Gateway New Writing Festival

02/11/26

The Studio at Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

It’s a fecund time for emerging playwrights as, hot on the heels of Saturday’s Trajectories by the Scottish Youth Theatre, comes The Gateway New Writing Festival, where six plays (still in development) will be shown over three evenings in the Festival Theatre’s studio. We’re here on opening night to see the first two.

In a Big Country by Ben Ramsay is an unnerving thriller set in a remote area of Scotland, where phone signals are mere phantoms and no one can hear you scream. Young couple James (Frederik Bang) and Maisie (Rachael Campbell) might be broke but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to celebrate their anniversary, so they’re exercising their right to roam and giving camping a go. Maybe a night under canvas will help to heal their troubled relationship? But they’ve reckoned without the overbearing landowner (Jamie Cowan), a strange, despotic man, who invites himself for a drink beside their campfire, armed with a knife and gun…

Directed by Rebecca Russel, Ramsey’s script bursts into life, with James and Maisie making a likeable and convincing couple. Bang and Campbell deliver sprightly, engaging performances, ensuring that we care about both characters, even as James’ insecurities bring out the worst in him. Posh weirdo Richard is perhaps less believably conceived, but Cowan imbues him with a suitably menacing presence, the tension ramping up as the couple’s dream of a romantic getaway slowly turns into a nightmare.

There are a few small issues that still need working out: the duo’s gullibility stretches credulity at times, and the ending is something of a damp squib. Nonetheless, In a Big Country has a lot going for it: the pace is kinetic and the atmosphere chilling. The couple’s problems serve as a microcosm, a commentary on wider social issues that affect us all. Ramsey is certainly one to watch.

Tonight’s second play, The Tide by Sophie Good, is a story of love and loss. Helen (Kirsten Maguire) and her husband, Grant (Paul Wilson), feel a strong attachment to their seaside town; it holds all of their memories. They had their first kiss in the local chippy and raised their little boy on sandcastles and ice-cream. Not that things are rosy any more: following an argument with his mum, their teenage son ran away and has now been missing for years, while coastal erosion means their clifftop cottage is in imminent danger of collapse. The council has issued an eviction notice, but how can Helen and Grant leave with Tom still unaccounted for? What if he comes back and can’t find them? And anyway, Grant doesn’t want to live in a ticky-tacky new-build. How will he distract himself without any repairs or renovations to do?

I love the premise of this piece: the symbolism of the crumbling home and the couple’s quiet desperation as they wait and wait for their son’s return. Under James Wood’s direction, their sadness is palpable, their fragile hopes almost unbearable.

There are places where the script could do with being pared back (the ‘partial sea view’ from the modern apartment is referenced too often, and we don’t always need words – such as ‘handcuffs’ – to tell us what is clearly visible). In addition, the exits and entrances slow down the pace; I think it would be better to keep the actors on stage throughout. For example, instead of playing to an empty stage, the recorded voices in the flashback would be more powerful if they were juxtaposed with the older iterations of Helen and Grant sadly muddling through their day. Niggles aside, The Tide has a lot of potential and I look forward to seeing more of Good’s work.

New writing festivals like Gateway are integral to the future of theatre, and it’s exciting to see what the next generation of playmakers has to offer. If you’re looking for something to do in the run up to Bonfire Night, why not take a chance on the next four plays (Stomach by Ben Kay, Dead People Don’t Have Data by Laura Tansley, ULTRAVIOLENCE! By Will Osbon and Steam by James Stedman)?

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Wicker

01/11/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Co-directed and written by Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson (from an original short story by Ursula Wills), Wicker takes place in a picturesque medieval village somewhere in England, judging by the accents, though it’s actually filmed in Hungary. This is a place where people don’t have names so much as professional labels and it’s clear from the outset that, in this village, marriage is the all-important institution, prized above all else. New brides happily don metal collars to signal their new status and obedience to their husbands – though few of them seem enraptured by the resulting relationships and many spend most of their time dreaming of escape.

