Edinburgh

Don@Tokyo

15/10/23

Lothian Road, Edinburgh

It‘s not every day that a restaurant opens at the end of your street, but in the case of Don@Tokyo, that’s exactly what’s happened – and we couldn’t be happier about it.

When we first moved to Edinburgh eight years ago, the building that now houses the venue was a TSB bank. It closed in 2019 and, though there were mutterings about turning it into a wine bar, the arrival of COVID promptly finished off that idea. The place stood empty for years and quickly became virtually derelict and covered in graffiti, a real eyesore.

So when legions of workers appeared earlier this year and started to gut the place, working around the clock to get the job done, we were understandably delighted. In what seems an improbably brief space of time, the interior has been repurposed, refitted and redecorated and we’ve watched entranced as Don@Toyko has risen from the ashes. It’s now a bright, spacious, bustling Japanese restaurant with an eye-catching video display in the foyer, some quirky red figurines and even a semi-private dining room for larger parties. Best of all, they’ve preserved the beautiful old Victorian mosaic over the doorway that announces ‘Thrift is Blessing’.

We take our seats and somebody brings us the menu, a tablet with images of the various dishes on it and we tap through, wondering why there are so few mains to choose from. Then our waiter realises that there’s a glitch and that not all the meals are showing. He brings us a replacement and there’s a lot more there than we first thought. (Say what you like about ink and paper, you never have to turn it off and turn it on again.)

We decide to share some rainbow sushi: exquisite parcels of sticky rice featuring salmon, tuna and prawn – and some california rolls with crab, cucumber and avocado. Both are delicious, particularly when eaten with slices of the pickled ginger that accompanies them. 

We also order some soft shell crab. This is a tempura with not a hint of grease. The batter is as light as anything and the flesh beneath melt-in-the-mouth tender.

Best of all is the main course we share, a gyudon, slices of beef and egg on a bed of rice. It may not be the most picturesque item on the menu, but it’s rich and nourishing and we finish every last morsel.

From the drinks menu we choose a couple of cold teas, one with mango, the other with grapefruit. I’ve never been a big fan of tea but these sweet beverages work brilliantly with the food, the citrusy tang cutting through those savoury flavours and gooey textures.

A word of warning. The service here is really swift and we make the mistake of ordering everything up front, so it all arrives together. While this would clearly suit larger parties of people who like to mix and match their dishes, it’s less successful for two people seeking a quiet dinner. Next time, we’ll choose a dish, eat it and then order the next. What’s more, we’re so full towards the end, we ask to take half of the California rolls away with us, which proves to be no problem. They are transferred into a delightful little presentation box, ready for a delicious lunch the following day.

It’s early days for Din@Tokyo, with the staff clearly still getting the measure of the place, but on the basis of our first foray, it makes a welcome addition to the local eating scene. I’m sure we’ll be back for more before very much longer.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning

11/10/23

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is one of those novels, like Alice in Wonderland, that is more famous for its enduring imagery than for its story. Its iconic characters are part of the fabric of our culture, recognised instinctively, even by those who have never so much as picked up the book. Such tales are ripe for retelling, like ciphers waiting to be reshaped for our times.

Into that space steps Mina’s Reckoning, a reimagining of the world’s most famous vampire, written by Morna Pearson and directed by Sally Cookson. This all-female and non-binary production redresses the gender imbalances in the source material: here, the women are elevated from mere victims and damsels-in-distress and are actually afforded some agency.

Whitby is out and north-east Scotland is in, justified by the fact that Scots writer Emily Gerard provided much of the inspiration for Stoker’s novel: it was from her work that he learned about the Romanian superstitions that inform some of the most compelling ideas in his book. More specifically, we’re in Cruden Bay, in a women’s asylum, where some of the characters speak in the Doric dialect. The Scots angle works well, the rhythms of the language creating an earthy poetry. The play opens with Mina (Danielle Jam) banging on the asylum door, demanding to be let in. She has Jonathan’s journals and wants Dr Seward (a wonderfully comic Maggie Bain) to help her ward off the evil that’s on its way.

