That Face

That Face is a play by the young playwright Polly Stenham, given its first Scottish outing at The Tron.    Moved to a Glasgow setting, it is a play about a broken family:   alcoholic mother Martha living in a filthy (think Tracy Emin’s Bed) bedsit with her son Henry.   Daughter, Mia, is at boarding school, paid for by father, Hugh who is in the Far East with a new lady and baby.

That Face

When Mia is sent home from her school for forcibly giving pills stolen from her mother to a 13 year old girl in a boarding school  initiation ceremony, her father gets on the next flight home, and the scene is set for an already fragile family to unwind in style.

Sitting in the second row, we were  completely drawn in to this compelling drama.   The performances from all the main characters were just superb, with James Young as Henry and Kathryn Howden as Martha taking the honours.     Andy Arnold’s direction was perfect, and we loved the multi-level set from Adam Wiltshire which retained the cramped bedsit as a core, yet broadened out to include a vast Glasgow skyline.

One could probably unpick bits of the play, and the relationship between mother and son did not quite ring true at times, but the tears at the end were real enough, onstage and in the audience.

Glasgow Airport Railway Link GARL

What a total nightmare.    The proposed Glasgow Airport Rail Link GARL is a casualty of the Scottish Govermnent’s budget, and will now apparently not be happening.

Glasgow Council are furious, and I am sure that the Commonwealth Games people will also be very unhappy – although they probably can’t say too much as they are due to receive funding from the Government to put the games on.      But GARL was a carrot used in the bid for the Games.

Why can’t Scotland manage to link its airports (Prestwick excepted) with the major cities?      Other countries seem to be able to do this.

Edinburgh Airport Rail Link EARL

The Edinburgh Airport Rail Link was scrapped because basically there was no money to do it – too much going on those  wonderful Edinburgh Trams – which won’t actually now reach the airport apparently.

It is a pity, because the EARL project would have linked over 60 stations in Scotland to the airport.     You would think that if Warsaw can manage to do it (driven by the European Football competition Poland is sharing with Ukraine), that we just might manage it in Scotland.

And do you know how close the actual railway is to the airport?    It is this close, and this is not a zoomy picture.   The next set of landing lights is on the other side of the train.

Edinburgh Airport Runway from the Train

Edinburgh Festival Chaos

Heading to Edinburgh?    Lots to see and do, and shows are booking well by all accounts.   Hope the rain stays off.

But Edinburgh is a city under seige from miles and miles of Heras fencing, seas of  yellow diversion signs, diggers, men in high-vis jackets and general mess as the work for the Trams is ongoing.   

Driving between the North and South of Edinburgh is all but impossible – even for locals, as a route open one day may be suddenly closed the next.     Busses are coralled into George Street.   Clearly this is Edinburgh Council’s revenge against the electorate of Edinburgh who voted against their proposed congestion charge.    Latest encouraging news is that the Council are taking the Tram contractors to court for not fulfilling their contract.

Also, key attractions like the Royal Museum, the Portrait Gallery, the Commonwealth Pool and the City Arts Centre are all closed at the same time for months for major refurbishment.    Who planned that?

 Anyway, this is Princes Street.     Shocking.     Good luck trying to walk along it, and (even worse), cross it.    And in case you thought that you could drive North/South at Haymarket, you can’t.    It looks just like Princes Street.

Princes Street Tram Mess

Preview of the Last Witch

Getting to things in the Edinburgh Festival is always difficult because it coincides with farm harvest. We really wanted to catch The Last Witch – a new play by Rona Munro, directed by Domenic Hill, so we travelled to the Citizens to see the very first performance ever.

In 1727 Janet Horne was tried as a witch and burnt in a barrel of tar at Dornoch in Sutherland.    She was the last witch to be burnt in Scotland.

The Last Witch

It is probably not fair to review this, as there is a good week or so before it opens in the main Fesitval in Edinburgh, and there may be changes – there was certainly no script available.

But let’s just say we were impressed. Good story, great acting all round from a strong cast, and a production that builds the tension nicely to a frightening climax.

The first act sets it all up, but the second act really makes it. The packed house was very enthusiastic.  

It will be interesting to see how this does in the main Festival.    It is completely sold out already.

Still Here

It’s been a while.

Life has just been a bit too hectic of late to get down all the stuff I wanted to include here.

Probably this comes of having our ’summer holiday’ in May when everyone else is still at work, and expecting you to get things done. Still trying to catch up. It ought to be a bit quieter once the schools break and the rest of the world goes away for a while.

Hoors – Traverse

Hoors

I suppose, we have all been waiting to see what Gregory Burke would do to follow Black Watch, but Black Watch is a once in a couple of decades iconic event which can’t and should not be followed by anything perhaps.    In that case, Hoors might be seen as the play after the successful Gagarin Way.

