Same Team: A Street Soccer Story at The Traverse Theatre

Robbie Gordon and Jack Nurse each score double hat-tricks in the writing of this fabulous new play at The Traverse in Edinburgh, under Bryony Shanahan’s taught direction and in collaboration with Dundee Women’s Street Soccer organisation. I have not laughed so much in a theatre for a long time. Line after line land on the six yard box to be smashed into the top bins as the outrageously great script provides a pitch perfect ensemble cast with the times of their lives.

Hannah Jarrett-Scott has the pick of the parts, as the highly strung B, but TBH all five actors would have places in a theatrical Champion’s League Man City squad. 

But a play this great starts with the writing and that’s where Gordon and Nurse make the actors’ jobs easy. Not only in the hilarious techno fuelled banter that makes up large parts of the script, but in telling the back story of each of these womens’ lives with real sympathy and quiet space. It feels based on truth (and I imagine where the Homeless Change project in Dundee contributed).

The story is a good one. Five homeless women are selected to represent Scotland in the Women’s Homeless World Cup in Milan. As befits a good story their abilities are mixed and their personalities like oil and water. But football is a leveller and, naturally enough, the group’s dynamic waxes and wanes with their fortunes on the pitch. It would be an enormous spoiler to tell you how they fare in Italy, you’ll just have to hope that it finds a second life. I feel sure it will because a show this good, performed this well, cannot spend the rest of its life in a memory-based Panini sticker album.

Bravo. Brilliant stuff that everyone will love.

Here’s a behind the scenes video.

Review of The Patient Gloria by Gina Moxley and Abbey Theatre in association with Pan Pan Theatre at The Traverse; Edinburgh Fringe.

I’ve seen some cracking stuff this year already; The Incident Room, Shit, Baby Reindeer, Nightclubbing and Peter Gynt (EIF) are all there or there about the 5 star mark, and I expect all to win prizes this year.  There are at least two Fringe Firsts in that bunch.  Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer Summerhall, in particular, left me speechless.

But tonight we went super A-list with the classic Abbey Theatre of Dublin in a co-pro with Pan Pan Theatre Co and Gina Moxley.

It’s a three woman piece written by and starring the diminutive Gina Moxley who is a dab hand at playing male psychotherapists.  She shares the stage and the story with the titular Gloria; a 1964 divorcee aged 30 with a still high sex drive and a nine year old inquisitive daughter in tow.

In an experimental film in 1965 the real life Gloria was a guinea pig in three psychotherapy experiments that were filmed to observe different approaches to understanding Gloria’s motivations and drives.

The play brings these sessions to life against a rich tapestry of theatrical techniques and outrageously brilliant acting from both Moxley and Liv O’Donoghue (the beautiful Gloria).

The two make an odd couple, not least because of the notable difference in height.

They are wonderfully supported by Jane Deasy as the one-woman bass-playing Greek Chorus.

I can’t begin to describe how many moments come together to make this piece of theatre so magical; obviously the script, story and acting are the foundations but the direction by John McIlduff is like a master class.  The set design and costumes are stunning and the sound design an important contribution too.

It’s gripping, thrilling, ballsy feminism at its extreme best.  I’m a feminist so I wasn’t in the least uncomfortable: but bring an ounce of misogyny into The Traverse and you’ll be going home with your ball sack shrivelled inside you.

Catholisisim gets a good kicking (or at least its Irish educational sub divisional torture chamber).

It’s brilliant, inventive, hilarious, thought provoking, visually and aurally stunning theatre at its very, very best.

 

 

 

 

A ferocious, brutal and hilarious piece of theatre that will take your breath away. Ulster American at The Traverse Theatre from 20 Feb.

I saw this at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  It was the best show in The Traverse’s best Fringe for years.  Gobsmackingly brilliant and it’s back with the same cast.  A bigger venue, but what could possibly go wrong?

At the time I described it as the bastard child of Aaron Sorkin, Frankie Boyle (maybe Jerry Sadowitz) and Martin McDonagh.

I can’t recommend it enough.

But it’s sweary, violent, sexist, outrageous, scary, rude, bawdy.  If you don’t like any of those things you’ll just have to fuck off and watch Strictly.  (You twat.)

The bastard child of Aaron Sorkin, Frankie Boyle (maybe Jerry Sadowitz) and Martin McDonagh – Ulster American @ The Traverse Theatre *****.

You know those things Frankie Boyle says that few of us even think?