The long first act sticks pretty closely to Stoker’s tale, albeit with more jokes and some judicious pruning (the boring suitor sequences are gone, thank goodness, and so are the details of Jonathan’s interminable journey). The second, shorter, act is much better, precisely because this is where the creative reimagining takes place, allowing Mina to come into her own. It’s a shame that the piece skews this way: it feels unbalanced. I’d like a shorter set-up and a longer unravelling.

It’s a great idea to recast Dracula as a woman and Liz Kettle clearly relishes the role. She’s a bold presence, at once attractive and repellant, exactly as the Count should be. Here, the blood-sucker is more nuanced than her original incarnation, both supervillain and saviour. As Mina seals her Faustian deal, we recognise what Dracula is offering her, and understand exactly why she makes the choice she does.

Kenneth MacLeod’s set is both the production’s strength and its weakness. It’s clever and imposing, evoking the chillingly austere asylum as well as the grand gothic castle – all staircases and hidden corners – and I like the use of Lewis den Hertog’s video projections and Aideen Malone’s lights to stain the walls red with blood, turning them into journals, then night skies, then stormy seas. However, the set’s cage-like qualities – the bars and rails imprisoning the women – also create a sense of distance, so that it’s hard to feel close to the characters and to empathise with them. What’s more, it makes the whole play less scary because we’re not immersed in the ghoulish goings-on.

Benji Bower’s music is wonderfully eerie and evocative but the sound drowns out the dialogue at times, which is a shame, as it obscures some of the finer details of the plot. Likewise, the ensemble work is excellent, but comes at the expense of the individual characters, as the inmates of the asylum blend together.

Albeit a little uneven, there’s a lot to like about this NTS and Aberdeen Performing Arts production, in association with Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre. The powerful image of Kettle, striding the ramparts – grey hair flowing, coat tails billowing – is one that will stay with me for a long time.

3.8 stars

Susan Singfield

Disciples

06/10/23

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Disciples is a compelling piece of performance art, combining poetry, music, movement and visual imagery. Conceived and directed by Rachel Drazek and written by Ellen Renton, it’s about belonging and expectations, interdependence and joy. It’s also about giving people the chance to take up space – especially those who are often denied that opportunity.

The five-strong cast of disabled women and non-binary people bring Drazek’s vision to life: this is the “bold and beautiful new piece of dance theatre” she aspired to make. The creative process, we learn in an illuminating after-show discussion, was a collaborative one, the piece devised in rehearsal before being shaped by Renton. It shows: the performers’ agency is palpable. The resulting production is nuanced and doesn’t shy away from difficult emotions, but the layering of ideas ultimately adds up to something joyful and positive, reinforcing the idea that we are all connected and inter-dependent.

The costumes, by Zephyr Lidell, are simple but striking, each performer clad in a single, shimmering colour. Visually impaired musician Sally Clay (yellow) is all optimism; her singing voice is ethereal and she plays the harp and ukulele with aplomb. But she’s more excited about the dancing: post-show, she reveals that this is a long way from her comfort zone, and that she’s delighted to have been challenged in this way. Indeed, this point is echoed by Rana Bader (red), who seems to embody passion and strength; she is bursting with energy and exuberance, making a gazillion press-ups look easy. She’s not used to demands being made of her, she says; in rehearsal rooms, she sees her non-disabled peers being given detailed notes, while she is patted on the head just for turning up. She prefers being pushed.

Laura Fisher (lavender) is a dancer, so graceful and elegant that they take my breath away, while Irina Vartopeanu (green), uses BSL in a way I’ve never seen before, incorporated into the piece, not as a straight interpretation of what others are saying but as an expression in itself. She’s vivacious and somehow diaphanous.

Emma McCaffrey (orange), last seen by B&B in the excellent Castle Lennox, explores the idea of inner rage; they are an engaging performer with a bold stage presence and bring the humour needed to balance this play.

Disciples is a thought-provoking, sensory piece, and well worth catching if you can.

