Anita Vettesse
Playing With Books – the Long Drop
..and other recent Book Festival events
The Book Festival continues in its new home at the Edinburgh College of Art on Lauriston Place, and also continues to offer events of interest to theatre-goers.
Rapunzel – A Hairy Tale Adventure
★★★☆☆Festive fun:
The National Theatre of Scotland’s Rapunzel is full of enjoyment and impressive performances. Although it never quite stakes its claim as a compelling work in its own right, there is plenty to satisfy those missing their annual helping of seasonal entertainment.
PPP for BBC Scotland
Six plays from lunchtime theatre to be broadcast:
The BBC is to broadcast six hour-long plays from Glasgow’s hugely successful lunchtime theatre A Play, A Pie and A Pint, over six Sunday evenings from Sunday September 1 2019.
BookFest – The Final Whistle
Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 Final Round-up:
The Edinburgh International Book Festival 2019 closed with its customary eclectic selection of events a remarkably prescient glitch and a Playing with Books presentation that showed exactly what such an adaptation can do.
Bingo!
★★★☆☆ Energetic:
A musical about women at the bingo would seem a natural for a warm-hearted, reassuringly couthy comedy. Instead, Bingo! ends up as a much swearier, somewhat darker affair that provides entertainment but is let down by its structure.
PPP: Ring Road
★★★★☆ Ring of truth:
Ring Road, the last in the current Play, Pie and a Pint season at the Traverse, is a bittersweet affair. Anita Vettesse’s poignantly funny, well-crafted script benefits from some stand-out performances.
Swallow
✭✭✭✭✩ Human:
There is a strongly beating human heart behind the Traverse Theatre Company’s Swallow. The cleverly staged production from a largely female team has a spiky exterior hiding a warm and resonant core.
In Time o’ Strife
✭✭✭✭✩ Raw power
Visceral and uncomfortable truths are laid bare in the National Theatre of Scotland’s production of In Time O’ Strife. Despite the odd false step in the staging, this is an emotionally charged and thoroughly involving production.
A Perfect Stroke – Review
★★★★★ Perfectly stroked:
Tense and nervous drama of the kind that just won’t relax comes to the Traverse this week in the second instalment of the Spring 2014 season of lunch time theatre: A Play a Pie and a Pint.
