Edinburgh

No Love Songs

31/10/24

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

No Love Songs is a sweetly bleak piece of gig theatre, at once an unflinching exploration of post-natal depression and a testimony to the power of, well, love.

With music by The View’s frontman, Kyle Falconer – lifted from his solo album, No Love Songs for Laura – the book comes courtesy of the titular Laura (Wilde), his partner, and Johnny McKnight and is based on their real-life experiences.

Jessie (John McLarnon) is a musician. Sure, he’s mostly playing weddings and sweaty Dundee dive bars, but he has big dreams. Lana (Anna Russell-Martin), newly arrived in town to embark on a fashion course at the college, is full of creative ambition too. Together, they think, they can take on the world. When Lana becomes pregnant, they’re excited about their shared future.

But reality can be a bitch, and Lana – like one in five new mothers – struggles with post-natal depression. In a master-stroke of bad timing, Jessie is offered a big break: the chance to go on tour in America. Not only is this important for his musical career, it’s also an opportunity for him to earn some proper money for his family. If all goes well, they might even be able to buy a house.

“You have to go,” says Lana. It’s only a couple of months, right? She’ll be fine.

But Lana is not fine and a gulf opens up between the pair, as Jessie embraces his new life while Lana spirals into despair. What’s wrong with her? Why isn’t she ‘yummy’ like all the other mummies out there? She’s humiliated by her failure.

Jessie’s role as a musician means that the songs fit seamlessly into this play, with the conceit that we are witness to their creation: they are being written in response to the events as they unfurl. There’s a wide variety of styles, ranging from poppy to plaintive, and there’s some real emotional heft here too. I’m not much of a crier, but there are definitely tears in my eyes at moments tonight.

Directors Andrew Panton and Tashi Gore create a gentle, natural tone: there’s a relaxed ease between McLarnon and Russell-Martin that makes them convince as a couple. It could be argued that their obvious affection undermines the tension, suggesting from the start that everything is going to be okay. But I don’t mind that: the subject matter is so dark that it helps to know that there is a glimmer of light on the horizon.

As heart-warming as it is heart-wrenching, No Love Songs is – despite its title – a lyrical musing on the very notion of love.

4.4 stars

Susan Singfield

A Streetcar Named Desire

26/10/24

Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

It’s sometimes hard to believe that Tennessee Williams’ A Street Car Named Desire was first performed in 1947. This powerful mixture of one man’s toxic masculinity overpowering a woman’s fragile mental condition feels somehow utterly contemporary in its telling, and this perfectly-pitched adaptation by Pitlochry Festival Theatre is compelling in every scene.

Stella (Nalini Chetty) and Stanley Kowalski (Matthew Trevannion) live in a cramped, two-room apartment in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Stella is pregnant and she’s understandably taken aback when her older sister, high school teacher Blanche DuBois (Kirsty Stuart), arrives unexpectedly, lugging a massive trunk and lacking the necessary funds to pay for a hotel room. Blanche announces that, after the death of their mother, the family plantation, Belle Reve, has been ‘lost to creditors,’ and Blanche has nowhere else to turn.

Stanley is immediately suspicious about Blanche’s rambling explanation for her presence, particularly when he hears about the loss of the DuBois family property, which he has always believed he is owed a share of. When Blanche begins a tentative romance with his card-playing buddy, Mitch (Keith Macpherson), he determines to do a little snooping…

Stuart is superb in the role of Blanche, nailing the woman’s ever-shifting moods with consummate skill, one moment critical and demanding, the next coquettish and playful. Sound designer Pippa Murphy adds to her disturbed moods by overlaying scratchy soundscapes as Blanche is haunted by something terrible that happened in her youth. As the loathsome Stanley, Trevannion has a field day, strutting and bellowing around the cramped environment like a rooster, asserting his dominance over everyone who has the bad fortune to come into pecking distance. Chetty, meanwhile, navigates the turbulent waters between Blanche and Stanley, seemingly unable (and unwilling) to resist her husband’s rapacious demands. No matter how many times he attacks her, she always goes back for more.

