Online
frisson (online)
★★★☆☆ Cunning exploration
frisson (online) by Production Lines is “a coming out story in two parts”, with the first told online over Zoom this week, and the second due to be performed live in the Leith Arches next week.
Keli – an audio drama
★★★★☆ Intense
Martin Green’s audio drama Keli, previewed earlier this month at the Lyceum, has arrived on the theatre’s Soundstage audio platform. While there is much that is odd about its presentation, it is an absolutely engrossing piece.
A Brief History of the Fragile Male Ego
★★★☆☆ History reduced
Multi award-winning feminist theatre company Jordan & Skinner has reimagined its 2019 Edinburgh Fringe hit, A Brief History of the Fragile Male Ego, turning it into a zoom style lecture that is available for home streaming through various platforms throughout February.
prism
★★★☆☆ Intriguing
prism, Production Lines’ latest venture into live, interactive online theatre, is very much a curate’s egg. Much of it is interesting and well played, but other parts are less well realised.
Jamie and the Unicorn online
★★★★☆ Streaming good fun
The brand new pantomime Jamie and the Unicorn at the Gaiety Theatre in Ayr, hits all the big pantomime tropes – and hits them bang on – with a live performance that makes a smooth transfer to online viewing.
History
★★★★★ Outstanding
History by Roy Williams is not only the best so far of the offerings on the Lyceum and Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s Sound Stage audio platform, it must also have a claim to be the most essential of all the audio dramas provided by theatres in the last 18 months.
Sophia
★★★☆☆ Revealing reminder
The conflicting demands of professional ambition and personal happiness are brought into stark focus in Sophia by Frances Poet.
Bytesize Theatre
★★★☆☆ Welcome
The lack of time to plan for live theatre at this year’s Fringe has not deterred the Edinburgh Graduate Theatre Group. Bytesize Theatre is a collection of three new plays presented on the online Fringe Player. The three pieces are not all equally impressive, but each has intriguing elements.
Black Diamonds and the Blue Brazil
★★★☆☆ Human
The latest Sound Stage production from the Lyceum and Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Black Diamonds and the Blue Brazil, is a funny and affecting tale of love and obsession set in the decaying heartlands of Scottish industry and football.
The Macbeths
★★★★☆ Bloody good
The Macbeths, the Citizens’ concentrated revision of Macbeth, supplies a charge that is so often missing in versions of the play.
