Author: The Reviews Hub - Scotland

Writer: Ahlam Director: Katie Posner A series of anti-government and establishment, armed rebellions and uprisings occurred across much of the Arab world in late 2010 – stretching into the following year and beyond. Its consequences, and the lives lost, would come to be known as the Arab Spring. The impact of which still ripples over a decade later. And this is where the vital importance of broadening our scope to new stories from new writers emerges, as Ahlam’s You Bury Me not only widens the spectrum of understanding for audiences to the impact of the Arab Spring but this winner…

Writer: Stephen Knight Director/Choreographer: Benoit Swan Pouffer Composer: Roman GianArthur Until the recent announcement of Black Sabbath – The Ballet, one could only have imagined what Tommy Shelby would make of finding his life story turned into the subject of a dance piece. That alternative heroes from Birmingham and the Black Country have suddenly become a rich seam of material for genre bending dance performances is as unlikely as it is intriguing. That said, Peaky Blinders: The Redemption of Thomas Shelby is deft enough and original enough to rebut any claims that this is sound of a particularly aggressive cow being milked to…

Writer: Rob Evans Director: Jesse Jones Death Drop: Back in the Habit is the latest in what is fast becoming a drag-theatre franchise. In a previous incarnation, a murder mystery, this iteration is inspired by the slasher genre. Billed as “The Sound of Music meets Scary Movie”. “A gaggle of fierce nuns are confined to their convent, but their peace and tranquillity is shattered by a serial slayer, slashing their way through the Sisters.” Thrown into the mix there’s a visitor from the Vatican, sent to find a missing priest. It’s up to Mother Superior and the eclectic sisters of…

Screenplay: Lawrence Kasdan Book: Alexander Dinelaris Director: Thea Sharrock Love blossoms in the oddest of places, doesn’t it? Especially in a jukebox musical. Especially in a jukebox musical based upon a smash-hit 1992 romantic drama film. But Laurence Kasden’s The Bodyguard, largely down to Whitney Houston’s Oscar-nominated soundtrack, has propelled the story into the cultural zeitgeist. Adapted for the stage, Alexander Dinelaris’ musical adaptation follows the threads of the film – where a global superstar singer is at the mercy of a stalker, their death threats growing in ferocity. The answer? One man. One man whose experience and steely nerve…

Director: Ross Gunning Choreographer: Rebecca Curbelo Valdivia It’s a brave producer indeed who puts a cast of young performers on the same stage as the very best of the best of the West End. Brave or foolish you might say, but Ross Gunning has gathered the cream of young, triple threat, musical theatre talent in Scotland together and boy do they deliver the goods. This entire production Movies to Musicals exudes quality from curtain up to curtain down. The choice of songs is inspired: opening on A Musical from recent Broadway smash, the Shakespeare spoof, Something Rotten (a musical that’s…

Writer: Laura Wade Director: Tamara Harvey & Hannah Noone Laura Wade’s Home I’m Darling opens on a lovingly decorated two-story, 1950s home. A women, who we find out is Judy (Jessica Ransom) is clad in a candy stripe circle skirt, puffed out with petticoats and a frilly pinny. The dialogue delivered is pure RP. It all looks like any of Doris Day’s pastel-hued 1950s domestic comedies, or at least, the perfect presentation of post-war life in the London suburbs. That is, until Judy opens a drawer and pulls out her laptop. All is not as it seems. It transpires that…

Book & Lyrics Alan Jay Larner Music: Frederick Loewe Director: Bartlett Sher Twinkling in the moonlight, this festooned production of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s comforting and classical musical gala draws out the festive spirit with a deeply engaging night at the Edinburgh Playhouse. Traversing through a stylistic view of Edwardian London, sailing between well-loved song pieces of the genre, Bartlett Sher’s revived tour of My Fair Lady attempts to contemporise the musical and atone for its shortcomings. This musical paradigm based around George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion finds the puppeteering hands of Professor Henry Higgins pulling the strings of…

Writer: Ross Mackay Director: Jordan Blackwood Where the glitz and glamour of big-budget Christmas shows may dominate, tucked within the corner is Treasure Island at the Cumbernauld Theatre, Lanternhouse – an unassuming piece of evocative stage magic which unfurls itself with an honesty that captivates like few others. Treasure Island, Cumbernauld Theatre’s co-production with Visible Fiction, understands the readers and the story-lovers in the audience and captures their passions through Ross Mackay’s passionate writing and Janis Hart’s visual design for the show. Spinning the tale into a mix of the original, and the story of a young Cumbernauld boy Robbie…