Tallulah Greive | Bouquets & Brickbats

09/10/26

The Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

The titular educator is an Edinburgh icon, her legacy woven into the fabric of the city, from the Vennel’s Miss Jean Brodie Steps to Bruntsfield’s Muriel Spark Walk. Her very name references Deacon Brodie, one of the city’s most infamous 18th century luminaries, a thief and philanderer she proudly claims as her ancestor. Perhaps her duplicitous nature is part of her DNA.

This vibrant production (from the National Theatre of Scotland, The Royal Lyceum and Pitlochry Festival Theatre) breathes new life into the old favourite, amplifying the teacher’s allure as well as her failings.

It’s 1935. In Europe, Adolf Hitler is a rising threat but Benito Mussolini, although polarising, is admired by many for his bold authoritarianism. Primary school teacher Miss Jean Brodie (Gayle Rankin) is certainly a fan: she shares his aesthetic obsession with order and control. Like the Italian fascist, she is a charismatic leader – and her classroom is her country.

Miss Brodie’s eleven-year-old pupils are in their final year of Juniors and she’s supposed to be preparing them for their Senior school entrance exam. Instead, as soon as her classroom door is closed, she kicks off her shoes and denounces the system. She lambasts the conservative Miss Mackay (Maureen Beattie), encouraging the girls to mock their headmistress. In lieu of maths, she shares bon mots; rather than history, she tells tales of her holidays. In short, Miss Brodie casts a spell over her students, inspiring a cult-like devotion that feeds her monstrous ego.

Of course, we’d call it grooming nowadays. Miss Brodie’s ‘set’ are carefully selected for their pliability and romanticism, wooed with flattery, sex-talk, secrets and booze. For preteens Sandy (Bobby Rainsbury), Jenny (Shreya Khaund Marshall), Monica (Tallulah Greive), Mary (Liberty Black) and Joyce Emily (Sophie Fortune), it’s a heady, irresistible mix, in stark contrast to Miss Mackay’s moribund regime. But children have a habit of growing up and noticing their heroines’ feet of clay. And who is Miss Brodie without her posse of adoring fans?

Written by David Harrower and directed by Vicky Featherstone, this adaptation of Sparks’ best-known novel is a triumph, with a clarity of vision that renders the play every bit as engaging as its protagonist. The three-hour running time flies by. Rankin is mesmerising as the charismatic lead; it’s easy to understand why the girls are so in thrall to her, not to mention her two suitors, drippy, devoted Mr Lowther (Brian Ferguson) and brooding badass Mr Lloyd (Dyfan Dwyfor).

Chloe Lamford’s spectacular set design – a giant semi-circle of tiered steps – resembles nothing so much as a Roman amphitheatre (with the auditorium completing the circle), the perfect venue for the gladiatorial-style battle Miss Brodie believes she is engaged in, determined as she is to promote individualism and free the girls from the tyranny of ‘team spirit’. Behind the steps, Lewis den Hertog’s enormous video projections throw up ever-changing images, from Proto-Renaissance art to fascist marches, Miss Brodie’s adult worldliness dwarfing her young acolytes’ limited experience. No wonder she clings to her job so passionately; in this arena, she appears all-knowing.

I love Anna Orton’s costume design, Miss Brodie’s outfits reflecting the different stages of the girls’ relationship with her. When Rankin first enters, striking a powerful pose centre stage, she’s dressed flamboyantly in a fitted pink leather skirt and a green shirt with oversized, wing-like sleeves. We see her through her pupils’ eyes as she morphs from exotic and exciting to strong and commanding, changing into a structured suit with sharp lines and pagoda shoulders. As the girls grow older and she confides in them about her love-life, she begins to dress in a more overtly sexy way (cue tight-fitting zebra print) before finally being cut down to size, literally undressed and relegated to a nursing home and a dull dressing gown.

The girls’ costumes are interesting too. In the first act, they wear simple black smocks, complete with white collars and black knee socks. After the interval, it takes me a few minutes to notice a subtle difference: the dresses are now sheer, the girls’ sensible underwear clearly visible beneath. The imagery is clever in its simplicity, showing how the girls are becoming young women, their sexuality burgeoning despite the school’s strictures.

It’s also a sign that Miss Brodie’s reign is coming to an end.

To be honest, when I re-read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie a few years ago, I didn’t enjoy it, and I wondered if the story had lost its potency. Thanks to this magnificent production, I now know that it has not.

5 stars

Susan Singfield

04/09/21

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Our Ladies is a joyous film, both raucous romp and celebration. It’s a coming-of-age tale, centring on six teenage girls, caught on the cusp between childhood and adulthood. It’s 1996 and they’re straining at the leash during their final few weeks at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour Catholic School in the Scottish Highlands. Fort William is a beautiful town, but it is very remote, and the girls are desperate for new experiences. So, when Sister Condron (Kate Dickie) organises a trip to Edinburgh, they’re eager to go. Okay, so they’ll have to participate in a choir competition, but so what? There will be a few sublime hours in the afternoon when they can do whatever they want: go shopping, go dancing, get pissed, get laid.

Finnoula (Abigail Lawrie), Chell (Rona Morison), Kylah (Marli Sui), Orla (Tallulah Greive) and Manda (Sally Messham) are the cool girls, the natural inhabitants of the coach’s back seat, with vodka in their Coke bottles and cigarettes in their bags. They’re on a mission to take Edinburgh by storm. Finnoula has her own agenda: she wants to experiment a little away from the confines of home, while Kylah has a list of obscure CDs she needs to buy. Chell’s just along for the giggles, and Manda doesn’t care what happens, as long as she’s with Finnoula. Leukaemia survivor Orla has the most specific aims: she wants to buy some thigh high boots and have sex, so that she can stop being the only virgin in the crowd. One thing’s for sure, none of them wants anything to do with straight-laced doctor’s daughter Kay (Eve Austin), with her Head Girl badge and shiny, mapped-out future.

What I like about Michael Caton-Jones’s film (based on Alan Warner’s novel, The Sopranos) is the gloriously realistic and non-judgmental way the teenage girls’ sexuality is portrayed. They’re horny as hell: they’ve all had sex with local hearthrob Dickie Dickinson (Alex Hope), and rumours of sailors coming ashore send them rushing to the town’s one nightclub, on the lookout for fresh meat. On the coach, they flash their bras at passing drivers and hold up signs saying, ‘Shag Me.’ I’ve read reviews that see this as problematic in a post-MeToo world, but I just can’t agree. The girls’ overt sexuality isn’t the problem; the issue is the way some adult men exploit it. And that’s shown here, clearly.

There are only a few false notes. Orla’s light BDSM fantasy doesn’t quite ring true, and I’m never really sure why she’s wearing a headscarf over a perfectly lovely pixie cut. She’s had chemotherapy, but her hair has grown back, and it’s beautifully styled, so the moment of revelation when she removes the scarf to show her new boyfriend, Stephen (Martin Quinn), doesn’t make any sense.

That aside, this is a great little movie. Denis Crossan’s cinematography perfectly captures the majesty of both Edinburgh and Fort William (Loch Linnhe’s singular charm is particularly breathtaking). There is, however, one abiding mystery: how did they manage to film the Edinburgh sequences at the end of my road without me even noticing?

The young cast are wonderful, vivacious and wild, and I’m caught up in their seize-the-day revelling, with its undercurrent of self-knowledge, that this might – for some of them – be as good as it ever gets.

4.1 stars

Susan Singfield