Designer Emily James has chosen to situate the Kowalski apartment on a huge turntable and this is a masterstroke. As it rumbles around, presenting different views of both the interior and exterior of the apartment, it increasingly resembles a deranged carousel with the players caught in its unhealthy embrace, unable to get off the ride until it arrives at its ghastly destination. Director Elizabeth Newman eschews the victim-blaming that so often blights interpretations of this play and turns up the heat on the sweaty, malevolent scenario, so that the play’s final half makes intense, disturbing viewing. Those who are triggered by scenes of sexual violence should be warned that there are some challenging moments here, but for me, it’s like passing a car wreck on the motorway – I cannot tear my gaze away.

If you’re thinking, ‘Well, I’ve seen this play before,’ perhaps you should think again. This is a mesmerising slice of theatre, that feels as important now as it ever did.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

Arán & Im

25/10/24

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Although the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis – a theory of linguistic relativity, suggesting that the language a person speaks influences how they think about reality – is somewhat out of fashion these days, writer-performer Manchán Magan mounts a convincing argument in its favour. Arán & Im is Irish for bread and butter and it’s the perfect name for this gentle hybrid of a show/lecture. The titular items baked, churned and eaten during the seventy-five minute running time symbolise the words we use: they’re essential, elemental; the basic “bread and butter” of our lives.

About half of the show is in Irish, but you don’t need any prior knowledge of the language to follow what’s happening. Magan is an experienced guide, switching between Irish and English, explaining the myriad meanings behind key words and expressions. He’s clearly fascinated by the way language connects us to our histories and our lands, our mythologies and beliefs. He asks questions of the Scottish Gaelic speakers in the audience (including a whole row of enthusiastic high school students) and delights in the similarities and patterns he observes.

There’s a lot here about not losing sight of our roots, about maintaining our understanding of the fundamental aspects of life – how to make our own bread and butter, if you will. If there’s an issue, it’s that there are so many words. The breaking of bread helps, as does the conversational tone, but there are times when I’d like more visual clues to anchor me: I’d like to be able to read the words being discussed, or to see the constellation maps being described. Admittedly, any obvious tech would be jarring and intrusive: the carefully homespun nature of the piece would come unravelled, so I don’t know what the answer is. But there are moments when I’m overwhelmed by the amount of information and need a different way to absorb it all.

Still, I find the premise fascinating. I grew up in Wales and, although I’m not a Welsh speaker, I’m still steeped in the language. The hymns I know are all in Welsh, because that’s what we sang in primary school. There are certain expressions that always come to me in Welsh before English: dewch i mewn (come in); dwylo i fyny (hands up); ga i fynd i’r toiled os gwelwch yn dda? (can I go to the toilet, please?). This show speaks to me. Language is integral to who we are.

And if nothing else, Arán & Im is surely the most aromatic piece of performance art you’re ever likely to witness.

3.5 stars

Susan Singfield

Detained

22/10/24

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

In a week when the Home Office has found the time to issue the fictional Paddington Bear with an official passport, it’s sobering to be faced with a stark reminder of the realities of the UK immigration system and the human lives caught up in it.

Playwright Michelle Chantelle Hopewell’s professional debut has a strong premise, exploring the uneven power dynamic between two friends, where a single impulsive moment of spite has a profound and devastating impact.

South African asylum seeker Yemi (Titana Muthui) is incarcerated in a detention centre, and she’s appalled to learn that she’s there because of her best friend, Bea (Laura Lovemore). The women work in the same restaurant, and Bea, catching her boyfriend in the arms of another waitress, has called the authorities to report her for being there illegally. She doesn’t know that Yemi’s visa has run out, that her ‘sister’ will get caught in the crossfire.

We’re witness to a series of visits spanning two years, as Yemi languishes in ‘jail’, refusing to open up about her traumatic past, even to the lawyer who might be able to assist her. Through her conversations with Bea, we learn how horribly dehumanising the process is, and how a simple oversight – such as not filling in a form on time – can change a person’s life. Bea is impacted too, learning to live with the guilt of what she’s done, trying – and failing – to compensate by campaigning for Yemi’s release.

