Nicholas Karimi

So Young

04/08/24

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

A new play by Douglas Maxwell is always a treat. He’s an insightful playwright, able to walk that precarious tightrope between hilarity and tragedy with absolute authority. So Young is up there with his best work.

The play opens in the bedroom of married couple Liane (Lucianne McEvoy) and Davie (Andy Clark). They are in flagrante delicto and it appears to be going well – all four minutes of it. We know it’s that long because Andy has been timing it on his phone. In the afterglow, he wistfully talks about the years when their couplings could last the entire day, but there’s little time to linger on such details because the couple are already running late. They’re due to meet up with their friend, Milo (Nicholas Karimi), who they have known for years – in Andy’s case since they were best mates at school.

Liane is somewhat dismayed when Davie casually mentions that Milo is planning to introduce them to a new female friend. Both Davie and Liane are uncomfortably aware that Milo lost his wife, Helen, to COVID only three months earlier. The new friend turns out to be Greta (Yana Harris), just twenty years old and a former pupil at the school where Liane teaches. When she mentions that she and Milo are now engaged, Liane cannot help reacting badly to the news. After all, Helen was her best friend in the world and, thanks to the pandemic, there still hasn’t been a proper funeral service. 

As glasses of wine are consumed, it’s clear that there’s going to be a confrontation…

Maxwell always creates utterly believable characters. McEvoy is terrific as the caustic, fearless Liane, who has the ability to nail any target with a few well-chosen phrases and does so with abandon. She also manages to provoke a spontaneous round of applause for her discourse on the importance of female friendship. Gray, meanwhile, is brilliantly funny as the hapless Davie, at one point managing to have the entire audience convulsed with laughter, with nothing more than a series of exasperated looks and the repetition of the words, ‘Three months?’ Karimi has perhaps the trickier task of conveying Milo’s world-view, the difficulties of carrying on alone when his partner is gone. Harris is convincingly bright-eyed and resolute as Greta, fielding Liane’s dismissal of her as a child who knows nothing.

Having got his four characters into such strife, it’s left to Maxwell to conjure a conclusion that satisfies the audience and, once again – ably assisted by director Gareth Nicholls – he manages it with considerable panache. So Young is a perfectly-pitched drama that keeps me hooked throughout.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Headcase

27/08/22

The Pleasance Courtyard (Beside), Edinburgh

Edfringe 2022 is gradually coming to a halt. Technically, there are still a few more days to go, but for us, sadly, this is where it ends. There are other places we need to be. As ever, after the buzz of watching and reviewing fifty-plus productions, we’re exhausted and looking forward to a rest.

But there’s still one last show to see.

Headcase is a memoir of sorts, written and performed by Kristin McIlquham (she’s quick to tell us that nobody ever knows how to pronounce her surname). On our way in, we’re provided with little red notebooks, because this is a show all about making lists. She’s been doing it for much of her life. ‘To do’ lists, mostly. You know the kind of thing. ‘Get a decent boyfriend, buy a flat in London.’ And now, fast approaching forty, she makes a new one. ‘Write a play about what happened to my dad. And get a brain scan.’

When she was six years old, Kristin’s father suffered a brain aneurysm. He was in a coma for some time and, when he finally emerged from sleep, he no longer recognised his own family and had to learn how to do things that should have been second nature to him. And he had to come to terms with what had happened to him. Now it’s Kristin’s turn to do the same. That title was his suggestion, by the way, based upon his favourite joke. He’s gone now, but Kristin’s passion to tell his story remains.

Headcase is an interesting piece, both funny and poignant. The stage is stacked with transparent packing boxes, filled with hundreds of notebooks, no doubt symbolising the emotional baggage Kristin has accumulated over the years. Every so often, she takes items from those boxes or from the leather tool belt around her waist, items that prompt certain memories. Musical cues tell us exactly where we are in the story. Along the way, Kristin fields awkward phone calls from her mother and is constantly interrupted by the voice of her therapist (Juliet Garricks) and, at key points, her father (Nicholas Karimi), a garrulous Glaswegian, with a habit of saying the wrong thing.

Nicely paced, the story switches from incident to incident, never losing momentum. I would like to see the notebooks we are given – and the things we’re asked to write in them – more convincingly integrated into the piece but, nonetheless, this is engaging stuff, designed by Zoë Hurwitz and directed by Laura Keefe. It’s a satisfying way to finish off what’s been an exciting and talent-packed Edinburgh Fringe.

And on that note, good night and goodbye, Edfringe 2022. We’re already looking forward to seeing you again in August 2023.

4 stars

Philip Caveney

The Arabian Nights

17.(L-R) Tim Licata, Nick Karimi, Nebli Basani and Patricia Panther. Photo credit – Tommy Ga-Ken Wan_preview

07/12/17

Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

The Arabian Nights is unusual: a children’s Christmas show that never mentions Christmas. Of course it doesn’t – this is a collection of mainly Middle Eastern and Indian stories – but they’re wonderfully apt for the festive season, as marvellous and magical as can be. Suhayla El-Bushra’s script is sprightly and engaging, and nicely complemented by Joe Douglas’s lively direction. This is a delightful production.

At its centre is Scheherazade  (Rehanna MacDonald), a young girl who has fallen foul of the tyrannical Sultan (Nicholas Karimi). Desperate to stay her impending execution, she regales the taciturn leader with tales she has learned from her storyteller mother (Neshla Caplan). Despite professing to hate stories, the Sultan is beguiled, demanding more and more. And, as time goes by, the two develop an unlikely friendship.

The staging is lovely: simple but evocative, brightly coloured and celebratory. And the stories are beautifully told: there’s puppetry and music, shadow-play and song. It’s zesty and energetic, the stories tumbling across the stage as quickly and impressively as the acrobats. It could be chaotic, but it’s not, even when we are faced with a sequence of four (or is it five?) tales within tales, each left open as the next begins, a masterful piece of writing if ever there was one. The actors are fantastic too: a true ensemble, most performing many roles with humour and precision.

Accessible yet profound; moving yet funny; sophisticated yet full of fart jokes: this is perfectly pitched for a family audience.

4.5 stars

Susan Singfield