Review
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.
The Mother Load
★★★★☆ Nuanced
The Mother Load by Lynda Radley, the latest in the Lyceum and Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s Sound Stage series of audio presentations, is a warmly human and cleverly constructed piece.
Generation Z: The Future is Unwritten
★★★☆☆ Hybrid drive
Life changes – and the more it changes the more it stays the same. This conundrum – truism – lies at the heart of Generation Z: The Future is Unwritten the Strange Town youth theatres’ imaginative and compelling lockdown project which has a hybrid live performance at Out Of The Blue this weekend.
A Space To Bless
★★★★☆ Invaluable
A Space to Bless, a series of meditations from Queen Jesus Productions filmed in St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, provides much-needed balm for the soul.
Smile
★★★☆☆ Sympathetic
Smile, Dundee Rep’s football-themed online offering, transfers to the screen to provide a satisfactory record of 2020’s successful play about the legendary Jim McLean.
Distance Remaining
★★★☆☆ Assured
There are some wonderful, and wonderfully human, performances in Distance Remaining. The three separate sections of the production ultimately fail to gel, but there is more than enough to sustain the interest.
Meet Jan Black
★★★☆☆ multi-layered
The end of Lockdown is in sight and Jan Black is back on stage; Maureen Beattie stars in Johnny McKnight’s multi-layered new play for Wonder Fools live-streamed from the Ayr Gaiety.
Angela
★★★★☆ Poignantly perceptive
A touching and utterly personal piece of drama, Angela by Mark Ravenhill is a fitting first offering in the Lyceum and Pitlochry Festival Theatre’s Sound Stage project in association with Naked Productions Ltd.
roulette
★★★☆☆ Frothy
roulette, Production Lines’ latest foray into online theatre, makes excellent use of technology. If it is unaware of exactly where it is heading, there is considerable enjoyment to be had along the way.
