Five:15 (2009) Scottish Opera, Oran Mor.

Scottish Opera has built on last year’s Five:15  by commissioning five more new 15 minute operas from composers and writers.
A 15 minute opera is a very strange task to pull off:   in writers’ terms, it might be seen as a short story, but in fact the text has to be minimal and pared down to fit [...]

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Shun-kin – Barbican – London

We were looking for something to go and see during a recent visit to London, and Theatre de Complicite caught our eye.    We have been big fans of Complicite and Simon McBurney ever since they visited Dundee and performed Street of Crocodiles.    They don’t do many performances, but what they do is different and special.
So [...]

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Baby Baby – MacRobert – Stirling

This was a play, from a book written by Vivian French using her actual experience dealing with pregnant teenagers and directed by her daughter, Jemima Levick.      It was about two 15 year old schoolgirls from very different backgrounds who find themselves pregnant and who go on to have a baby each.
Posh April (Hannah Donaldson) with her [...]

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Who is the Father?

I simply don’t know which is worse:
A baby-faced 13 year old father, or the fact that his paternity is now being challenged by other boys who think they have a valid claim.
Story here.

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Tam O’ Shanter – Perth Theatre

Robert Burns’ wonderful and much loved poem was given an amazing stage treatment at Perth Theatre in a production devised and directed by Gerry Mulgrew.    The timing could not have been better coming just on the 250th celebration of Burns’ birthday, and the start of Homecoming 2009.
But how to pad out a fifteen minute poem [...]

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London Busses

Since I was last on a London bus, they have introduced an audio system which tells you which bus you are on, and the name of the next bus stop.    Good idea – or at least it is for a while.    After about 20 minutes it starts to become annoying.   Goodness knows how the drivers [...]

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The Lady With the Whistle

The 4.00 train from London to Aberdeen was packed on Friday – trains out of London on Friday afternoon usually are, I suppose.     An open return does not guarantee a seat, but I struck lucky and found a seat which had been booked from London, but was not occupied.     I sat down and said hello [...]

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Trains, Trains, Trains

I had to go to London for a meeting last week, and went there and back in a day by train.    Edinburgh to London, city centre to city centre is about as quick as flying these days.
National Express now run the East Coast line, and when it works, it is a great service.    There is [...]

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