Fisherwoman (Olivia Colman) lives alone in a ramshackle dwelling by the river. We learn little of her past but it’s clear from the outset that she’s the butt of every joke in her community, mostly because she smells of the commodity she sells. The haughty, imperious Tailor’s Wife (Elizabeth Debicki) seems to relish belittling Fisherwoman at every opportunity and, since Tailor (Nabhaan Rizwan) is so prosperous, most of the other women in the village follow his wife’s lead. Eventually, something in Fisherwoman snaps and she makes the arduous journey to the remote cabin of Basketmaker (Peter Dinklage). She hands him some coins and instructs him to ‘make her a husband.’ He calmly tells her to be at the chapel in one month’s time.

Sure enough, on the day in question, dressed in what passes for her Sunday best, Fisherwoman turns up to find her groom (Alexander Skarsgård) dutifully waiting for her. Skarsgård wears an extraordinary willow suit created by Weta Studios, which transforms him into something fantastic, while simultaneously allowing his distinctive features to shine through – a superb example of how practical effects can be the equal of anything CGI can achieve. Fisherwoman is initially unsure that she’s done the right thing. Her new amour tends to creak quite alarmingly but, from the marriage night onwards, he’s clearly determined to please her in any way he can and their lusty lovemaking ensures that their bed keeps breaking on a regular basis. Luckily Fisherwoman’s Husband is also quite handy with a hammer and nails.

But as the couple’s bond grows ever stronger, others watch with jealous eyes… and the gentlemen of the village are starting to feel that they’re being shown up as inferior to the wicker alternative.

Presented as a mix of folk tale and parable, Wicker is a truly enjoyable watch. Olivia Colman is always impressive and here she’s joined by a whole crowd of veteran actors, some of them in minor roles. Richard E Grant makes a brief but hilarious appearance as the village’s incompetent Doctor, while Phil Daniels is suitably rumbustious as Butcher, a man who believes that women are placed on this earth for one reason only. Debicki is quietly impressive as the villainess of the story, her lofty height cleverly exaggerated so that she’s literally looking down on all her neighbours – and Dinklage makes a fabulous job of the erudite Basketmaker, who has the ability to sum up everyone he encounters at a single glance.

While it’s undoubtedly little more than entertainment, Wicker is handsomely filmed by Lol Crawley and its various twists and turns keep me hooked throughout, right up to its wild conclusion. I’m amused to learn that some real-life basketmakers have expressed doubts about the techniques used in the Wicker Husband’s construction but, for me, the whole enterprise has been beautifully put together.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

Trajectories

31/10/26

Summerhall, Edinburgh

What better way to celebrate Hallowe’en than to take in four new plays by young writers? As ever, Summerhall is one of the few spaces left in the city that offers such an opportunity. The arts centre is currently under threat of being developed into yet more student accommodation, so please support their appeal to be allowed to continue doing what they do so well.

Trajectories is a presentation by Scottish Youth Theatre: four short one-act plays by early-career artists. In each case the writers also perform their pieces.

First up is The Banshee by Tsen Day-Beaver, which is presented in the Tech Cube. In a tiny flat somewhere in the city, a student, Selia, searches for a thesis question to sum up all her long years of research. But she’s haunted by a series of mystifying dreams and visits from an unknown entity, who seems to be trying to tell her something. Beaver performs the piece with absolute conviction and I love the fact that she provides no easy answers to the central mystery, but leaves it for the viewer to resolve. This is a promising start to proceedings.

After a quick reset, Sean Fullwood presents What We Lost in the Fire. It’s quite literally a campfire tale, with members of the audience invited to sit on crates around a glowing blaze as Fullwood recounts the story of Prometheus and Pandora from the point of view of Prometheus’s lesser-known brother, Epimetheus. The piece is nicely written but we are told rather than shown what happens – and, for those of us outwith the inner circle, there’s a frustrating distancing effect. I’m prompted to think that this piece might be ideally suited to an audio recording but it’s nonetheless an interesting experiment – and one that carries an important ecological subtext.

