Listings and Preview: Mon 9 – Sun 15 September 2024
What’s on Edinburgh’s stages this week?
The city’s theatre community is still popping the Alka-Seltzer as it resurfaces from EdFringe recovery mode, so not much in the way theatre this week.
The big – indeed the only – show in town is the Edinburgh leg of the new tour of Rebus: A Game Called Malice at the Festival Theatre (Tue 10 – Sat 14 Sept: tickets). There are a number of one-off comedy and sing-along shows. But they are either sold-out or cancelled. Full details below, as always, in case you need a reminder.
Although, without wanting to kill Nish Kumar’s vibe, he did have six tickets left for his show at the Lyceum on Saturday night (check here) the last time I checked. So act fast you want to catch him.
Gray O’Brien (Rebus) and Ian Rankin. Pic: Jess Shurte
So to the Rebus play: A Game Called Malice – Ian Rankin’s third theatrical offering after Dark Road at the Lyceum in 2013 (★★★✩✩ Intriguing but imperfect) and John Rebus’ fist theatrical outing Rebus: Long Shadows (★★★☆☆ Overshadowed).
“When I think about it, it didn’t need to be Rebus – it just needs to be a detective”, Ian Rankin told Æ. “It didn’t even need to be Edinburgh; it just happens to be Edinburgh.
“I think it is a story that is fairly universal. I think it will go down well in England; I think it will go down well wherever it plays because we think we know the situation: posh people in a room going hammers and tongs at each other.”
Edinburgh as a character
Which is a surprising comment given the prevalence of Edinburgh as a character in Rankin’s detective fiction. Pressed on the matter he concedes that the character of Edinburgh’s New Town does have its own role in the play.
“What this play does, is put a working-class guy, Rebus, into this mileu where he is well out of his comfort zone and a mileu which wouldn’t normally welcome him. So he is in the Georgian New Town surrounded by the lawyers and the judges and this and that.
Rebus: A Game Called Malice pre-set. Pic: Ian Rankin Twitter
“When crime erupts in that townhouse, the hostess goes ‘In this street!’ and ‘What will be the neighbours be saying? – you can’t have police cars turning up here you can’t have a scene of crime officers officers here. The neighbours will never talk to us again.’ and then the influencer goes ‘No you will be famous you can sell your story..’.
“So that is old-fashioned Edinburgh where nobody watches anybody else’s business, and you wanted everything kept very hush-hush and private, that is going to be ripped apart now.”
contemporary
It is also a very contemporary play, as Rankin is quick to point out. So that while is has all the makings of locked-room mystery, it has elements which take it a leap away from the classics of the genre.
“You’ve got two worlds colliding in various ways in this story,” says Rankin. “Rebus is the disruptor he is the disruptive element who comes in and shakes everything up. To that extent it could only happen now, because it it is the world of social influences and the Internet and all that kind of stuff.
“All the detecting that is going on, is going on on the phone and by Googling stuff; so things are available to Rebus in this closed room that would not have been available to him in a different period of me writing the books – I use it in this play.”
The cast of Rebus A Game Called Malice. Pic: Nobby Clark.
Rebus fans will no doubt be wondering where the play fits in with the other Rebus ventures, in novels, TV and short stories. If this were Dr Who, Rankin would have to be very careful to keep the new venture ‘in cannon’. Is that the case for Rebus?
“Doctor Who has crazy fans to run after you down the street!” says Rankin. “There are no crazy Rebus fans, thank goodness. There is no Rebus cannon. The plays are different from the TV; the TV is different from the books; the books are different from the short stories.
lighter in tone
“The short stories are much lighter in tone. The play is much lighter in tone than the Rebus novels; very few murders in the play for example. It’s just different.
“I think that people will adjust to it very quickly: give them a good story, give them some wow factor on stage and give them great actors and they will be happy.”
Full listings for the tour of Rebus: A Game Called Malice are on Ian Rankin’s website: www.ianrankin.net.
Listings
Click on the name of the show or the Book here link to go to its ticketing site.
Church Hill Theatre
33 Morningside Road, EH10 4DR.
Artie’s Singing Kettle – Greatest Hits
Sun 15 September 2024.
One show: 1pm.
Artie is bringing the original Singing Kettles packed full of clues to his Greatest Hits. “Spout, handle, lid of metal, What’s inside the Singing Kettle?” A whole bunch of songs that will take adults on a nostalgic trip back to their youth and entertain a whole new generation of children too. Here be Little Bunny Fou Fou, Aiken Drum, Ten in the Bed and The Eelly Alley O... Sold out.
Festival Theatre
13/29 Nicolson Street EH8 9FT. Phone booking: 0131 529 6000.
Rebus: A Game Called Malice
Tue 10 – Sat 14 Sept 2024
Evening: 7.30pm; Thurs, Sat mat: 2.30pm.
A splendid dinner party in an Edinburgh stately home concludes with a murder mystery game created by the hostess. A murder needs to be solved. But the guests have secrets of their own, threatened by the very game they are playing. And among them is Inspector John Rebus. True crime is his calling. Is he playing an alternative game, one to which only he knows the rules? Book here.
Lyceum Theatre
Grindlay Street EH3 9AX. Phone booking: 0131 248 4848.
Nish Kumar: Nish, Don’t Kill My Vibe
Sat 14 Sept 2024
One show: 7.30pm.
In this election year – with the country in turmoil – there’s only one comedian who can kill the mood even further… Expect jokes about climate collapse, income inequality and the emotional sensation of being a British Indian man who didn’t vote for a British Indian Prime Minister. It’s 80 minutes of sweet, sweet vibe killing, plus support act and interval. Book here.
Playhouse
18 – 22 Greenside Place, EH1 3AA. Phone booking: 0844 871 3014.
The Girls Bathroom Planet Tour
Thurs 12 Sept 2024
Evenings: 7.30pm.
Voices of their generation, Sophia and Cinzia, are the internet’s favourite best friends. Their chart-topping podcast, The Girls Bathroom, catapulted the duo to trailblazer status in the podcasting industry and has since taken them on two nationwide tours. Sold out.
Sarah Millican Late Bloomer
Fri 13/Sat 14 Sept 2024
Evening: 8pm.
When Sarah Millican was a bairn, she wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Quiet at school, not many friends, no boobs til she was 16. Now? NOW she is loud, with good friends, a cracking rack and goose booing all over the shop. Late Bloomer explores how one became the other. Plus, lots of stuff about dinners and lady gardens. Come along, laugh at her, with her, beside her.. SOLD OUT.
Traverse
10 Cambridge Street, EH1 2ED. Phone booking: 0131 228 1404.
The Choriza May Show (Choriza May)
Fri 13 Sept 2024
Performance Cancelled.
ENDS
