Listings and Preview: Mon 21 – Sun 27 Oct 2024
What’s on Edinburgh’s stages this week?
It’s a pretty full card of theatre this week, topped out by the PFT production of A Streetcar Named Desire opening at the Lyceum for a fortnight run (Fri – 9 Nov: tickets) and the arrival of Michael Maloney as Hurcule Poirot in Christie’s supreme thriller: Murder on the Orient Express at the Festival Theatre for one week only (Tue-Sat: tickets).
Those who like their theatre less mainstream have plenty on offer too. The EUTC has Mat Crowley’s The Boys in the Band (Wed – Sat: tickets) at Bedlam, Manchán Magan has yet another cooking-while-we-watch piece, Aran & Im, at the Traverse (Fri/Sat: tickets) and, if Summerhall remains open to Saturday, Creepy Boys will be playing there (Sat: tickets).
A scene from That Feeling When from Lyra Young Company at the Studio Theatre.
The lunchtime theatre slot at the Traverse is super-topical with Detained (Tue-Sat: tickets) and the Lyra Young Company drop into the Studio with a dance theatre piece, That Feeling When (Fri/Sat: tickets).
If you want some musical theatre then the Nardone Academy of Performing Arts is at the Church Hill Theatre with Annie (Fri/Sat: tickets), while at the Playhouse, The Book of Mormon, continues its three week residency (ends Sat 2 Nov: tickets).
Perhaps the most intriguing piece of the week is at the Bedlam where the EUTC are putting on The Boys in the Band. Written in 1968, before AIDS, before Stonewall, a group of gay men gather for a friend’s birthday party in a New York City apartment. There, over the course of the evening and multiple rounds of drinks, barbs become more cutting, fault lines in friendships crack open and emotional truths spill out.
groundbreaking
The play was groundbreaking in its portrayal of gay lifestyle, but activism wasn’t Crowley’s aim, according to an interview with him in 2018 in Mississippi Today “That wasn’t my intention, to change any laws or increase tolerance. I was just angry and wanted the injustice of it all — to all those characters — known.
“They were just a microcosm of what was going on in the world. So, if I had any agenda, it wasn’t hidden, and it wasn’t really terribly conscious. I just think the anger and the frustration superseded everything and boiled over in its own way.”
The Pitlochry Festival Theatre production of A Streetcar Named Desire opens at the Lyceum this week. Pic: PFT.
The big opener of the week is at the Lyceum, with the Pitlochry Festival Theatre production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Reprising her role as Blanche Dubois is Kirsty Stuart, whose original performance of the role led to her being nominated for a 2024 Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS) for Outstanding Performance.
Also returning to their leading roles are Nalini Chetty as Stella Kowalski and Matthew Trevannion as Stanley Kowalski.
another world
Director Elizabeth Newman said: “A Streetcar Named Desire is one of the greatest plays ever written. Tennessee Williams transports us to another world in New Orleans to experience this incredible family drama. The characters – Blanche, Stella and Stanley – are legendary. We cannot wait to bring this story to life for Lyceum audiences this autumn.
“After a hugely successful run in Pitlochry Festival Theatre last year, we are excited to revive the production in Edinburgh. We can promise it’ll be intense and powerful thanks to the performances of the fantastic Ensemble, great creative team, and Williams’ astonishing writing uniting on the beautiful Lyceum stage.”
Aran & Im is at the Traverse on Friday and Saturday. Pic: Ros Kavanagh
The other show of local note is from the Lyra young company, from the Craigmillar venue.That Feeling When is a sensory dance theatre and live music production, which asks how the seasons can be a guide to what feels good in the cycle of teen-hood.
There is a real tingle factor to the provocations for the show: “You know that feeling the night before your birthday? And that sensation as you slip into a deep sleep with nowhere to be in the morning? You know that feeling when you when finally burst out of school for the holidays? And how good it feels to walk on piles of crunchy leaves?”
Oh yes. All very recognisable stuff and this should be a memorable piece of work.
And finally, for those who fancy a
Listings
Bedlam Theatre
11B Bristo Place, EH1 1EZ.
The Boys in the Band (EUTC)
Wed 23 – Sat 26 October 2024.
Evenings: 7.30pm (tbc).