Both Muthui and Lovemore are compelling in their roles, with Muthui in particular exuding a desperate dignity. Even though I want to shout at Yemi to tell the lawyer what he needs to know, I can’t help but be impressed by her quiet determination not to be forced to share her nightmares to appease others. Muthui makes this awful choice entirely credible.

Caitlin Skinner’s direction ensures that this wordy drama remains dynamic, and Heather Grace Currie’s simple set design manages to include both the barbed wire holding Yemi back and the blue skies still offering her a glimmer of hope.

Even for A Play, A Pie and A Pint, Detained is short, and doesn’t perhaps make the most of its potential, with a lot of ideas left unexplored. I’m also not convinced by the single section addressed to the audience by Yemi, which feels stylistically (but not tonally) different from the rest. I think for this to work, she would need to be revealing something we haven’t previously seen from her – a greater anger, maybe, or a deeper exploration of her situation.

A piece that asks more questions than it answers, Detained is certainly a play for our times. Let’s hope that fewer pretend bears and more actual people are afforded access to asylum over the coming years.

3 stars

Susan Singfield

Lost Girls/ At Bus Stops

15/10/24

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Lost Girls/At Bus Stops is my favourite so far in this PPP season: I love the marriage of Róisín Sheridan-Bryson’s fragmented, non-linear writing with Laila Noble’s kinetic direction. 

At its heart there’s a simple will-they/won’t they love story. Ever since Jess (Catriona Faint) approached Iona (Leyla Aycan) at a bus stop with a flyer for a Fringe show several years ago, the two have been friends, meeting up every August to make the most of the Festival buzz, weaving their way from show to bar to show again, navigating the crowds, the hills, the closes, the booze. On the surface, theirs is an easy alliance, born of a shared hedonism and an openness about who they are. Underneath, they’re a mess of repressed longing, each too nervous to risk their precious friendship by declaring how they really feel. And this time, with Iona about to leave for pastures new, there’s an added pressure. If neither of them makes a move, it’ll be too late.

Sheridan-Bryson’s script skips nimbly between dialogue and narration, the protagonists referring to themselves in both third and first person, almost mythologising the city, their accounts of various Edinburgh nights colliding as they disagree about details and bring different moments to the fore. The disrupted timeline mirrors a real-life conversation, almost stream-of-consciousness in its construction, bouncing back and forth through their shared memories.

The two actors portray the contrasting characters with aplomb, Aycan’s gentle stillness a perfect foil for Faint’s more manic, agitated demeanour. As Jess reacts to the pressure by downing drink after drink, snogging random men and trying to start fights, Iona – while matching her on the booze front – is altogether calmer, trying time and again to make Jess stop and talk, to say the things they need to say. Their emotions are palpable and it’s impossible not to feel engaged, not to sit silently urging them to take the plunge. 

Zephyr Liddell’s set is simple but effective, the grimy bus stop and disco lights echoing the superficial glamour of a sequin-clad performer in an archetypal dingy Fringe venue. 

Sheridan-Bryson pulls off the difficult task of creating a play that is at once meta-theatrical and down-to-earth, complex in structure but easy to follow. It’s an impressive piece of work. 

4.6 stars

Susan Singfield

The Baddies

09/10/24

Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

The Baddies, David Greig and Jackie Crichton’s theatrical adaptation of Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s 2022 book, is well-pitched for its target audience of 3+. This morning’s audience is almost all made up of school trips, with rows of squirming, excited P1s and 2s eating snacks and being cajoled out of their jackets while waiting for the show to begin. The colourful set – designed by Jasmine Swan – intrigues them. Indeed, there’s one little girl in the front row who can’t seem to help getting out of her seat and walking towards the stage, drawn like the proverbial moth to the flame. Every time her teacher asks her to sit down, she does so – but she’s up again a moment later, eyes wide, mouth open.

But as soon as the show begins, she returns to her seat and watches, enthralled. And her reaction is a more important review of this production than anything I can write. Her classmates enjoy it too. The noise level in the auditorium bears testimony to the musical’s success: there are hundreds of young children here, clapping enthusiastically for the songs, waving their hands and shouting when required – but much quieter than the on-stage mice as the story carries them along.