You know the way Martin McDonagh captures the Irish ‘thing’?

You know the pace and eloquence that Aaron Sorkin brings to TV writing?

This is the mash up.  Kinda.

It’s actually a symbiosis of the three:  1 + 1 + 1 = >3

Written by David Ireland (I HAVE to see more of his work), brilliantly directed by Gareth Nichols and impeccably acted;  no, ferociously acted, by Darrell D’Silva, Robert Jack and Lucianne McEvoy.  This is joyous, mind tingling, laugh out loud, sick to the stomach farce, and political machination brought together in an unholy alliance that led to whoops, cheers and a standing ovation from a sold out Trav 2 audience that were simply blown away by total theatre.

90 minutes passed in the blink of an eye and you could have wrung us out after.

By revealing ANY of the plot would be a spoiler but you’ll never think of Princess Diana the same way again.

This will win every award going.

The Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe. The final Reckonings.

You’ve put up with me so far so here’s the final evaluation.  And the Gorman Awards.

Best show:  Nederlands Dans Theatrer.

Best Musical (excluding Pippin):  Les Miserables.

Best Play:  The Divide (Part 1)

Funniest Show:  Guru Dudu’s Silent Disco Walking Tour

Best Venue:  Summerhall

5 stars *****

Nederlands Dans Theater

Rain

Guru Dudu’s Silent Disco Walking Tour

Border Crossing

Richard Gadd: Monkey See, Monkey do

The Divide (Part 1)

Meow Meow’s The Little Mermaid

£¥€$ (Lies) by Ontroerend Goed

Gus Harrower

Adam

4 Stars****

Les Miserables 4.5*****

Lilith: The Jungle Girl

The Gardener

Dolly Would

Meet me at Dawn

Charlotte Church’s Late Night Pop Dungeon

Staffa

Sweeney Todd

The Divide (Part 2)

Into the Woods

Nina

3 stars***

Flight

Blanck Mass

Guy Pratt

Seance

2 stars**

Party Game 2.5***

The Performers by Irvine Welsh

 

 

 

 

Lilith: The Jungle Girl by Sisters Grimm at The Traverse: Edinburgh Fringe Review.

Sisters Grimm is a multi-award winning Melbourne based experimental queer theatre group and Lilith is the barmy brainchild of Ash Flanders (who plays Lilith) and Declan Greene.

The three person cast includes Candy Bowers as the hilarious Sir Charles Penworth a Dutch based brain surgeon and Genevieve Giuffre as his assistant, Helen Travers, who is deeply in love with him (her as it happens).

The show concerns the civilisation of a feral jungle girl Lilith, who has been brought up by Lions in the jungles of Borneo and has an irrational fear of Penguins.

From the off it is obvious that Lilith is actually a man as Ash Flanders makes his entrance completely naked and ‘soaped up’ in a pink gunge that makes the vinyl floor of the set a veritable ice rink and creates many off script moments of hilarity.

Bowers’ hilarious Victorian bombast creates belly laughs a plenty.  Her performance is at the heart of the show but all three are excellent.  In a particularly amusing ongoing gag he can’t (or won’t) pronounce Helen’s name correctly; it’s a gift that keeps on giving.

There is a degree of Pygmalion about this because if Lilith cannot reach an acceptable level of civilisation and language she will be lobotomised by Sir Charles (or worse).

The threat pushes her onwards and the transformation is real until it all goes wrong and we are transported to London Zoo where Bowers has now assumed the persona of a South London Rapping Lion.

It is again hysterical.

This show is brilliant.

I’m not sure it has any deep meaning, but with its mix of a fine ‘Ripping Yarn’, slapstick, gender bending, extreme full frontal nudity and terrific acting it’s an absolute treat.

4.5*****

 

 

Knives in Hens at The Traverse (National Theatre of Scotland)

OK.

This is a hard one to review for a number of reasons.
First, it stars my cousin (Susan Vidler) so I have to declare an interest.

Second.  It stars the son of my most inspiring school teacher (Owen Whitelaw) Son of Walter Whitelaw, the man that made me gain a biology degree. So I have to declare an interest.

Third.  I didn’t really understand a fucking jot of it.

Now. to the business end and taking account all of the above.

It’s absorbing.  It’s intriguing. It’s empathetic.  It’s in some ways remarkable. Because it feels like an important piece of theatre that (actually) maybe I did “get”.

But it’s obtuse.  It’s difficult.  It’s ANNOYING.