We move on to the Anatomy Lecture Theatre for the next two plays.

Bury the Soft Things by Cormac Myles is for us the standout piece of the afternoon, with shades of both Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery and Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers. A young man witnesses a homophobic attack in the sleepy Scottish town where he has lived all his life and, in shock, he takes to his heels – though he does manage to grab a packet of biscuits before he flees. Perched on a hilltop overlooking the town, he attempts to take stock of the situation – and begins to realise that the world in which he lives is not as straightforward as it seems. When he gets a phone call from his mother, things take a very sinister turn. Myles submits a compelling performance and there’s a powerful paranoid twist in the tale that delivers a real punch.

Another swift set-change and we’re ready for the final play, Good Night, Ros? by Amy Brennan-Clark, in which the life of a Glaswegian housewife interconnects with the misadventures of a Hollywood ingenue – the presence of the latter signalled by the donning of a pair of long red gloves. Brennan-Clark offers a perky performance in a variety of roles, though she gives herself a tough time my having to inhabit so many different characters (could she perhaps trim down Ros’s three children to just one?) but this concludes with a beautifully sung ballad that brings the showcase to a satisfying conclusion.

All in all Trajectories is a success and a rare opportunity to sample the talents of some new voices in Scottish theatre.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Kitchen Dancer

30/10/26

Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh

The Assembly Roxy’s Downstairs theatre has been reconfigured for tonight’s event. We arrive just ten minutes before curtain up but no one’s been admitted yet. We join the other audience members hanging around the bar area and try to avoid the urge to peep behind the black curtain that’s separating us from the stage.

Suddenly, writer-performer Skye Loneragan appears, dressed in gym leggings and clutching a yoga mat. She tells us to follow her and so we do – around the outside of the curtain into a temporary corridor. Here, she reveals that the mat is in fact a red carpet. “It’s for you,” she says, rolling it out. The word ‘gratitude’ is printed on it. She tells us all the things she’s grateful for.

And then the curtain is pulled aside, the red carpet moved (we don’t get to walk on it after all) and we’re led inside. The square-shaped performance space has a single row of seating around three of its sides, and a set comprising a cardboard concertina backdrop and a large rug with strange patterns cut out of it. I’m intrigued.

Directed by Stewart Ennis, the piece is part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, and its premise is quirky and engaging. The Olympic Games have added a new category, Coping Strategies, and SkyeC (an Australian) has been selected to represent Scotland. She’s a Registered Kitchen Dancer, who uses her untrained capers as a mechanism to help her deal with her problems. The trouble is, it doesn’t really seem to work… Like Shirley Valentine before her, SkyeC is reduced to talking to inanimate objects, although things have moved on since the 1980s, and – unlike Shirley’s wall – SkyeC’s Roomba can actually reply.

SkyeC has a lot to contend with. Her tiny, cramped flat is full to bursting. Her husband is working from home and must not be disturbed. Her mother is in another room, making querulous demands. There’s a daughter, who’ll need picking up from school shortly, and someone else (another relative?), who’s been sectioned and phones to plead with Skye to get them out. As if that weren’t already too much, there’s a film crew too, here to record Skye’s Kitchen Dancing routine.

She’s just hoping they don’t know about the online furore that’s led to her being cancelled…

There are a lot of interesting ideas here, but many of them feel under-explored. It’s all very scattershot and I can’t help feeling a more traditional story arc would improve things enormously, allowing the tension to build and the revelation about SkyeC’s cancellation to serve as a pay-off.

Apart from the narrow corridor to the mother’s room, I don’t really get a sense of the cramped space SkyeC performs in. She tells us about low ceilings and crawl spaces, but doesn’t realise them physically. In addition, the film crew seem to appear and disappear, so that I’m never fully convinced they’re actually there.

All in all, Kitchen Dancer has the kernel of a good idea but – in its current guise – it’s under-developed. I’d love to see a version of this where I feel fully immersed in SkyeC’s world and can really empathise with her situation.