A framing sequence introduces us to Mamma Mouse (Lottie Mae O’Kill), who wants to teach her three bad-mannered children (Dyfrig Morris, James Stirling and Rachel Bird) to say thank you, sorry and please, but it doesn’t go well. They’re more interested in having fun. To calm them down, she decides to tell them a bedtime story about a spotted handkerchief, and then we’re off, as they transform into the titular Baddies: Troll (Morris), Ghost (Stirling) and Witch (Bird). “We’re the very worst baddies,” they sing in the show’s catchiest number (courtesy of Joe Stilgoe) – but there’s a problem. They’re not. They’re rubbish at being bad. They can’t even scare the new young shepherdess The Girl (Yuki Sutton), who’s out in the mountains on her own for the very first time.

As an adult, I have to say that the story doesn’t do a lot for me. There’s not much of a narrative arc. I’d like the manners referenced in the opening sequence to have more bearing on the subsequent narrative. I’d also like Mamma Mouse to refrain from waving around her dirty hanky after exhorting the little mice to sneeze into it to catch the germs. But these are grown-up concerns and, as we’ve established, I’m not the target audience.

Stilgoe’s songs are light and catchy, but most of them are perhaps not sing-along-able enough for little children. I like Katie Beard’s direction: the slapstick is especially nicely done, with lots of silly near misses and amusing sound effects. O’Kill seems to be channelling Mary Poppins – and this works well for the piece, lending her a convincing authority over the proceedings, so that when she assures the audience in advance that, although there are some scary moments in the story, nothing bad happens and there’s a happy ending on its way, it’s clear that the children trust her and so relax into the tale.

But, for me – as for the little front row girl – it’s Swan’s design that steals the show. The set is a glorious riot of hidden delights, like a giant Polly Pocket, the mountainside opening up to reveal a fairytale cottage, while the costumes – although different from the book’s illustrations – seem somehow iconic. I can imagine them as popular Hallowe’en outfits.

The Baddies leaves Edinburgh on the 20th October for an extensive nationwide tour. If you’re a parent or a teacher and you have wee ones you want to treat, an hour in the company of this not-so-dastardly trio is pretty sure to please them.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

A Different Man

05/10/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

It’s not hard to imagine actor Adam Pearson’s delight on first reading the script for A Different Man. The film, a three-hander, was written expressly for him – and, my word, it gives him a chance to show what he can do. It also challenges our preconceptions and prejudices around disability and disfigurement – but not in any obvious, seen-it-all-before way.

Writer-director Aaron Schimberg has a cleft palate, so he knows something of how it feels to look different. Pearson, meanwhile – along with his character, Oswald, and Sebastian Stan’s character, Edward – has neurofibromatosis, which is a lot more noticeable. Edward copes by keeping his head down and trying to make himself small. He’s quiet, unassuming, and sadly accepting of his lot. He is an actor, but he doesn’t get much work – unless you count condescending corporate training videos of the ‘how to behave around your disabled colleagues’ variety.

And then two things happen.

First, Edward is offered the chance to take part in a drug trial for a revolutionary new treatment that will transform his appearance. Next, he meets his new neighbour, aspiring playwright Ingrid (Renate Reinsve), and begins to develop feelings for her. She’s nice to him – but recoils when he makes a tentative move.

He decides to take the plunge.

As the tumours begin to literally fall from his face (courtesy of some pretty impressive prosthetics), a new Edward emerges, smooth-skinned and conventionally handsome. Keen to shuck off his old identity as well as his deformities, he informs everyone that Edward has committed suicide and rebrands himself as ‘Guy’. Before long, he’s living the dream, with a well-paid job, a luxury flat and an active sex life. What more could he want?

The answer, it turns out, is the starring role in Ingrid’s off-off-Broadway play, Edward, which is all about her friendship with her tragic neighbour. But she’s not sure about giving Guy the part – it wouldn’t be authentic and surely a disfigured actor ought to get the role? But, she has to admit, there’s something compelling about Guy, even if he does have to wear a mask on stage.

