Benny Young
Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape
★★★★☆ Philosophical weight
Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape at the Lyceum deals unapologetically with difficult emotional and political themes, eschewing any easy answers or resolutions in a way that could be difficult but is made palatable by performances of power and nuance.
PPP: Eulogy
★★★☆☆ Surprising:
Rob Drummond surpasses even his own reputation for theatrical twisting and turning with the memorable Eulogy, an invitation to the lunchtime funeral service of the late Sandy Munro.
The Hard Man
Rehearsed reading:
Opening up the scope of the Edinburgh International Film Festival’s retrospective on noted Scottish polymath Tom McGrath, the staged script reading of his 1977 play The Hard Man sits perfectly with McGrath’s “explorer” image.
This Story of Yours
Rehearsed reading:
The theatre element of the Edinburgh International Film Festival got off to a cracking start on Thursday, with This Story of Yours the first of three one-off rehearsed script readings in Traverse 1.
Hay Fever
★★★☆☆ Too cool:
Solidly acted but only sporadically funny, the Lyceum and the Citizens Theatre co-production of Hay Fever is entirely serviceable but all too forgettable.
Waiting for Godot
★★★★☆ Timeless power:
Poetry, a deep humanity and a profound understanding of the power of the theatre shine through in the Lyceum’s exemplary Waiting For Godot.
Cyrano de Bergerac
Ol’ Bignose is back:
Edwin Morgan’s celebrated Scottish translation of Cyrano de Bergerac was given a one-off revival at the Book Festival.
Hedda Gabler
✭✭✭✩✩ Mixed success:
Although considered and intelligent in its conception, the Lyceum’s production of Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler is too uneven to convince entirely.
Unfaithful
✭✭✭✭✩ Astute and funny
Can relationships survive infidelity? Owen McCafferty’s play, Unfaithful, at the Traverse is both astute and funny in tackling this thorny subject.
Dear Scotland – Review
✭✭✭✭✩ Portrait of a mindset
Dear Scotland, You are a country of many fine actors, both young and old, a country with many ideas that have to be said and with many people who have the wit to say them. Now the NTS has found a stage on which this to happen.