3 stars

Susan Singfield

Primetime

30/10/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

If there’s a film actor out there having a more varied career than R-Patz, please feel free to point them out to me. Seemingly prepared to give just about anything a go, Pattison also appears to have developed a knack for making whatever role he performs utterly compelling – and Primetime is just the latest in a long line of successes. Here he plays Chris Hansen, the real-life presenter of a series of reality TV shows, and we join him in 2006, when his latest series, To Catch a Predator, is starting to develop a huge following.

The premise of the show is simple but problematic. Sexual predators are tracked down in online chat rooms by Xavier (Matthew Maher), who pretends to be a wayward teenager and eventually lures them to a location where they can meet up face-to-face. Baby-faced actors are hired to greet the targets when they arrive. The pedophiles walk in carrying booze and condoms and whatever else they’ve been encouraged to lay their hands on, unaware they are being filmed live.

Enter Hansen, clipboard in hand, to deliver a stern rebuke. When the suspects attempt to leave, cops are waiting to arrest them.

Dan Plum (Skylar Gisondo) is a young actor dreaming of success in Hollywood, so when he’s invited to try out for the series he sees it as a golden opportunity to earn the all-important union card that will grant him entry to the world of show business. Hansen recognises that ‘Decoy Dan’ will be a valuable asset to the show and goes out of his way to keep him on board, persuading him that TCAP is performing an important role, ridding the world of an ancient evil. Is Hansen grooming his new star?

Director Lance Oppenheim is best known for his documentaries – his upcoming You Can See Everything with Nathan Fielder is currently America’s hot ticket event – and in this feature debut, he works with cinematographer David Bolen to create a torrid, grimy world where ratings success means everything. Pattinson’s Hansen is a pompous narcissist, obsessed with outperforming Lost (the top rated TV show of its day), and he continually pushes his producer Andie (Merrit Weaver) to seek out ever-more lurid storylines to ensure that TCAP stays in pole position. Meanwhile, poor Dan goes along with it all but soon starts to realise that those dreams of making it as a ‘real’ actor are moving ever further beyond his reach.

As Hansen’s methods grow ever more ruthless, it starts to become clear there’s more than one type of villain – and a powerful climax in a gun-obsessed Texan town brings everything to its inevitable messy conclusion.

While it’s possibly too down-and-dirty to achieve big numbers at the box office, Primetime is a searing examination of the sickness at the heart of reality TV and asks some very pertinent questions about the people who create it. Unsurprisingly, the real Chris Hansen has expressed his displeasure with the film but it keeps me gripped from start to finish.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

1984

27/10/26

The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

George Orwell’s 1949 novel is embedded into our cultural landscape, its ideas spreading far beyond the confines of the page. In the seven decades since it was published, its terminology has become ubiquitous: thought police, doublethink, Room 101 – and, most famously, Big Brother, who always knows what we’re up to, thanks to surveillance devices installed in our homes.

What time did you get in last night? Your doorbell knows. Hey, Siri. Alexa! Are you listening?

Of course, this means that it is endlessly adaptable (and endlessly adapted), horribly applicable to almost every political regime. So what’s a theatre-maker to do if they want to offer a fresh perspective? In this instance, playwright Chris Hannan has opted for a framing device highlighting 1984‘s Scottish origins, as Orwell builds his dystopia from a bed in Glasgow’s Hairmyres Hospital, where he’s being treated for TB. It works well, binding the fictional world to the real one, reminding us how easily Oceania could become our actuality.

The first act is impressive. Jack Tarlton convinces as both Orwell and his protagonist, the world-weary Winston Smith. It’s a demanding job (the actor is in every scene) and he handles it with aplomb, engaging us in the two men’s inner struggles: Orwell coming to terms with his physical decline, and Winston trying to retain his sense of self in the face of ruthless authoritarianism.

Tom Piper’s imposing design creates an immediate sense of oppression, with metal bars and grating dominating the prison-like set, where silent guards patrol an upper mezzanine. When Winston and his co-conspirator, Julia (Jessica Hardwick), venture out into the forbidden countryside for a tryst, the naif-style roll-on scenery is over-bright and fake looking, accentuating the couple’s wilful delusion. They’re not fooling anyone except themselves; Big Brother is just biding his time.

