Theatre review: Life is a Dream – Lyceum, Edinburgh

First published in The Times, Wednesday November 3 2021

Four Stars

Jo Clifford’s translation of Life is a Dream was originally due to be staged at the Lyceum back in May 2020. In the intervening period, when at times everyday life has taken on the character of nightmare, Pedro Calderón’s classic of the Spanish Golden Age has only acquired new potency.

Review: Miss Julie – Perth Theatre

First published in The Times, Wednesday February 20 2019

Three Stars

Unlike those pesky, proverbial buses, productions of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie tend to come along with reassuring frequency. Since its premiere in 1889 the story of the aristocratic young Swedish woman fatally drawn to her father’s servant has reached far beyond its original setting and time frame.

Review: Long Day’s Journey Into Night – Citizens Theatre, Glasgow

First published in The Times, Saturday April 21 2018

Four Stars

“Enough is not as good as a feast!” cries Edmund Tyrone (Lorn Macdonald), tossing back the latest in a long line of whisky shots. In an age of rapid-fire 90-minute plays with no interval, a revival of Eugene O’Neill’s masterpiece at the Citizens certainly feels like a good old-fashioned theatrical banquet, albeit a well-oiled one.

Review: Trainspotting – Citizens Theatre, Glasgow

First published in The Times, Thursday September 22 2016

Three Stars

It is now 20 years since Danny Boyle’s film version of Trainspotting burst onto cinema screens, and it is fascinating to note the degree to which its structure and imagery have almost supplanted Irvine Welsh’s nonlinear source novel and the 1994 stage adaptation by Harry Gibson. This revival, directed by Gareth Nicholls for the Citz, owes a marked visual debt to Boyle’s movie, right down to the bold orange-and-black lettering on the promotional material.

Review: This Restless House – Citizens Theatre, Glasgow

First published in The Times, Thursday May 5 2016

Four Stars

There’s a wealth of Greek literature in Scottish theatre at present. The blood is still wet on the stage at Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum (during the current run of Chris Hannan’s adaptation of Homer’s Iliad), as the curtain begins to rise on this ambitious reimagining of Aeschylus’s Oresteia trilogy, with a punchy, contemporary version of the text by the playwright Zinnie Harris.