Mart Crowley’s groundbreaking 1968 play (pre-Aids, pre-Stonewall) about gay life in New York City. In his Upper East Side apartment, Michael is throwing a birthday party for Harold, a self- avowed “thirty-two-year-old, pockmarked, Jew fairy,” complete with surprise gift: “Cowboy,” a street hustler. Book here.
Church Hill Theatre
33 Morningside Road, EH10 4DR.
Annie (Nardone’s Academy of Performing Arts)
Fri 25 – Sat 26 October 2024.
Evenings: 7.30pm; Sat mat: 2.30pm.
Based on the popular comic strip, Annie tells the extraordinary story of a little orphan who ends up in the lap of luxury with Depression-era billionaire Oliver Warbucks. Unlike most of the other children at Miss Hannigan’s orphanage, energetic Annie believes that her parents are still alive and will one day return to claim her. Book here.
Festival Theatre
13/29 Nicolson Street EH8 9FT. Phone booking: 0131 529 6000.
Murder on the Orient Express
Tue 22 – Sat 26 Oct 2024
Tue – Sat: 7.30pm; Thurs, Sat: 2.30pm.
Winter 1934 and an avalanche stops The Orient Express dead in its tracks. One murderer. A train full of suspects. An impossible case. Trapped in the snow with a killer still on-board, can the world’s most famous detective, Hercule Poirot, crack the case before the train reaches its final destination? Book here.
Lyceum Theatre
Grindlay Street EH3 9AX. Phone booking: 0131 248 4848.
A Streetcar Named Desire
The Pitlochry Festival Theatre production.
Thurs 24 Oct – Sat 9 Nov 2024
Preview: Thurs 24.
Daily (not Mon): 7.30pm. Wed, Sat mat: 2.30pm.
After losing her family home and prosperous life, former southern belle Blanche Dubois moves into the shabby apartment of her younger sister Stella and her husband Stanley Kowalski in a poor neighbourhood in New Orleans. Book here.
Playhouse
18 – 22 Greenside Place, EH1 3AA. Phone booking: 0844 871 3014.
The Book of Mormon
Tue 15 Oct – Sat 2 Nov 2024.
Mon – Sat: 7.30pm; Fri, Sat mat: 2.30pm.
Æ Review: ★★★★☆ Something incredible.
This outrageous musical comedy from the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and Bobby Lopez, the Co-writer of Avenue Q and Frozen, follows the misadventures of a mismatched pair of missionaries, sent on a mission to a place that’s about as far from Salt Lake City as you can get… Book here.
Studio Theatre
The Studio, 22 Potterrow, EH8 9BL. Phone booking: 0131 529 6000.
That Feeling When (Lyra Young Company)
Fri 25/Sat 26 Oct 2024
Fri: 7.30pm; Sat: 2pm.
From the softest new gloves in winter to screaming on rollercoasters in summer, That Feeling When is a sensory dance theatre and live music production, which asks how the seasons can be a guide to what feels good in the cycle of teen-hood Book here.
Summerhall
1 Summerhall, EH9 1PL.
Creepy Boys (So.Glad Arts)
Sat 26 Oct 2024
Evenings: 7pm (TechCube 0).
You’re invited: The Creepy Boys, are throwing their 13th birthday party. It will have everything. Games. Gifts. Possibly Satan. Probably Cake. Combining 2000s sexy songs, satanic rituals, and Willam Dafoe, these horny little boys do whatever it takes to make their birthday dreams come true. Book here.
Traverse
10 Cambridge Street, EH1 2ED. Phone booking: 0131 228 1404.
Detained (PPP)
By Michelle Chantelle Hopewell.
Tue 22 – Sat 26 Oct 2024
Lunchtimes: 1pm (Trav 2).
The British immigration system is broken. Between slogans and party-political hard lines, the people in the middle go unnoticed. The people clearing your plates, serving your drinks, your colleagues, your friends. A tense new drama about two best friends and the broken British immigration system. Book here.
Aran & Im (Once Off Productions)
By Manchán Magan.
Fri 25 – Sat 26 Oct 2024
Evening: 8pm (Trav 2).
A theatrical performance in which Manchán Magan bakes sourdough bread while offering insights into the wonders of the Irish language – exploring potent words of landscape, terms of intuition and insight, and the many phrases that bring to life the mysterious glory of our natural world. Book here.
ENDS
