Naomi Stirrat
Sunset Song
★★★☆☆ Well performed
Stage versions of Sunset Song seem to come around every couple of years, perhaps because no-one has managed to come up with the definitive adaptation yet. Dundee Rep’s new version (a co-production with the Lyceum) has great strengths as well as weaknesses.
The Snow Queen
★★★★☆ Epic
The Snow Queen at the Lyceum provides thrills, humour and imaginative theatricality. Morna Young’s adaptation (directed by Cora Bissett, with music by Finn Anderson) could not be staged in 2020 for obvious reasons.
The Stamping Ground
★★★★☆ Vibrant
The Stamping Ground at the Festival Theatre is unabashedly emotional and visually enthralling. Raw Material and Eden Court’s Runrig musical – which played successfully in Inverness in 2022 – is touring Scotland and will surely find appreciative audiences.
Muster Station: Leith (EIF)
★★★★☆ Chilling
Muster Station: Leith, by immersive theatre specialists Grid Iron for the EIF, uses the halls and corridors of Leith Academy to suggest what it might be like when the climate emergency reaches a crisis point, here, in Edinburgh.
Still
★★★☆☆ Tender
Still at the Traverse is in many ways a tough watch, with themes of death and loss offset by excellent performances and perceptive writing.
Hemmed In
✭✭✩✩✩ Too limited:
There are some highly promising singers in New Celts and Lost Lock’s all-female musical Hemmed In, who are given real chances to shine in a production that is otherwise hampered by callowness and naïveté.
