Welcome! I am a freelance journalist and theatre critic for The Times in Scotland. I also write short fiction, which has been broadcast several times on BBC Radio 4 and published in anthologies such as Out There, Elsewhere, ImagiNation, Gutter, Markings, New Writing Scotland and The Best Gay Stories.
First published in The Times, Monday December 13 2021
FOUR STARS
Amid this year’s seasonal feast of pantomimes, musicals and comedy shows, the Lyceum, Edinburgh, is serving something altogether different. Christmas Dinner is a new play — written by Robert Alan Evans and produced in association with Catherine Wheels, a leading children’s company — that seeks to celebrate no less than the redemptive power of theatre itself.
Continue reading “Review: Christmas Dinner – Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh”First published in The Times, Friday November 8 2019
Four Stars
The story goes that Disney considered acquiring the rights to Barry Hines’s 1968 novel A Kestrel for a Knave but withdrew their interest when the author refused to change the book’s downbeat ending. That the non-bowdlerised adaptation, directed by Ken Loach, has proved so enduring since its release 50 years ago is testament to a widespread acceptance on the part of audiences that stories about children need not always be sugary or optimistic.
First published in The Times, Friday December 4 2015
Four Stars
There have been enough retellings and parodies of Little Red Riding Hood to nearly constitute an entire genre. Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the woods, along comes this startling piece of dance theatre, created by the Glasgow-based company Barrowland Ballet, which compels its audience to look anew at the caped heroine and her lupine adversary.
Allan Radcliffe 