Michael John McCarthy

Ulster American
★★★★☆ Hard Hitting:
Trailing clouds of glory from 2018, David Ireland’s Ulster American has returned to the Traverse with a bang. If it is not quite as good as some have said, it is still impressive – and certainly is impressively nasty.

The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other
★★★★☆ Contains multitudes:
Dizzying in its invention and almost ludicrously ambitious in scope, The Hour we Knew Nothing Of Each Other at the Lyceum is undoubtedly uneven but always intriguing.

The hour of inspiration
First look at The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other
Closing out the Lyceum’s current season, Austrian playwright Peter Handke’s The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other has over 450 characters but no words.

How to Disappear
★★★☆☆ Troubling comedy:
Morna Pearson’s new play How to Disappear, which is this year’s ‘alternative’ Traverse Christmas entertainment, definitely has its heart in the right place.

NTS Rocket Machine
NTS on Screen launched with Rocket Post
A new initiative, the National Theatre of Scotland on Screen, is to be launched with the filming of a cinema version of its new musical production Rocket Post.

Glory on Earth
★★★☆☆ Accomplished:
Extreme care has been lavished on the Lyceum’s Glory on Earth. It has a clarity to its storytelling and performances, backed up by some excellent staging, but never engages the heart or mind as fully as it promises.

A Number
★★★★☆ Human intelligence:
Philosophical questions that have puzzled us for centuries are given a contemporary yet timeless spin in A Number, presented by the Lyceum in partnership with the Edinburgh International Science Festival.