And then Oswald turns up, cheerily intrigued by the idea of the play with a central part he feels he was born for. He’s keen to see how Ingrid has written the character and what Guy brings to the role. He looks like Edward used to look, but that’s where the similarity ends. Because Oswald is no one’s victim. He’s a happy, talented, popular man, keen to grasp new opportunities, comfortable in his own skin. Edward can’t cope, his cocksure persona crumbling in the face of Oswald’s frank and open confidence. Before too long, he finds himself replaced…

The three central performances are all impressive, although Pearson is the one who shines. Stan is believably conflicted as the shy, awkward Edward, his true nature visible to the viewer even when he’s swaggering and trying to inhabit his brave new world. Reinsve, meanwhile, is perfect as the deluded Ingrid, convincing herself that she’s not only well-intentioned but also alert to discrimination, despite the self-serving nature of her work, and the fact that she keeps referring to Beauty and the Beast as her inspiration.

A Different Man is well-crafted on every level but, primarily, it is a clever piece of writing, as multi-layered as Stan’s prosthetics, unflinching in its examination of how non-disabled people view those with disabilities. Without offering any easy answers, it also explores the ideas of authenticity and appropriation, all the while avoiding anything resembling a cliché. This is the sort of script that sparks ethical discussions – akin in some ways to American Fiction, The Substance or Scottish playwright Kieran Hurley’s Mouthpiece.

Nuanced, shocking, intelligent and insightful, this is a memorable movie for all the right reasons.

4.7 stars

Susan Singfield

Armour: A Herstory of the Scottish Bard

01/10/24

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Today’s A Play, A Pie and A Pint production is a welcome revival of Shonagh Murray’s Armour: A Herstory of the Scottish Bard. Unwieldy title notwithstanding, this is a taut, well-scripted piece of theatre, the music deftly evoking the lyrical poetry at its heart.

It’s thirty years since the death of Scotland’s beloved poet, Robert Burns, and his widow, Jean (Irene Allan), still misses him. But she has plenty to occupy her time, not least her headstrong young granddaughter, Sarah (Karen Fishwick), who’s been sent to live with her in Dumfries, while her dad’s away in India. And then there’s Nancy Maclehose (Hilary Maclean), Burns’ erstwhile mistress, who seems very keen to talk to Jean. There’s something important she needs to say…

Tom Cooper’s direction and Heather Grace Currie’s set design both serve to highlight Murray’s clever structure, ensuring that Burns’ absence forms the centre of the play, a model of his mausoleum gleaming from the mantlepiece, white against the dark furniture. Armour is a feminist piece but it doesn’t shy away from the fact that we only know these women in relation to a man, that they are destined to remain almost unknown, circling the ghost of a famous heavyweight, as small as the dolls that Sarah plays with.

Murray’s script breathes life into the women, imagining their responses to the scant details we have of their real circumstances. Allan imbues Jean with a sharp dignity, a refusal to be shamed or diminished by her husband’s infidelities. What’s more, Maclean’s Nancy defies the image of a paramour: she admits to feeling guilt for not thinking about Jean, but there’s no room here for any moral outrage. She loved Rab. He loved her. He loved Jean too. People are complicated and you can’t change that. What you can do, as Jean explains to Sarah, is choose whether to be “a sitter or a do-er”. And being a do-er is infinitely more admirable.

Fishwick shines as the motherless young child, fascinated by her granny’s stories and determined to follow in her grandad’s footsteps and become a bard herself. Her wistful demeanour – as she remembers India and her dad – contrasts beautifully with the irrepressible spirit she shows as she sings and dances around her granny’s house. Jean and Nancy might have been consigned to a life in the shadows, but Sarah believes she can have much more. Especially with those great women behind her.

Armour is a deceptively melodic piece, which smoulders gently before bursting into full flame.

4.1 stars

Susan Singfield

The Wolves at the Door

24/09/24

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

The Wolves at the Door, the second in this season of A Play, A Pie and A Pint at the Traverse, is a heartfelt polemic, written by Jack Hunter and directed by Amie Burns Walker. As Winter crooks its frosty finger and beckons, this timely piece zooms in on the issue of energy companies forcing impoverished people to use expensive prepaid gas and electricity meters.