Unfortunately, the second act is not as successful as the first. Once Winston and Julia have been apprehended for their transgressions, the storytelling becomes more fragmented and we are afforded less insight into their characters. Winston’s torture is shown in a series of vignettes which, although visually arresting, are punctuated by long blackouts, which soon become tiresome. What’s more, although I like the idea of gender-swapping O’Brien, I can’t help thinking Irene MacDougall has been miscast here, exuding neither menace nor authority.

Perhaps the most disappointing element is the Room 101 sequence. I share Winston’s phobia of rats and yet I’m not at all moved. The box on Winston’s face means that we can’t see his reactions, while Heather Scott’s video design – a strength of the production up to this point – is too understated here, the images of the rodents too dark and close-up to really make out.

The hospital scenes ameliorate things somewhat, with Robert Jack and Irene Allan convincing as Dr Dick and Nurse Rankine respectively. Director Dominic Hill creates a palpable sense of Orwell’s desperate situation in these moments, illuminating both subtle and not-so subtle links to the novel.

All in all, this co-production between Glasgow’s Citizens’ Theatre, Dundee Rep and Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum offers an interesting and uniquely Scottish take on a modern classic. Despite some mis-steps, it’s nonetheless well worth seeing, especially in these post-truth times.

3.6 stars

Susan Singfield

Wildwood

25/10/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

As someone who grew up watching the fantasy films of Ray Harryhausen, I’ve long had a soft spot for stop-frame animation – that slow, painstaking process where little model figures are shot and subtly manipulated one frame at a time until persistence of vision gives the semblance of actual motion. Wallace and Gromit? Yes, bring ’em on!

But the release of Laika Animation’s Coraline in 2009 announced the arrival of significant new players in the game. With each successive release, their abilities have grown ever-more sophisticated, ever-more assured until, with Wildwood, they have achieved something jaw-dropping: a fantasy adventure on such a scale that it feels at times as though it’s about to burst out of the screen – a film so full of urgency that it’s sobering to reflect that it represents sixteen years of work for its huge team of animators.

This contemporary tale is set in in Portland, Oregon (where Laika is actually based) and it’s the story of Prue McKeel (Peyton Elizabeth Lee), a truculent teenage girl who lives with her ex-hippie parents in a house on the edge of the titular forest, a place she’s expressly forbidden to visit. She’s often charged with looking after her baby brother, Mac, and is told to ensure that he “stays in the house.” But one day, with her parents away from home, she can’t resist the impulse to take him out on the back of her bike for a hair-raising ride around town – and we start to get a feel for the scope of the film as we see a pretty accurate representation of the Pacific Northwest’s coolest city. Along the way, Prue bumps into Curtis (Jacob Tremblay) a video-game enthusiast she has always dismissed as an annoying nerd. He insists on tagging along with the siblings when they go to visit a local playground.

It’s at this point that Mac is abducted by a huge flock of crows and carried off into the forbidden woods. Prue and Curtis have no other option than to follow in hot pursuit, and it’s here that they discover an entire world of talking animals…

And if, so far, this sounds like yet another Narnia-influenced tale, well don’t be misled. Wildwood has a dark, disturbing narrative and the film has a 12A certificate. Parents expecting a joyful Pixar-style experience should be warned that some younger viewers may find much of what’s on offer here quite unsettling. For example, the film begins with the suicide of a young boy – he’s the son of Alexandra, the dowager governess (voiced by Carey Mulligan), and the sequence provides the key to unlocking the adventure. What’s more, some later scenes involve a massive battle in the forest between the various factions that dwell there and some of the close combat is unapologetically savage in nature. So if you’re taking youngsters along, please ensure they can handle it.

