Review: Twelfth Night – Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh

Taking its cue from the opening lines of Shakespeare’s comedy — “If music be the food of love, play on” — musical composition and performance are at the heart of Wils Wilson’s production of Twelfth Night for the Lyceum and Bristol Old Vic. A battered grand piano is a prominent feature of Ana Inés Jabares-Pita’s country-house set and several of the performers double as musicians, including Meilyr Jones, the Welsh singer-songwriter and the composer for the show.

Review: Aladdin – Perth Theatre

First published in The Times, Tuesday December 12 2017

Three Stars

There was drama on and offstage at the opening performance of Perth’s pantomime. Ten minutes before the finale, a few too many puffs of smoke triggered the newly refurbishment theatre’s fire alarm system, dispatching cast, crew and audience onto the High Street for an impromptu second interval. Everyone involved took the disruption in good grace. The fire fighters were even called onstage to take a bow when the action resumes.

Review: Daphne Oram’s Wonderful World of Sound – Tron Theatre, Glasgow

First published in The Times, Tuesday May 16 2017

Four Stars

It is hard to conceive of a time when electronic music was not a significant part of the soundtrack to our lives. Yet, back in the late 1950s, the establishment of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which created sound effects for use in programming, was so controversial that its founders, Daphne Oram and Desmond Briscoe, found themselves operating on a miniscule budget out of two dingy rooms at the corporation’s Maida Vale studios.

Review: Fisk – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

First published in The Times, Tuesday January 31 2017

Three Stars

The Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Tortoise in a Nutshell is nothing if not versatile. Its award-winning 2013 fringe show, Feral, invited audiences to cram into a small venue to watch an entire town built from tiny paper models come to life before our eyes. The company’s latest work, presented in association with the Macrobert Arts Centre and Denmark’s Teater Katapult, is a different prospect entirely. All the action of this main stage production takes place on or around a solitary life-sized boat, tossed on a vast, undulating sea.