The allegory of a Big Bad Wolf threatening the security of a vulnerable Little Pig might not be subtle but it’s certainly effective, and Heather Grace Currie’s dingy set design reminds us exactly how Grimm (sorry) the situation is.

The Pig, Daniel (Ciaran Stewart), is struggling. He’s lost his job, his marriage has fallen apart and he’s desperate to maintain a good relationship with his seven-year-old daughter. But how can he do that when the flat he’s renting is mouldy and damp, and a combination of Universal Credit and part-time shelf-stacking barely leaves him enough to feed himself, let alone put the heating on? Worst of all, his daughter knows. She puts on a brave face for him, trying to reassure him that the crappy pizza he’s heated up is exactly what she wants for her tea. He can’t bear it.

Enter the Wolf, Malc (Ben Ewing), and his sidekick, Sussanne (Beth Marshall). He’s a debt collector and she’s an engineer, and they’re here at the behest of the energy company, to install a new smart meter – one that requires prepayment. If he doesn’t have the money up front, Daniel will be left without power.

Malc is unsympathetic. He knows what poor looks like; it’s how he grew up. But he believes it’s up to individuals to get off their arses and sort themselves out – like he has done. Ewing portrays the GB News-loving cynic with a charismatic swagger. “How can someone call themselves broke if they’re still drinking ground coffee, if they’ve got a TV and a Playstation?” he demands. Sussanne is less world-weary – it’s her first day – and more sympathetic too: she doesn’t think it’s a lot to ask for a warm, safe home and enough food in your belly; she’s in favour of a benefits system that allows people a few small treats. Marshall imbues the conflicted newbie with real heart – but hey, she’s got a job to do, and if she doesn’t do it, she’ll be in the same boat as Daniel.

Hunter makes some important points in this play, but the dialogue focuses too intensely on the issue, reducing the characters to representatives of their respective positions, rather than fully-rounded people. While the dark humour works well in places, a lighter touch is needed throughout to stop the story from being bogged down by its own good intentions – and perhaps the brusque conclusion ties everything up a little too neatly to be entirely convincing.

3 stars

Susan Singfield

La Chimera

11/09/24

Amazon Prime

We’re in Tuscany, some time in the 1980s. Dishevelled Englishman Arthur (Josh O’Connor) is sensitive, clever, sweet and engaging. He’s also a grave robber, recently released from an Italian prison and about to head right back to his life of crime.

First though, he has an important visit to make – to the grand but crumbling estate that is home to the aged Flora (Isabella Rossellini). Despite her gaggle of adult daughters’ cacophonous protestations, Flora is Arthur’s biggest champion. Years back, when he was a respectable archaeologist, he was in love with her other daughter, Beniamina (Yile Yara Vianello), now deceased. The bereaved duo cling to their mutual connection.

In fact, Arthur’s yearning for Beniamina is so intense that it allows him to transcend the barriers between past and present. With a dowsing rod, he can pinpoint the long-lost tombs of the Estruscan dead with unerring accuracy. He’s the natural leader of this band of thieves.

The moral questions raised are unsettling. Stealing trinkets from corpses seems inherently wrong, but Arthur and his troubadour friends are homeless, living in poverty. What good are treasures lying in the ground? What’s wrong with living people using them to earn a crust? The rich buyers – whom we glimpse at an exclusive auction – will never go to jail, but they’re the ones profiteering from the poor men’s crimes, turning a blind eye to the items’ provenance. After all, in his old profession, Arthur’s findings were deemed legitimate and sold to museums. Is there really any difference?

But then Arthur begins to fall for Italia (Carol Duarte), Flora’s singing-student-slash-maid. The future is beckoning. Can he stop looking back?

Alice Rohrwacher’s film is a panoply of oxymorons: a firmly realistic supernatural tale; bleakly comic; slow and exciting. Driven entirely by its own logic, there are surprises at every turn, but they all make sense within the story. The Tuscan landscape is beautifully evoked by cinematographer Hélène Louvart, and there’s an unnerving folksy element, caught in the songs and celebrations of the tomb raiders.

But it’s O’Connor’s fine central performance that really makes La Chimera. He embodies the quiet desperation the title connotes, faithful to his impossible quest.

4.1 stars

Susan Singfield