3.6 stars

Susan Singfield

Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape

05/10/23

Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

Patriarch Rennie (John Michie) has invited a disparate group of people to his retirement party. He’s had to keep the guest list secret from his wife, Edie (Deirdre Davis), because – with the exception of her old pal, film star Jimmy Moon (Benny Young) – there’s no way she’d agree to hosting the people he has in mind. En route to the couple’s country house in the Scottish Highlands is their daughter Emma’s ex-husband, for example – even though their wedding ended acrimoniously and Charlie (Matthew Trevannion) is renowned for wreaking havoc wherever he goes. Of course, he maximises the antagonism by bringing along his latest girlfriend, Jitka (Nalini Chetty), and why wouldn’t Rennie ask the newly-betrothed Frank (Keith Macpherson) and Kath (Patricia Panther) to join the party? It’s not as if Frank’s always been in love with Emma (Sally Reid) or anything, is it? Oops. There’s an uninvited presence too: the ghost of Rennie and Edie’s son, Will (Robbie Scott), who watches over the day’s proceedings with increasing horror…

Playwright Peter Arnott says he set out to to write a ‘Scottish Chekhov’ and to some extent he has succeeded. At first it seems as though, unlike Chekhov, Arnott is looking back at the political moment that nominally serves as the play’s pivot; he has the advantage of hindsight to create dramatic irony. After all, we know the outcome of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the divisive topic inflaming the characters. But we soon learn that this is just a distraction: as Charlie says, it’s mere tinkering around the edges while ignoring the real revolution that is on its way, and which only the rich and ruthless will be able to survive.

If Arnott’s script is retro, then David Greig’s direction is decidedly contemporary, a deliberate jarring of styles that helps to illuminate the sense that something is changing, mirroring the mismatch between parochial politics and apocalyptic predictions, Chekhovian naturalism and magical realism. I like the dissonance.

Jessica Worrall’s set also leans into the contrast, a hyper-realistic backdrop juxtaposed with a more figurative interior: a glorious photograph of a Highland glen and a sketched-in kitchen-diner, symbolised by oversized shelving units, enormous tables and vast floral curtains.

Both Simon Wilkinson’s lighting and Pippa Murphy’s sound are integral to the production: the former spotlighting the snippets of conversation that combine to drive the plot, the latter signalling the shifts to the ghost’s point of view, as the sound distorts and fragmented memories play through Will’s Walkman. This supernatural presence is one of my favourite things about the play: Scott physicalises the spirit’s pain and confusion with a beautiful awkwardness.

The first act is very strong, an interesting set-up that promises something the second doesn’t quite deliver. Although the characters are all cleverly depicted, the piece feels somehow unfinished, as if the story arc has been cut short. Rennie’s revelation, when it comes, is anticlimactic, and I don’t quite buy it as a reason for inviting these particular people to his home (why would anyone ever invite Charlie anywhere?). But, even if it’s a little opaque and doesn’t offer any real answers to the issues it grapples with, Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape is an intelligent and ambitious play, leaving us with a lot to think – and talk – about.

3.8 stars

Susan Singfield

Sister Act

04/10/23

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

There are some films that make the transition to stage musical against all the odds – and there are others that are clearly destined to be that very thing from the word go. 1992’s Sister Act, a comedy vehicle for the then rising star Whoopi Goldberg, definitely belongs in the latter category. Funny, irreverent and already packed with rousing gospel tunes, this feels like a natural progression.

Philadelphia, 1977. Deloris Van Cartier (Landi Oshinowo) is trying to make headway as a singer on the Philly soul scene and, when we first meet her, she’s auditioning at a nightclub owned by her shady boyfriend, Curtis (Ian Gareth-Jones). Curtis (who naturally is married) assures Deloris that she’s not quite ready for stardom and offers her one of his wife’s cast off fur coats as compensation. Deloris already has doubts about the wisdom of the relationship and this is compounded when she witnesses Curtis murdering one of his henchmen, whom he suspects is a police informant.