What makes Wildwood stand head and shoulders above what’s gone before is its epic sense of scale. We are dazzled by incredibly realistic model work depicting vast landscapes, aerial views of towns and cities and labyrinthine underground lairs. And this time out, Laika, under the direction of Travis Knight, have used CGI to augment the traditional stop-frame. Where previously we could only have a limited number of animated figures in any particular shot, now there can be hundreds, thousands of them, each one rendered so perfectly that at times I feel that I can’t possibly be looking at beings built from modelling clay, but at real characters with movements and expressions as complex as anything in our world. (Anyone sitting near me during the screening I attended must have heard me gasping aloud every few minutes. Sorry, but I just couldn’t help myself.)

It’s been a long road to get to this point but I suspect that Laika have just set a new gold standard for stop motion. The film has a budget of a hundred million dollars and I don’t know what chance it has of ever earning earning back that investment, but all that dedication, initiative and experimentation is up there in every frame. I urge everyone reading this to go and see this incredible film at your earliest opportunity. The word ‘masterpiece’ can sometimes be overused but in this instance, I can’t think of a more appropriate word. I just wish Ray Harryhausen had lived long enough to see it.

Oh, and if you’d like a quick glimpse at how such wonders are achieved, stay in your seat for a little while as the credits roll.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

Thrice

24/10/26

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

“Thrice to thine, and thrice to mine, and thrice again, to make up nine. Peace! The charm’s wound up.”

Thrice is a visually compelling hour of dance theatre, set – according to Al Seed Productions – in the aftermath of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The king is dead; long live the witches!

Lina Limosani’s choreography is impeccable, the nine-strong ensemble moving with eerie precision, first in perfect unison, then spinning out of control. They writhe, they twist, they play – and they march. These women are moving from the margins and claiming centre stage.

Although there is no clear narrative, Judith Milligan has directed some arresting scenes. I like the repeated chanting of Lady Macbeth’s lines (“The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now?”), suggestive of the way that nursery rhymes often originate in response to turbulent times before being stripped of their context and transformed into children’s songs. The sequence where the witches re-enact Macbeth’s beheading is another highlight.

Set, lighting and sound design (courtesy of Frankie Collier-Prickett, Alberto Santos Bellido and Guy Veale respectively) are the keystones of this piece, creating a suitably weird environment for the witches to inhabit. The set comprises two huge tree-like sculptures, as well as a circular stone structure, which seems to symbolise both water well and burial cairn. All the while, the pulsing soundscape ebbs and flows from pretty birdsong to pulsing menace. It’s a compelling mix.

However, without the anchor of a story arc, this feels fragmented and untethered, too slippery for me to hold on to. It’s like the films they show in art galleries: cleverly conceived and fascinating to watch, but a little of it goes a long, long way. Some of the later sections overstay their welcome, particularly the one where the women perform a kind of never-ending progressive folk dance.

Despite these misgivings, the production has much to commend it – and I’d truly love to see these particular witches as part of a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

3.2 stars

Susan Singfield

Tenzing

23/10/26

Apple TV

When I was a young lad at primary school in the 1960s, my teachers were forever banging on about an event that had happened more than a decade earlier. A British expedition, we were proudly told, had ‘conquered’ Everest in 1953 and the first man to climb to its peak was called Edmund Hillary. There was no mention back then that Hillary was actually a New Zealander – and even fewer references were made of a certain Sherpa Tenzing, who had ‘accompanied’ him. The implication was that Tenzing was little more than a servant, someone who set up the equipment and made the meals – but of course he was much more than that, an equal climbing partner, whose skill and tenacity helped guide the expedition to success.

It’s shameful that it has taken over seventy years to set the record straight. This Apple Original film, written by Luke Davies and directed by Jennifer Peedom, offers a more truthful account of the historic climb and it has Tenzing Norgay (Genden Phuntsok) as its central character. We first meet him as a young boy (Sandrup Dorje Lama) staring up at the peak of ‘his’ mountain, Chomolungma (as it’s called in Tibetan) ,shortly before having an encounter with legendary climber, George Mallory (Johnny Flynn), a brief event which sets Tenzing on tbe long path to his eventual role in that 1953 triumph.

