Reviews: The Match Box – Byre Theatre, St Andrews; Company – Aberdeen Arts Centre

First published in The Times, Monday February 5 2018

The Match Box: Four Stars

Company: Three Stars

Frank McGuinness, the Irish playwright, is as celebrated for his translations of classics, including tragedies by Sophocles and Euripides, as he is for original works such as Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme. His monologue, The Match Box, first performed in 2012, has a vividly described contemporary setting but the questions it asks are as old as civilisation itself.

Review: Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme

First published in The Times, Friday May 27 2016

Two Stars

 

As we approach the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, it is hard not to become overwhelmed – numbed even – by the scale of the carnage wrought on the bloodiest day in British military history. Frank McGuinness’s 1985 play stands out among dramatic depictions of the First World War for its reluctance to stick to a tried-and-tested formula. Its final sequence takes place in a trench on the morning of the first day of the battle, before a single shot has been fired.