Traverse
Maggie & Me
★★★☆☆ Resonant but unwieldy
The National Theatre of Scotland’s Maggie & Me, touring to the Traverse, is an odd beast indeed. It has a great deal to say about both the personal and the political, but some of it is lost in an over-ambitious, wildly inconsistent production.
Dead Girls Rising
★★★★☆ Emotional roller-coaster
Silent Uproar’s new touring production of Dead Girls Rising, at the Traverse for three performances, is an emotional roller-coaster of punk gig theatre focusing on two young women as they navigate a pathway through lives faced with misogyny and a violent patriarchy.
David Bowie & Me: Parallel Lives
★★★★☆ Hilarious reflections
Gilded Balloon’s presentation of Jack Docherty in David Bowie & Me: Parallel Lives takes a 1997 interview on Docherty’s TV chat show with his teenage hero, David Bowie as a starting point for some hilarious reflections on a childhood growing up in 1970s Edinburgh.
Edinburgh companies up for the CATS
Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland shortlist announced
Edinburgh-based companies and venues have been nominated in every category of this year’s CATS, the Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland. A total of 10 productions from six different producers have secured a total of 20 nominations between them.
Louder
Showcase: Most worthwhile
Framework Theatre’s Louder is a showcase for “semi-staged draft works of four brand new plays, all written & directed by early-career artists of marginalised genders.”
PPP: The Scaff
★★★☆☆ Energetic
The Scaff by Stephen Christopher and Graeme Smith, the last in the Traverse’s Spring season of Òran Mór’s Play, Pie and a Pint, is performed with a huge amount of dynamism.
Class Act: Ukraine Edition
Special Ukraine version of Trav’s flagship engagement project
The Traverse has announced a week-long version of its flagship schools engagement project, Class Act, working with young Ukrainians from across Scotland to create plays to be performed script-in-hand on Saturday 13 April 2024.
PPP: Hotdog
★★★☆☆ Powerful
Hotdog by Ellen Ritchie, this week’s lunchtime theatre at the Traverse, is a powerful if uneven production, extremely well performed.
PPP: Pushin’ Thirty
★★★☆☆ Delicate
Traverse: Tue 19 – Sat 23 Mar 2024
Review by Hugh Simpson
Pushin’ Thirty at the Traverse is a delicate and evocative piece that does not always convince.
Strange Town’s tidal trilogy
Youth company celebrates 15th year with trilogy at Traverse
Youth company Strange Town is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year and will be staging a trilogy of new plays, in the theme of Tides, performed by its young companies at the Traverse in June.