In between these two events, we witness Tenzing (now played by Tenzin Dalha) as he relentlessly goes about securing a place on successive expeditions, aided and abetted by his wife, Dawa (Thinley Lhamo) – but by the time he finally has the opportunity to embark on that eventful climb led by John Hunt (Willem Dafoe), he’s a widower with two young daughters. It’s on this climb that Tenzing meets and befriends Edmund Hillary (Tom Hiddleston).

The era has been faithfully recreated and, while the jaw-dropping climbing sequences were actually shot in New Zealand, you’d never know that it wasn’t Nepal. Of course, in a time when there are literally lines of people queuing up to ascend the infamous world’s highest mountain, it’s staggering to witness the gruelling nature of that fateful expedition and the ever-changing fortunes that determine who will be the duo chosen for the final ascent. The growing friendship between Tenzing and Hillary is nicely portrayed as we see the mutual admiration and respect the two men have for each other – and the film makes no attempt to disguise the unfair treatment that the Sherpas often received from their white employers.

Handsomely produced and occasionally downright thrilling, Tenzing hasn’t received much in the way of a theatrical release, but it’s right there on Apple TV whenever you’re in the mood for some vertiginous viewing.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Clayface

23/10/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

DC’s ever more frantic attempts to revive its ailing superhero franchise takes an interesting turn with that most unlikely of things, a comic book movie with an 18 certificate. While it’s still set in Gotham City (with Liverpool standing in on this occasion), there’s not a caped crusader in sight, and not so much as a glimpse of spandex. The film takes a minor character that originated in a detective comic in1940 (and which was later featured in a Batman animation) and makes him the star turn. Well, Todd Phillips’ Joker took a similar approach and that reaped big rewards at the box office, so worth a punt, yes?

Very much so. This is the most fun I’ve had with a DC film in a very long time – though I should perhaps add that I’m using the word ‘fun’ loosely. More squeamish viewers may find themselves traumatised.

Our titular villain first appears as Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries), a handsome young actor who (much like Harries himself ) appears to be on the verge of major stardom. All fired up after receiving an Oscar nomination, he heads off with his best friend, Corey (Joshua James), for a hedonistic weekend away and, on a disco dance floor, he encounters and romances Mia (Joana Ribeiro). But it turns out she’s the girlfriend of vicious crime boss, Markos (David Dencik), who takes a very dim view of this flirtation and, to teach Matt a lesson, decides to rearrange his face with a razor – a scene which pulls no punches.

Matt is snatched from the heights and plummeted into the depths of despair. With his handsome features mutilated, he loses his agent, Hildie (Nancy Carroll), and his manager, Frank (Eddie Marsan), in swift succession. Attempts at facial surgery are not successful. In desperation, Matt turns to Caitlyn Corr (Naomi Ackie), a scientist who has been working on a breakthrough nanite procedure which she believes can heal damaged skin cells. At first she’s reluctant to use her experimental techniques on Matt, but she can see that he’s desperate so, throwing caution to the wind, she starts some trials.

The first results are very encouraging, almost miraculous – but then Matt begins to realise that his new skin cells seem to react to his different moods. And when he’s angry…

With a screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini and astute direction by James Watkins, Clayface is compelling stuff. While it has no interest in exploring those comic book links, it does step confidently into the world of body horror. Some of the strongest sequences here recall the work of veteran directors like David Cronenberg and Brian Yuzna, utilising gnarly practical makeup effects and dollops of gore. An episode set in a public toilet on an airplane, which involves turbulence, fused eyelids and a pair of nail scissors, has me literally squirming in my seat.

As the story continues and Matt’s abilities develop to the point where he is able to replicate the features of other characters, I find I’m willing to overlook the fact that he can somehow also create perfect copies of their clothing (er, how, exactly?) because the twisty-turny sequences are so outrageous and so perfectly timed I barely have time to think about it.

A warning, though: that 18 certificate is there for a reason and it’s pushed to the limit.

4.3 stars

Philip Caveney