between both stools and fails to satisfy as either. One minute Chick is playing off the comedy character of the ballerina in a little sidestep set in a childrens soft play world and the next minute he is unintelligible and rolling around the floor drunk whilst his friends ponder his alcoholism and wonder if they have led him to drink his life away but the transitions between pep and ponder don't work in this show. As soon as we get serious then on will come a character with flashing shoes or the discussion on alcoholism will be finished with several hundred soft play balls being launched at the stage. if this has any sort of life beyond this run then someone needs to decide if they want to do a comedy where the lead character is an alcoholic or a drama about an alcoholic hoping to save a young girls life as an act of redemption for his wasted life as on this showing it cant be both.

Other friend Jackson wrote a University dissertation on time (and its relation to Britpop) so all of a sudden a flashback to the writing of this dissertation means we are off into the past of Chick as we see how various past events have led to the current crisis BUT Chick appears to know he's having some time travel related shenanigans but also remembers that Jackson told him that whilst time travel is possible you cant change the past.

And how does Chick know - why through my host hated vice in theatre, the on stage Narrator who does nothing in relation to the other characters all play but instead stands there and TELLS US WHATS GOING ON!!!! If you need a narrator to do that then you need to take at least one more pass at the script as it clearly isn't putting across the intended message.

The costumed ballerina is annoying beyond belief - she isn't funny or even interesting, when it turns out she is preparing to kill herself if she loses custody of her daughter its hard to care for someone who is only a selection of annoying tics rather than a character in their own right.

Anyone who cant see the ending coming from several miles away shouldn't be allowed out on their own. A disappointing end to a fairly disappointing evening, there were 14 of us in the Upper Circle this evening - I now know why this hasn't been a major success.

A fundamentally flawed but with the odd good line and a nice scene on why you should get drunk on certain drinks 4/10

I echo The Bear 🐻

I would love if people posted threads about PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK or PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, etc.

21 War in America - Old Royal High School

In 1996 The Lyceum, under Kenny Ireland, rejected the play War in America by Jo Clifford deeming it to be "too offensive" to stage, 21 years later and Edinburghs The Attic Collective stage the world premiere of this long lost play.

And just to make things interesting, they are holding it in the debating chamber of the Old Royal High School - which was nice.

America is in another civil war, the Army of the Christian right have destroyed Hollywood and are threatening to detonate an atomic device in Manhattan. Meanwhile over here as unrest rises a challenger for the position of Prime Minister seeks the ultimate power whilst the Home Secretary is literally being shat on by a Romanian prostitute.

A battle of wills arises as the new Prime Minister and the Home Secretary fight for supremacy to see who actually runs the country and how the country is run - do we require an open honest government or in times of trouble do we need to be monitored and controlled?

Controversial, well any play that opens with an actress whipping out a fake penis and pissing into a bucket aint going to be Mary Poppins.

The main problem I have with this is that it isn't actually that offensive, yes we have a man being shat on and then having it washed off and yes we have three fake penises on show and yes it highlights aspects of bullying, sexism and racism in the political system but none of it is ground-breaking in terms of taboos.

Away from the controversy its a very prescient piece of writing - reflecting as it does the hopes and fears that we now have surrounding issues such as terrorism, untrustworthy politicians, media manipulation, the government poisoning the populace, immigration and gay marriage.

In this week of all weeks as the second half moves towards introducing the terrorist known as Starlight it was an uncomfortable reminder of real life to hear characters discuss how terrorism could be used to shift the political agenda and when we got to a scene where machine gun armed police storm the chamber it did just feel a bit too close to the bone.

The young cast of 16 were accomplished in what they were doing and certainly fitted The Attic Collective mission of being a "unique talent development initiative" and the only real criticism would be that there were too many hipster beards on show.

Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable show that essentially tells us that nothing has changed over the last 20 years. 8/10