Terrible Buildings

You would think, wouldn’t you, that a brand new Country Club and leisure facility might offer the chance to produce an interesting building.
Well, don’t go to the Deer Park Country Club at Livingston expecting to be inspired.    It looks like an agricultural shed, the bar has no windows at all, the public space is too tight, [...]

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Parent – Teacher evening

Total contact time (5 teachers) 23 minutes.  
Time waiting in queues to see 5 teachers 87 minutes. 
There really must be a more efficient way of doing this.    We watched one pupil and parent take over 20 minutes in discussion alone.
It can’t be that complicated – either the pupil is doing well, in which case there is [...]

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Scottish Opera – Seraglio

The second opera of the season at Scottish Opera is Mozart’s Seraglio.    A co-production with Nationale Reisopera in the Netherlands (and seen there in January 2007), this is sung in English, and retains all but one of the principal singers, most of whom are making their UK opera debuts.
Musically, there was a lot to like with [...]

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream

We booked tickets for Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Kings in Edinburgh as we had read great things about this “Indian” production of the play when it opened in the UK at Stratford, and later transferred to London.    Also, at the TMA awards this past weekend, the prize for Best Director went to Tim Supple for [...]

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TMA Awards

Scotland did really well in the TMA Awards  just announced.  
Let’s hear it for
Best Supporting Performance, Meg Fraser in All My Sons at the Lyceum 
Anne Louise Ross for Best Supporting Role in a Musical Sunshine on Leith at Dundee Rep  
Dundee Rep for best Musical, Sunshine on Leith  
Best Touring Production Wonderful World of Dissocia from National Theatre [...]

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Scottish Opera – The Barber of Seville

Scottish Opera ’s new production of The Barber of Seville directed by Sir Thomas Allen was eagerly awaited.     It did not disappoint – the opera was witty, well sung and played and had an ingeniously designed set.
All the principals bar one were on top form, and what a treat to hear Karen Cargill back in [...]

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Live TV

Left home early to go on a Live TV programme.    I was a guest on daytime sofa TV, and it was a whole new learning journey.     Cameras, radio mics, make-up and lots of people with clipboards and headphones.    What a whole army of people it takes just to get an hour of TV out.
The program was actually [...]

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Scottish Ensemble – RSAMD, Glasgow

Caught the lunchtime concert by the Scottish Ensemble with Toby Spence on at RSAMD Friday.      I heard Toby Spence singing in the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings in Perth a while back, and have been haunted by the experience since!
We started  with Benjamin Britten’s Three Divertimenti which were played as if freshly minted with [...]

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Peer Gynt

Armed with tickets for the very last performance of the pretty much universally acclaimed 5 star show Peer Gynt at Dundee Rep, we had high hopes for a really good evening.
It started really well, with the cast as a loud and drunk wedding party getting out of an open-top car which drew up outside the theatre.   The actors [...]

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Hamlet – Citizens, Glasgow

Sadly, I was umimpressed with the production of Hamlet at the Citizens.   
Like many, I remember this from school, and apart from being taken to a production then, the only other one I have seen was Kenny Ireland’s production at the Lyceum with Tom McGovern as the Danish Prince, which was very good.
Firstly, some basic questions.     [...]

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