Deloris seeks help at the local police station, where she encounters former school chum and crush, ‘Steady’ Eddie Souther (Alphie Parker). Eddie wants Deloris to lie low until she can speak about the murder in court and he thinks he has the perfect hideout for her. It’s a convent, Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, an ancient establishment that has fallen on hard times and is struggling to survive. It’s presided over by the acerbic Mother Superior (Lesley Joseph), who struggles to cope with Deloris’s potty mouth and, in an act of desperation, assigns her the task of coaching the convent’s resident choir, which is frankly terrible.

But Deloris has her own methods of coaxing the best performances out of the sisters and the results are startling to say the least.

What ensues is a slick, funny, exhilarating and sometimes uproarious sequence of events that never loses momentum. There’s so much here to relish. The vocal performances of Oshinowo – and of Lizzy Bea who plays the young noviciate, Sister Mary Robert – are simply thrilling to witness, their voices soaring over the sound of a live band. The resident nuns all have their own individual characters and I’m particularly impressed by Isabel Canning’s Sister Mary Patrick, whose enthusiastic twirls and gestures demonstrate the sheer exuberance of a woman discovering the joy of her own inner creativity.

The set and costume designs by Morgan Large are gorgeous, a wonderful mash up of stained glass and 70s kitsch, the many complex scene changes happening as if by magic. Alistair David’s choreography makes everything look effortless and Joseph demonstrates the kind of comic chops that have kept her treading the boards for so many years. And yes, maybe there is a big dollop of schmaltz thrown in for good measure, but hey, that’s no hardship.

By the finale, which features more sequins than seems humanly possible, I’m clapping along with the rest of the packed audience, loving every minute. The term ‘feel-good theatre’ is sometimes overused but I can’t think of a more appropriate description for Sister Act. This is a ton of fun.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney

The Sheriff of Kalamaki

03/09/23

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

In this unusual two-hander by Douglas Maxwell, Paul McCole plays the eponymous law-keeper. It’s not an official role but alcoholic Dion is proud of the title, even if he did choose it himself. He swaggers (and staggers) his way through the bars and clubs of Zakynthos, seemingly unaware that he’s being used as a lookout by the local drug dealer. He’s a loveable character, his cheery bluster doing little to hide just how damaged and vulnerable he really is. His existence is precarious but he seems to be coping – until his apparently straight-laced brother, Ally (Stephen McCole), comes looking for him, after almost thirty long years…

Maxwell eschews a duologue in favour of two almost completely separate monologues, a structural device that mirrors the brothers’ estrangement. Dion, when we first meet him, is alone – as he has been since 1994. When Ally shows up, the ensuing conflict shows us how this situation began, and then it’s Ally’s turn to find himself bereft and isolated in Kalamaki, a solitary figure standing on a cliff, facing his demons, while in the town below him, everyone else is having fun. The script’s construction makes for an oddly unsettling experience, but I think it serves the story well.

Gemma Patchett and Jonny Scott’s set design is suitably stark: a raised platform, overshadowed by a huge, curved sheet that represents the sea and sky. This works well on a figurative level too, the brothers dwarfed by the natural world, the quarrel that once seemed so all-consuming now rendered petty and insignificant. After all, the planet’s burning: Ally’s plane is half-empty; tourists have turned their backs on the island’s unbearable heat and unpredictable wildfires.

Jemima Levick’s direction is lively and pacy, highlighting the superficial contrasts between the two men, while the real-life McCole siblings are both formidable performers, creating a convincingly acrimonious relationship. Their differences are slowly peeled away, revealing their essential similarities and exposing the myths we tell ourselves about what ‘a good life’ really is.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Ka Pao

01/10/23

St James Quarter, Edinburgh

We’ve been looking forward to this evening. Not only are we catching up with friends we haven’t seen in waaaay too long, we’re also – on their recommendation – visiting Ka Pao, a new Scottish/Southeast Asian fusion restaurant in the swish St James Quarter. The menu looks exciting!

It doesn’t disappoint.

The venue earns its first plus-point by presenting us with two bottles of chilled tap water as standard – one still, one sparkling. I like this new trend and drink a lot (maybe too much) of the fizzy one.

There’s a set menu for four or more people, but not everyone in our party fancies it, so we go à la carte. All dishes are for sharing we’re told, and are encouraged to order three or four each: a snack, a starter, a main and a side. Thank goodness we stick to three – it’s still too much. But that’s my only gripe.

