The Studio at Festival Theatre

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

Revel

26/09/26

The Studio at Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Company Chordelia’s latest production is Revel, a “60+ coming-of-age story” told through a mesmerising blend of dance and physical theatre. Two dancers (Kally Lloyd-Jones – who also writes and directs – and Steinvör Palsson) have arrived backstage a mere nine hours before their evening show. They’re “middle-class women of a certain age” (™Gregg Wallace) and the bodies they took for granted in their youth now require an awful lot of maintenance. These days, their preparation involves pills, creams, massages, yoga and more; the list is long and it is brutal. “I used to be able to drink,” Palsson laments. “I used to be able to sleep,” counters Lloyd-Jones.

Of course, the duo are professional performers so, even as they’re mourning their former physical prowess, I’m in awe of what they can still do. I’m a decade younger than they are and I like to think I’m in reasonable shape, but these two give the lie to that conceit. Sure, they might not be able to do the splits any more, but they can contort themselves into some highly impressive positions, and the section where Lloyd-Jones dances to Odyssey’s Use It Up and Wear It Out is just magnificent.

Although Revel is specific in its exploration of dancers’ relationships with their ageing bodies, it also has universal appeal. This morning at the gym, for example, mulling over this review, I find myself groaning in wry recognition as I squint at my padlock, trying to read the combination, my carefully-packed reading glasses the other side of the locker door…

I particularly enjoy the clowning sections: Palsson’s lark-like morning energy versus Lloyd-Jones’ slug-a-bed refusal to get up; the frantic, repetitive routines they perform in a bid to outrun time. I also love the elegy to a high-heeled shoe, which is strangely affecting.

Revel is a gentle show, amusing and stirring in equal measure – with an upbeat, almost celebratory ending that means we leave the theatre smiling, happy to be granted the gift of growing old.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

The Bacchae

09/03/26

The Studio at Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

“Bloody Greek tragedies are like bloody buses,
You wait for several years,
And as soon as one approaches your local theatre,
Another one appears.”
(With apologies to Wendy Cope)

Hot on the heels of Medea at the Traverse comes The Bacchae at the Festival Theatre’s Studio, a striking solo version of Euripides’ compelling – and many-peopled – play. Written and performed by Company of Wolves’ artistic director Ewan Downie, this has been intelligently condensed from the sprawling original.

Downie is Dionysus, the god of change – a conceit that lends itself well to the multi-rolling necessary here. The son of Zeus and a mortal woman, Semele, Dionysus both narrates his own story and transforms into a raft of other characters, all perfectly distinct thanks to Downie’s precise physicalisation.

Employing Ancient Greek specialist, Dr Michael Carroll, as a creative consultant is a masterstroke, lending this radical interpretation a sense of authenticity. The narrative is typically convoluted. When the pregnant Semele dies at the sight of her lover, Zeus, in his divine form, the god seizes the embryonic Dionysus and gestates him in his thigh. Raising a baby isn’t on Zeus’s agenda though, so he tasks Semele’s sister, Agave, with parenting the boy. She obliges, but her own son, Pentheus, is understandably jealous of his half-god cousin. This resentment follows the men into adulthood, leading Pentheus, now King of Thebes, to forbid his people from worshipping the increasingly popular Dionysus, who preaches liberation from social restraints, encouraging his followers to indulge in frenzied, wine-fuelled rituals. Where else can their enmity lead but to murder?

This is as much a piece of performance art as it is theatre: a visual spectacle set to poetry and song. Downie’s commitment is absolute, and it’s his sincerity and conviction that holds our attention. The contemporary set design (by Alisa Kalyanova) clashes with the millennia-old narrative, but I like this discordancy: it reflects the dissolution of boundaries highlighted by the queer subtext. The only off-note for me is the use of a plastic bottle of water. I’m sure there’s some reason behind the decision, but it looks pragmatic rather than intentional, unlike anything else on the stage.