The performances rock.  Every single one of them and let me not leave out Vicki Manderson or Duncan Anderson because this is actually a four header ensemble piece.

So, what is it about?

My take, and it’s only mine is that it’s a kind of human condition observation (Susan told me that directed in a different way it would obviously be about the Industrial revolution and I can see why because it’s a tale of old meets new (Plough v Mill).

It’s highly sexual and very existential.  God features heavily and Manderson’s Character in particular pulls that together as she plays a part human, part mare, part.

What is she?  Mare or madam?

I say mare.

It’s this year’s theatrical cryptic crossword and I say go and figure it out for yourself because I failed on 1 across.

Confined Human Condition by Cryptic

This was the first time I’d seen a Cryptic production and it certainly will not be the last.  It’s a double header with the first, The Baghdad Monologue, featuring a performance in silhouette behind three semi opaque white perspex screen shrouded in wire cage set to an interesting soundtrack by Alejandro Vinao and performed by Frances M Lynch.

This show was the best lit theatre production I have ever seen.  Congratulations go to Nich Smith. Technically stunning!  But the performance too was gripping and interesting as it charts the point of view of an Iraqi woman who has lost her son, Kamil.  It’s a brilliant satire and critical annihilation of Bush and his “Shock and Awe” strategy that is ultimately as moving as it is visually compelling.

The second is equally clever technically, Terror of Love finds a woman (Lore Lixenberg) trapped among her dreams on a viscious red Chaise Longue.  Behind her through back lit mirrors her dreams come to life as Clare Roderick gradually strips naked.  It’s entertaining certainly but lacked the resonance of the first.

Nevertheless, the evening as a whole is highly recommended.

The Last Witch by The Traverse Theatre Company at The Lyceum

Me and Mrs G went to see this highly recommended production yesterday and just managed to squeeze in with the last two seats in the theatre.

Let’s start on a plus note.  The visual effects are stunning as is most of the acting, but especially the quite extraordinary Kath Howden.  the music and sound add greatly to the experience and my overall take on it was positive.  Good but not great I’d say.

The story is interesting and the dialogue is really good but something was missing for me (and I suspect most of the audience because the applause at the end was more grateful and polite than raucous).

It’s about the burning of The Last Witch in Scotland (in Dornach of all places in 1727) and I liked the way the story really centered on this madwoman’s affection for her daughter and her blind belief that she was indeed a witch when in fact she was really just an illusionist (and olden days junkie).  The story of the daughter (played beautifully by Hannah Donaldson) was what actually gripped me most because there was just the suggestion that she (not her mother) might indeed be touched by the hand of the devil.

Rona Munro, in her programme notes, told us that there were many ways she could have told the tale (one thought was that the Witch may have had an ancient version of Alzheimers) and although I very much enjoyed the dialogue I just felt it missed a beat somewhere along the way.

Hoors

A Scottish word meaning ladies of the night.  Not particularly a term of affection and one used frequently in Fife where people refer to one another as “ya hoor ye.”

It’s an appropriate title then for Gregory Burke’s latest play which is currently premièring at he Traverse because Burke is fiercely proud of his Fife-ness.  His first play ‘Gagarin Way’ is named after a street in Fife which, in turn, is rather randomly named after the famous cosmonaut who has, to my knowledge, as much Fife Blood in him as I have Russian.

The Black Watch, the regiment that inspired Burke’s tour de force, are largely recruited from Fife, and Hoors is set in Fife in the aftermath of a calamitous stag night where the bridegroom to be only goes and dies.

We open in the bride to be’s living room as she prepares for the following day’s funeral with her sister; pishing it up.

They’re waiting on a couple of lads.  The ‘brides’ bit on the side and his mate; a right Jack the lad (in his shady past).

The play, literally, rotates between the bride’s bedroom and living room where various debates and revelations unravel themselves over the next hour and a half.

Sex and death.  Or shagging and copping it are the main themes in a show that is peppered with hilarious one-liners and foul-mouthed observations.  But great insights and depth of meaning seemed pretty thin on the ground.  That’s fine by me, as not everything has to carry the burden of enlightenment with it.  But I gather Mr Burke is a bit hacked off with the post-Black Watch expectations which mark this, to some,  as a weak follow up.

I can’t comment.  I’ve read Gagarin Way which I liked very much but I didn’t see the Black Watch.

Both Jeana and I enjoyed this.  But it’s a Chinese meal of a play.  Good at the time but you’re still craving a chippy at midnight.