The CATS awards will soon be upon us, with a shortlist announced soon – on May 16th. (They have a spectacularly horrible website with sideways scrolling required – yuck! - but now fixed for IE users like me – thanks Mark!)
But I wonder what they will choose. And I also wonder if blogs covering theatre in Scotland should get a say. I’ll bet that Statler and Waldorf at View from the Stalls will have seen the shortlisted productions.
Dear Mr Bluedog – is that the same stick you use to stir your sheepdip? We waited and and waited for a golden invite to drop through our letterbox, but I’m afraid it seems to have gone astray in the post (again). Anyway, as it happens, on the day the judging takes place we’ll be at an entirely different Theatre of Dreams.
As for what we’d like to see on the list – Sub Rosa, Midsummer and The Drawer Boy for a few and hopefully a mention or two for 4.48 Psychosis at Cumbernauld/Tramway, Interiors, Poem in October and possibly Dolls.
But as people often remind us at View From The Stalls, what do we know…
I completely agree with Midsummer and Drawer Boy. I might add Beauty and the Beast at Dundee (children’s show), with Virginia Woolf possibly as a candidate for individual performances. Managed to miss Sub Rosa – we really wanted to go, but simply could not get to it.
We can always agree/disagree with the results afterwards.
But interesting to see how many of the critics have blogs too, so they must be slightly in touch with the bloggy world – at least one would hope so.
And wouldn’t it be good if the theatres started using the odd blog review in their publicity material?
The Scottish theatres are actually pretty forward thinking when it comes to blogs. We’ve certainly had extracts from our posts and/or links from the websites/blogs of the Citz, Tron & Traverse.
And the wider theatrical community are very accepting of any honest review and we frequently have production companies and individual performers link to us from their own sites.
It’s now even become proactive – most weeks we get contacted by companies asking us along to see their upcoming shows.
I suspect the reason you find the CATS website spectacularly horrible is that you’re using Internet Explorer, a spectacularly horrible browser.
I haven’t had time to check it on IE yet, but I’m told it looks a complete mess.
I’ll try and fix it, but in the meantime I suggest you try it with Firefox. There’s room for improvement but you shouldn’t be getting sideways scrolling.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Hello again,
I think I’ve now fixed the problem with Internet Explorer and you should be able to view the CATS site as it was intended:
http://www.criticsawards.theatrescotland.com
Let me know if not.
Sorry not to get right first time.
All the best,
Mark
Hi Mark,
Thanks for fixing it! Apologies for using Internet Explorer, but I am not alone!
Good luck with the shortlist.
Interesting to see the Peer Gynt revival getting a mixture of reviews – critics and bloggers seem to like it or hate it. I am really looking forward to seeing it again now.