Originally directed by the late Ian Spink and with Heather Knudsten now holding the reins, CoW’s The Bacchae is a fascinating, labyrinthine drama, anchored by an extraordinary central performance.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Common Tongue

03/10/25

The Studio at Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Writer-director Fraser Scott explores the knotty relationship between language and identity in this searing polemic, which – despite the complexity of the subject – is both accessible and very funny.

Bonnie (Olivia Caw) is fae Paisley, where she lives with her beloved Papa and speaks like him too. She’s sparky and clever and, as she grows up, keen to spread her wings and see the world.

Step one is St Andrew’s University, where her flatmates are all from England or Edinburgh – “aun a dinnae ken which is worse.” They tease Bonnie about the way she speaks, and she gives as good as she gets, mocking their accents in turn. But of course it’s not the same. The English girl who says, “You have to be okay with how we sound too,” is missing the point. The way she sounds isn’t always on the brink of being wiped out, has never been banned, will never disadvantage her. But Bonnie doesn’t yet have the words to articulate this point.

Step two is a year in the USA, where even those who enthusiastically claim their “Scotch” ancestry struggle to understand anything Bonnie says. She finds herself having to speak slowly and Anglicise her language, which seems harmless enough but it’s tiring. It takes its toll.

Back on home turf, a graduate now, killing time while she works out what she wants to do with her life, Bonnie is disconcerted by Papa telling her that she sounds different: “pure posh.” She realises she has to make a choice. Will she sacrifice her voice to achieve success in an unequal world, or will she roar at the injustice and fight to be heard on her own terms?

This is a demanding monologue and Caw’s performance is flawless, at once profound and bitingly funny: the jokes delivered with all the timing and precision of a top comedian; the emotional journey intense and heartfelt.

Patricia Panther’s sound design is integral to the production, and I especially like the use of multiple microphones, clustered to denote new places and people. Admittedly, there’s a lot of competition from Storm Amy raging outside and rattling the pipes, but it’s effective nonetheless.

Fraser makes his points cogently, probing both the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (that the language we use shapes the way we think) and the repercussions of linguistic colonialism. As a Welsh woman, I’m familiar with historical tales of school-kids being punished for speaking Cymraeg, but the Scots issue is clearly ongoing. In fact, as I leave the theatre tonight, I bump into one of the teenagers who attends the drama club I teach. He tells me that he was sent out of class recently for saying, “I ken,” that his teacher deemed his language “cheeky.” I think his teacher needs to see this play.

Kinetic and engaging, Common Tongue has a lot to say and a braw way of saying it.

5 stars

Susan Singfield

Moments

30/01/25

The Studio at Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

One of the UK’s leading visual theatre companies, Theatre Re focus on making “deeply moving non-verbal productions about universal human challenges and the fragility of life”. Their latest piece, Moments, lays bare the creative process, taking the audience on a journey from nothing to something, from the flicker of an idea to a compelling dramatic sequence.

The metatheatrical concept is made clear from the outset, as four performers – dressed in rehearsal blacks – stand in a line and introduce themselves. They are: Guillaume Pigé – conceiver, director, actor and mime; Dr Katherine Graham – lighting designer; Alex Judd – composer; and Anna Kitson – BSL interpreter. From the sound desk behind us comes the disembodied voice of Benjamin Adams. They describe their roles and what they each bring to a show.

And then they begin. A chair, at first simply functional, changes before our eyes, becoming a child and then a father. The mood switches, initially light and amusing, then emotionally charged. The intensity swells with the music; the lighting focuses our attention one way and another. There is dialogue but it’s in French, so – for me, at least, with my school level knowledge of the language – it’s more about tone and tenor than it is about the words.

There’s no denying how skilful these theatre-makers are: the performances are incredibly precise and absorbing, and it’s fascinating to see what they can do with a bare stage, no costumes and one prop. However, it feels more like a demonstration than a play; it’s an exemplar of how to develop a piece of drama but the final scene – the culmination of the process – is too brief to be satisfying.

Moments would work well as an introduction to a drama workshop for A level, Higher or Uni students. It’s a dynamic and engaging piece of work that would surely appeal to anyone interested in learning about the process of making theatre.

3 stars

Susan Singfield