Pippa Murphy
A Streetcar Named Desire
★★★★☆ Taut
Originally staged at Pitlochry Festival Theatre in their 2023 summer season, this multi-layered production of A Streetcar Names Desire sets alight this classic tale of love, lust and betrayal set in a sultry New Orleans.
June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music and Me
★★★★☆ Exuberant
Intense emotion is combined with real intelligence in The National Theatre of Scotland and Grid Iron’s June Carter Cash: The Woman, Her Music and Me by Charlene Boyd, at Summerhall Dissection Room.
Macbeth (an undoing)
★★★★☆ Compelling
Zinnie Harris’s much-garlanded adaptation of Shakespeare, Macbeth (an undoing), returns to the Lyceum subtly tweaked and all the better for it.
Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape
★★★★☆ Philosophical weight
Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape at the Lyceum deals unapologetically with difficult emotional and political themes, eschewing any easy answers or resolutions in a way that could be difficult but is made palatable by performances of power and nuance.
Macbeth (an undoing)
★★★☆☆ Intriguing
Macbeth (an undoing), by Zinnie Harris after William Shakespeare at the Lyceum, is the latest in a long line of rewritings of Macbeth. While it is undoubtedly thought-provoking, it ends up more perplexing than engrossing.
Tim Crouch: Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel
★★★★★ Exit, mind blown
Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel is a worryingly prescient piece. It is an exquisite creation that apparently denies the very point of creativity, a hymn to humanity that insists that humanity has had it. To call it ‘thought-provoking’ would be a criminal understatement.
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.
Below the Blanket
★★★★☆ Twilit contemplation:
What’s not to love about wandering through the Botanics at twilight? Always a great place to escape the bustle of city life, it becomes even more so if you visit after the gates have officially shut.
Lost At Sea
★★★★☆ Poignant:
Perth Theatre’s production of Lost At Sea, at the King’s until Wednesday, is emotional, humane and beautifully staged.
Creditors
★★★★☆ Compellingly troubling:
Strikingly staged and worryingly contemporary, Creditors at the Lyceum is unsettling and difficult to ignore.