This is lovely food: fresh, distinctive and perfectly cooked. For snacks, we sample the tomato and aubergine dip with pork skins, the pork and bone marrow sausage and the arbroath smokie miang. The pork skins are amazing – puffed up like poppadoms (or like yak chews, according to our dog-owning friends). The sausage is also delicious, just bursting with flavour, but the arbroath smokie is the most interesting. It comes mashed with peanuts and galangel, and we’re instructed to wrap a spoonful in a spinach leaf. It’s sweet at first, then spicy, then finally fishy and smoky. We decide we like it.

Our starters are corn ribs with salted coconut, shrimp and lime, and crispy pork belly. Three of us have ordered the corn but two portions would suffice. Not that we’re complaining: these are easily the standout of the evening, deceptively simple, crisp and utterly delectable. We spend some time looking for recipes when we get home.

For mains, we have the green curry of lamb shoulder (which comes with broad beans, peas and banana chilli), the chicken leg massaman curry (with ratte potato, smoked grape and peanut) and the chuu chee curry of courgette (with peas and ramiro pepper), with a side of stir-fried savoy cabbage and a couple of portions of jasmine rice. The chicken curry is very good, although one of our friends finds it too sweet for her palate. The lamb is particularly tasty, a fiery delight, the chunks of meat slow cooked until they’re melt-in-the-mouth tender.

We all profess to be full, but we still say yes to pudding, sharing a couple of portions of almond and cardamom sponge with pineapple and coriander curd (wow!) and a serving of mango and calmansi soft-serve, a kulfi-like confection that offers a citrus-fresh contrast to the sweetness of the pudding.

Like the comic-book sound effect its name evokes, Ka Pao is bold, punchy and memorable – and we’ll certainly be back for more.

4.7 stars

Susan Singfield

2:22 A Ghost Story

27/09/23

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Written by Danny Robins and directed by Matthew Dunster and Isabel Marr, 2:22 A Ghost Story is remarkable, not least because it manages to feel like a traditional gothic tale at the same time as subverting many of the tropes. Screams in the night? Check – but that’s just the foxes in the garden, isn’t it? Flickering lights? Check – although the security sensors give us an instant explanation. Old creepy house? Well, kind of… except that this one has been renovated, so it’s light and bright – with a kitchen island and a window wall. But still, Jenny (Louisa Lytton) knows that something is wrong…

Jenny has been home alone with baby Phoebe, while her astronomer husband, Sam (Nathaniel Curtis), has been in Sark, studying its famous dark skies. He’s returned home just in time for a dinner party with Laura (Charlene Boyd), his best friend from university, and her new boyfriend, Ben (Joe Absolom). There is a lot of tension in the air: the antipathy between Sam (middle-class and pompous) and Ben (working-class and contemptuous) is open, while Jenny and Laura are polite on the surface, but clearly wary of one another. Jenny’s angry with Sam too: she keeps hearing spooky footsteps at the same time every night, but he isn’t taking her concerns seriously. And then Jenny suggests they all stay up until 2:22am, just to see…

As much a comedy of manners as it is a ghost story, 2:22 uses jump scares effectively and sparingly. Indeed, we find ourselves so caught up in the relationship dynamics that we almost forget about the supernatural element so that, when something spooky happens, it is genuinely shocking. An intimate four-hander, it’s to Dunster and Marr’s credit that it succeeds as a ‘big’ show, with no real sense of distancing, even from the back of the stalls in this two-thousand seater theatre. The set (by Anna Fleischle) helps: it’s got real depth, stretching back almost to the rear wall, so that the stage size seems to balance out the auditorium, as well as showcasing the understated opulence of Sam and Jenny’s abode. Of course, the size of the theatre means that the performances are a little heightened, but all four actors manage to make this work, never straying too far into the shouty or declamatory.

I do work out the much-touted twist before it’s revealed – but only because I know there is one and so spend a lot of time looking for it. It’s cleverly done, with lots of slippery diversions and sleights of hand.

