Karen Tennent
Woman Walking
★★★☆☆ Moving
Woman Walking from Sylvian Productions, which is ending a short Scottish tour at the Traverse, is a rich and ruminative exploration of loss and the power of nature.
Thrown (EIF)
★★★★☆ Substantial
The National Theatre of Scotland’s Thrown, at the Traverse as part of the International Festival, is an intelligent and powerful piece of theatre.
Castle Lennox
★★★★☆ Huge humanity
Originally intended to be staged at the Lyceum in 2020, Castle Lennox, playwright Linda McLean’s collaboration with Lung Ha Theatre Company proves to be well worth the wait.
Muster Station: Leith (EIF)
★★★★☆ Chilling
Muster Station: Leith, by immersive theatre specialists Grid Iron for the EIF, uses the halls and corridors of Leith Academy to suggest what it might be like when the climate emergency reaches a crisis point, here, in Edinburgh.
Christmas Dinner
★★★★☆ Touchingly funny
Christmas Dinner may be something of a stopgap as this year’s Lyceum show, but it proves a success in its own right. Amusing, energetic, and wearing its considerable profundity lightly, it should appeal to the widest possible audience.
Still
★★★☆☆ Tender
Still at the Traverse is in many ways a tough watch, with themes of death and loss offset by excellent performances and perceptive writing.
Seats Up at the Lyceum
Installation celebrates Scotland’s missing theatre:
The foyer of the Royal Lyceum has become the set of #TakeASeat, with freelance theatre designers creating a tableaux of empty seats to mark the loss of theatre during the Covid pandemic.
The Secret Garden
★★★★☆ Blooms with delights:
The Secret Garden, Fife-based Red Bridge Arts has once again given a children’s classic a radical makeover without losing the heart of the original story.
Strange Tales
★★★☆☆ Cultural collision:
There are certainly moments of magic in Strange Tales, the Christmas co-production between Grid Iron and the Traverse, but they are too few and far between.
A Game of Death and Chance
★★★★☆ Eerily Interesting
Young critics scheme review
In A Game of Death and Chance, the National Trust for Scotland’s first ever Fringe show, four characters from the 17th century – and death himself – have occupied an old Edinburgh tenement to tell stories of Scotland’s past.
