Ben Blow
Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather
★★★☆☆ Well-turned
Amidst the noise, rituals and trappings of pantomime and Christmas, Strawmoddie’s take on Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather provides a welcome parody of our seasonal excess, at the Pleasance Theatre to Sunday.
Schism
★★★☆☆ Thoughtful
There is plenty to ponder in Alex Cook’s intriguing new play, Schism, for Broadsword theatre, which is staged in the bowels of Augustine United Church for four performances only, ending on Monday 23.
Hamlet / Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
★★★☆☆ Pacy and ★★★★☆ Slick
New Edinburgh amateur company Necessary Cat make their debut performances for the last week only of the fringe with the elegantly twinned pairing of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
And Then There Were None
★★☆☆☆ Patchy
Agatha Christie’s evergreen And Then There Were None is presented by Strawmoddie at the Central Hall, Tollcross, with delicacy and no little effort. Unfortunately, choices with staging – and problems seemingly inherent in the venue – make for an awkward experience.
The Satyricon
★★★☆☆ Smutty
Martin Foreman’s new adaptation of Petronius’s first century bawdy comic romp, The Satyricon, is at Assembly Roxy to Saturday in an initially awkward staging that eventually finds its pace and pomp.
It’s a Wonderful Life
★★★☆☆ Half-life:
They say your life flashes before you before you die and that’s certainly the impression left by Floating Brick Theatre’s version of It’s a Wonderful Life at the Storytelling Centre this week.
Cadaver Synod
★★★☆☆ Gore of yore:
Cadaver Synod is an engaging historical comedy-horror from RFT at the Sweet Grassmarket that crosses boundaries of genre and taste with equal relish.
It’s A Wonderful Life
★★★☆☆ Profound:
The heartbeat of humanity which lies at the core of Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life is brought to the stage in a straightforward but never simple adaptation by Floating Brick Theatre, at the Cornerstone Centre to Saturday.
Those Worrisome Sleeps
★★☆☆☆ Fractured fantasy:
Those Worrisome Sleeps, RFT’s excursion into fantasy and dark magic at Sweet Grassmarket, has an unusual atmosphere and a vigorous earnestness that never translate into a convincing whole.
Midnight conspiracy
RFT stage Scottish Premiere of Wannsee play:
It was the midnight of the twentieth century, the day in 1942 when 15 Nazi bureaucrats met in the Wannsee suburb of Berlin to coordinate the “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem” – murder on an industrial scale.