We are taken deep into Fife where we meet sisters Vikki and Nicki.    Vikki was due to marry her builder fiancee Andy, but he is already onstage in a coffin, the result of a particulary wild stag do involving very dodgy drugs, a visit to hospital and an attempt on a mile high conquest in a budget airline’s loos.    Wedding day becomes funeral date:   “well at least the church was booked”.   The women are well-to do with money to spend, but their attitudes to relationships is transient to say the least.   As the wedding has been approaching, clearly things were not all rosy in the Andy and Vicky depatment – so much so that Vicky can’t be said to be sorry that things have turned out thus.

Two men roll up, Stevie and (fresh in from Dubai) Tony clearly to say cheerio to their friend, but also to see how far they can get with the two sisters.      Drink and drugs are taken, and the evening’s events take their course.    Let’s just say that neither of the men manage what they earlier had imagined they might.    

I was disappointed and not convinced with this.    Some of the writing was very sharp, and indeed very funny, but the characters seemed too shallow, and by the end, nobody had changed or learnt from their experiences.   Maybe that was the whole depressing point of course.   I rather disliked the four characters and nothing in the play made me care about what happened to them.

The set with its light leather sofa on cerise carpet and huge “Ages of Man” picture worked well enough.   A revolve revealed a bedroom with double bed on the same carpet.    I thought that more use of lighting the front and back could have been made instead of the set going round and round and round again interminably to fit in with the split dialogue.

As the play got into the second half, conversations become more disjointed, and I was longing to see a scene with everyone in the same room again, but it just never happened.   All just a bit pointless where much more could have been said.

Let the Right One In – Film

On the face of it, Tomas Alfredson’s Swedish film about two 12 year olds shouldn’t work, but it really does.    It is fairly disturbing.

Set in a snowy suberb of Stockholm, it tells the story of  the fragile boy Oskar, brilliantly played by Kåre Hedebrant who becomes friendly with his new neighbour Eli, who appears as a girl.    Eli is a vampire, and has been 12 years old for a while.

Let The Right One In

And this film, although very gory in bits, as a vampire movie is, actually focuses on the friendship between the two children, and the bullies at Oskar’s school.      It is a love story in a way, and the ending is left very open.

Lots of attention to detail – apparently the most realistic sound of drinking blood was found by trail and error to be yoghurt, and the sound of the children’s eyelids opening and closing was done with sliced grapes.

Without spoiling this for anyone yet to see it, this film is completely spellbinding, and the while the images will haunt you for a while – the performances by the children, and the whole concept will stay with you for longer.    

Highly recommended – and do go and see the original before a Holywood version, already in production, hits the screens.        Subtitles are not difficult!

Julian Arguelles with John Abercrombie – Perth

Perth Theatre has a series of ‘in the bar’ entertainment on Monday nights, called simply ‘The Monday Night Thing’.

Well, last Monday, the ‘thing’ was a rather special performance from UK Saxphonist Julian Arguelles playing with the legendary John Abercrombie trio.     Arguelles was a member of the 1980s iconic jazz collective Loose Tubes and now writes and performs with his own band, as well as teaching.     John Abercrombie is a veteran jazz guitarist, and does not play in the UK very often.      In the 1970s he played with the likes of the Brecker Brothers and drummer Billy Cobham, but he has played with a long list of the famous as well as his own band.    

Julian Arguelles

They were backed by Michael Formanek on what looked like a 3/4 size double bass, and Tom Rainey on drums.    I have to say, Tom Rainey was just extraordinary to watch.    He only had a fairly small four piece drumkit, but he was very very creative as he took a fixed stare into space and hit anything and everything with sticks, brushes, mallets and his bare hands.    He rarely did the same thing twice, yet it all worked in with the music.    He hit cymbals from the top, sideways and from underneath.    At one stage he played a glass bottle of water, transforming it into sounding in different pitches by tilting the angle.     Pure and utter genius.

The band played some new Arguelles numbers, an Abercrombie tune and  a few standards were thrown in.   The pieces were well extended, often lasting 20 minutes or so.    The standards were standards with a difference.   Arguelles blew city sounds, and performed immense breath defying runs up and down the instrument.      The sold out audience of around 100 or so gave them warm appreciation, and brought them back for more.

Peer Gynt – on Tour

Dundee Rep and National Theatre of Scotland are taking the 5 star award winning Peer Gynt to the Barbican, opening on the 30th April.    Then it is coming back to Scotland for a short tour.     We are planning to see it again – in Glasgow this time.

But the Barbican is a huge stage, and given that this performance started outrageously in the street outside Dundee Rep in the original run, I can’t help but wonder what they will do in London.

It is always interesting to see how a show given almost universal 5 star acclaim in Scotland will fare in the South.     Success in Scotland is not always mirrored.   But I do wish it well.