Author: The Reviews Hub - Scotland

Director and designer: Mamoru Iriguchi Co-director and co-designer: Fergus Dunnet Two human performers, Mamoru Iriguchi and Julia Darrouy, have fun interacting with puppet versions of themselves of decreasing size, suggesting that they themselves are growing. The show asks the kind of existential questions that might bug you when you’re tired on a long train journey: if your heart beats slower, does time pass differently? There’s some playing with sound on the basis that you might hear things differently according to your size and heartbeat. All of this theorising might drag if the visuals weren’t arresting and the narration wasn’t suitably…

General direction, Text and Acting: Laia Ribera Cañénguez Dramaturgy and Co-stage Direction: Antonio Cerezo  Live Music: Yahima Piedra Córdova In her strikingly multimedia performance, Laia Ribera Cañénguez asks a question that lingers long after the scent of roasted beans fades: “How does it feel to have your worth determined by where you come from?” While she directs this toward a handful of coffee, the weight of the inquiry lands squarely on the audience. The brilliance of the production lies in its tone. Cañénguez invites us in for a coffee—a gesture that feels intimate rather than combative. Yet, this hospitality is…

Director & Choreographer: Carlos Acosta It’s a long way from Havana to St Petersburg, and a considerable cultural distance lies between 19th century Russian romanticism and 20th century Cuba, but Carlos Acosta’s Nutcracker in Havana blends these worlds with panache and originality. The familiar tale of Clara, usually depicted as the privileged child of a well-to-do household, and her nutcracker doll, is transposed here to a modest family home in Havana. A Christmas party is underway, with a rather scruffy Christmas tree in the background, in a setting of sunlit wooden structures – palm trees overhead, heat and dust in…

Music and Lyrics: Irving Berlin, based on the RKO Motion Picture Adapted for the stage by Matthew White & Howard Jacques Diector & Choreographer Kathleen Marshall Adapted from the 1935 RKO musical comedy starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, writers Howard Jaques and Matthew White transport us back to the golden age of Hollywood and a simpler but gloriously glamorous time: an era when plot lines were lighter than air and fluffier than a cumulus cloud and escapism was everything. Broadway star Jerry Travers has arrived in London to star in a new show; there he encounters the glamorous and aloof Dale Tremont…

This is, it’s constantly said, a crunch time for men, with toxic masculinity and the male loneliness epidemic a massive cultural preoccupation. And the suicide rates for men that Marcus Brigstocke shares are undeniably grim. Yet they are also, sadly, not that surprising, given the way that we as a society have absorbed and normalised them. The stand-up also has no difficulty naming and shaming specific powerful men – Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, Elon Musk and Andrew Tate – whose words and actions have poisoned the world and wrought untold damage to humanity, their ego, selfishness and misogyny integral to…

Story: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, based on the fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson Music: Bernard Herrmann Director and choreographer: Matthew Bourne Matthew Bourne has taken Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s 1948, Technicolor masterpiece of British cinema, The Red Shoes and turned it into not only a fully fledged ballet but a triumphant feast for the eyes. Along with struggling composer Julian Craster (Leonardo McCorkindale), aspiring dance star Victoria Page’s (Hannah Kremer) quiet determination takes her from the chorus line to centre stage when she impresses the Diaghilev-like ballet impresario Boris Lermontov (Reece Causton). However, it soon becomes a case…

Writer: Stephen Mallatratt Director: Robin Herford Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black has had an enviable life, originally a 1983 Gothic novella, followed four years later by a stage play, a BBC TV movie adaptation in 1989, then a 2012 film starring Daniel Radcliffe. The stage incarnation started life at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. Created to fill a scheduling and funding hole at Christmas. Artistic director Robin Herford charged writer in residence Stephen Mallatratt with creating a work that employed a maximum of four actors and with a set and costumes costing no more than £1000. Mallatratt took…

Writers: John Cleese and Connie Booth Director: Caroline Jay Ranger Nostalgia sells and it sells especially well when the source material is Fawlty Towers, a TV show held so close to the hearts of the UK public that it is frequently voted the greatest British sit-com of all time. John Cleese has taken a trio of his and Connie Booth’s original scripts: The Hotel Inspectors, The Germans and Communication Problems and woven a seamless narrative around the three to create this stage version of the beloved show. The script is staggeringly close to the original material, with whole portions of…