A sprightly updating of one of my favourite genres, 2:22 A Ghost Story is a creepy delight.

4.6 stars

Susan Singfield

The Lesson

24/09/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

The Lesson is one of those films that’s hugely enjoyable while you’re watching it, but falls apart when you try to analyse it – a bit like the airport novels its antihero, JM Sinclair, so witheringly disparages.

Sinclair (Richard E Grant) is a novelist of some renown – indeed, he is the subject of Oxford graduate Liam (Daryl McCormack)’s PhD thesis – but it’s been five years since he published anything. Since the death of his elder son, Felix, JM has been struggling; he writes daily, late into the night, but he just can’t finish his latest book. Meanwhile, his wife, Hélène (Julie Delpy), is determined that their younger son, Bertie (Stephen McMillan), should get into Oxford to study English literature, a feat which – despite his expensive schooling and obvious intelligence – can apparently only be accomplished by hiring a private tutor.

Enter Liam.

At first, the job seems like a dream come true. The Sinclairs live in the lap of luxury, their large country home filled with impressive artwork and attentive staff. Liam lodges in the guest house, swims in the lake, eats dinner with his idol and gets on well with Bertie; he even has time to finish his own first novel. But JM turns out to be a bruising presence and the family bristles with unhappy secrets; it doesn’t take long for the idyll to sour.

McCormack is a mesmerising screen presence (he surely has a big career ahead of him) and Grant, of course, is never less than interesting. Delpy imbues Hélène with an unsettlingly dispassionate and watchful air, while McMillan plays the innocent very convincingly – so that, no matter what chicanery is exposed, there’s someone we want to see being saved.

Director Alice Troughton does a good job of building the suspense: there’s a genuine sense of threat and the character dynamics are nicely drawn. The script, by Alex MacKeith, has some excellent moments, but also throws up some problems, not least the improbability of Liam’s ability to remember every word he’s ever read, on which the plot hinges. What’s more, although there are some genuine surprises, the main reveal is obvious from very early on, and there are several other details that just don’t ring true.

All in all, although The Lesson has its moments, it doesn’t quite live up to the movie it could be.

3.1 stars

Susan Singfield

Ship Rats

19/09/23

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

It’s the year 1880 and Jessie (Madeline Grieve) is in big trouble. She’s just murdered her husband and she’s covered in his blood. He’s the captain of the ship she’s currently aboard, a cruel tyrant who recently condemned an innocent cabin boy to fifty lashes for stealing a biscuit. He probably had it coming, but still, his crew are unlikely to be sympathetic.

To make matters worse, Jessie has sought refuge in the cabin of the ship’s Chinese cook, Jin Hai (Sebastian Lim-Seet), a man with probelms of his own. Shunned by the other members of the crew, he is planning a daring escape from the ship – but, try as he might, he cannot find the box of matches he needs in order to make his departure go with a bang.

When the inevitable hue and cry kicks off, Jessie and Jin Hai realise that they’ll have to ignore their respective differences and hide out together. In doing so, they begin to realise that they actually have quite a bit in common. Their conversation takes in a range of subjects: colonialism and Chinese medicine; murder and morning sickness; ginger and gunpowder.

Alice Clark’s spirited two-hander, a co-production between Òran Mór and the Traverse Theatre, is inspired by the adventures of the playwright’s own great-great-grandmother, a seafaring lass with a colourful backstory. The fact that the two protagonists in Ship Rats speak like contemporary Glaswegians out on the lash is initially jarring but, once I settle into the rhythm, it makes for a fun-filled fifty minutes, even if the tone is sometimes relentlessly frenetic.

Grieve offers a rollicking turn as the amusingly foulmouthed Jessie, while Lim-Seet makes an astute foil for her bawdy barrage of invective. If occasionally Jessie and Jin-Hai seem to possess the kind of insight that really only comes with the advantage of historical perspective, well that’s acceptable, given that this wants more than anything else to be a commentary on the toxic nature of Empire.

Director Laila Noble keeps the action propulsive enough to ensure that the pace never flags and Ship Rats has me entertained right up to the final scene.

3.4 stars

Philip Caveney