Quadrophenia on The Royal Mile
Liam Rudden writes in his Must See Theatre for June about the show: 'In 1973, Townshend wrote Quadrophenia. Recorded by The Who, proved an iconic and multi-million selling album, defining a generation and inspiring the 1979 cult film of the same name starring everyone from Phil Daniels to Lesley Ash, Ray Winstone to Trevor Laird, Sting to Adam Ant and not forgetting Toyah and Gary Shail. If that cast seemed like an incendiary mix at the time, now Sadler's Wells, with Townshend, have reimagined it as an explosive dance production.
'A large cast of exceptional dancers will introduce new audiences to troubled mod Jimmy's story, while remaining true in spirit to the much-loved original. Steeped in the mythology of the 1960s – sharp suits, soul music, vespas and parkas – Quadrophenia's themes of lost youth, rebellion, search for belonging and hunger for social change are just as urgent today.
'Scored with an orchestral version of the album by Rachel Fuller, choreographed by Paul Roberts and directed by Rob Ashford, Quadrophenia: A Mod Ballet promises to bring a whole new dimension to one of the UK's most iconic rock albums.
'Running time 2 hours including interval. Tickets £26.50-£59.50'
Tickets here
Capital Theatres – the cast of Quadrophenia – A Mod Ballet on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh ahead of the show opening tonight and running until Saturday 14th June
Capital Theatres – the cast of Quadrophenia – A Mod Ballet on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh ahead of the show opening tonight and running until Saturday 14th June Pic Greg Macvean 10/06/2025
Capital Theatres – the cast of Quadrophenia – A Mod Ballet on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh ahead of the show opening tonight and running until Saturday 14th June Pic Greg Macvean 10/06/2025
Capital Theatres – the cast of Quadrophenia – A Mod Ballet on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh ahead of the show opening tonight and running until Saturday 14th June Pic Greg Macvean 10/06/2025
Capital Theatres – the cast of Quadrophenia – A Mod Ballet on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh ahead of the show opening tonight and running until Saturday 14th June Pic Greg Macvean 10/06/2025
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The National
a day ago
- The National
4 Edinburgh International Festival shows with master storytelling
It is in this context that the extraordinary theatre production Tom At The Farm (Pleasance at EICC, until August 24) emerged. An adaptation of Quebecois writer Michel Marc Bouchard's play of the same name, the piece relocates the drama from Quebec to a place that is abstract and unnamed, but where the sensibilities are recognisably Brazilian. Adapted by actor-writer Armando Babaioff and director Rodrigo Portella, and presented by Cena Brasil Internacional, the piece (which is performed in Brazilian Portuguese with English surtitles) has received richly deserved international plaudits since it premiered in 2017. Indeed, if there is a better piece of theatre on this year's Fringe, I have yet to see it. The astonishing Babaioff takes on the title role of Tom, a young, gay professional from the big city whose lover, 25-year-old Guillaume, has died in a car accident. Arriving in the countryside for Guillaume's funeral, Tom goes to the dairy farm owned by the deceased man's family. Here he encounters Guillaume's older brother, Francis, a man who – in Iano Salomão's remarkable, multi-layered performance – hides his profound crisis of masculinity behind a veneer of appalling brutishness. Francis makes it menacingly clear that Tom is to hide his relationship with Guillaume from the family matriarch, Agathe (Denise Del Vecchio), who continues to believe the longstanding lie that her city-dwelling son had a long-term girlfriend who speaks no Portuguese. In the play that ensues, Tom's grief combines in complex, sometimes disturbing ways with his relations with both Francis and Agathe. The cosmopolitan protagonist is beguiled by his first encounters with the land and with farm animals. The recounting of a past event, in which Francis sought to ensure that his brother's homosexuality remained hidden, has the horrifying veracity of a Greek tragedy. Director Portella's stage – an expansive, largely empty space on which the actors perform amid increasing quantities of red soil and water – is brilliantly (and disquietingly) visceral and symbolic. Played by a universally superb cast (which includes Camila Nhary as the mythical girlfriend, 'Hellen'), boasting wonderfully atmospheric use of music, sound and lighting, this production is unforgettably powerful. Indeed, it is a work that would have been more than worthy of inclusion in the programme of the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF). READ MORE: I tried to go to 10 Fringe shows in one day. Here's what happened Another outstanding stage work that is on the EIF programme is Mary, Queen Of Scots (Festival Theatre, ends today; then touring until October 18). The latest offering from Scottish Ballet, the piece is co-created by choreographer Sophie Laplane and director James Bonas, with an astonishing original score by New York-based composers Mikael Karlsson and Michael P Atkinson. At the outset, we see the striking image of the older Queen Elizabeth I (danced by the extraordinary Charlotta Öfverholm), unwigged, undressed and exposed to the snow. She is exposed, too, to her memories of the regicide she ordered against her own cousin, Mary Stuart. It is a moment of such aesthetic boldness and originality that one knows instinctively that the ballet to come is going to be something extremely special. So it proves to be as the well-worn story of Mary's tempestuous life and momentous death is unfurled in choreography, music and extraordinary design (by Soutra Gilmour) that are simultaneously breathtakingly audacious and perfectly complementary. Roseanna Leney – who dances Mary in a fabulous black velvet dress – embodies the Scottish queen with, by turns, great sensuality, joy, fear, defiance and, ultimately, dignity. The conflicting and dangerous passions of the relations between Mary, her second husband, Lord Darnley (the excellent Evan Loudon) and the Italian courtier David Rizzio (the equally impressive Javier Andreu) are depicted in movement that is, paradoxically, both gorgeous and raw. The work plays out in the constant presence of both Öfverholm's older Elizabeth and the pot-stirring, fluorescent green-clad Jester (who is given a magnificently spritely and sinister performance by Kayla-Maree Tarantolo). In a masterstroke of decidedly un-Trumpian, cross-gender casting, the younger Elizabeth is played by Harvey Littlefield, who captures the grandeur, the vulnerability and, ultimately, the anguished uncertainty of the 'Virgin Queen'. The story is told in choreography and design that delight and surprise in their constantly inventive, highly stylised representations both of Renaissance fashions and modern ballet. For example, Mary's nemesis – Elizabeth's influential spymaster Francis Walsingham (Thomas Edwards on terrifying form) – commands a small army of sinister, fly-headed minions. Gilmour's beautiful-yet-utilitarian sets are primed to host memorably effective shadows and projections (by Anouar Brissel). In particular, the ingenious and menacing appearance of a giant spider is bleakly premonitory. In Karlsson and Atkinson's glorious musical score, Mary's finest hours are partnered by beautiful, energetic music that is carried along by the sound of distinctly Scottish fiddles. Other moments are magnificently cinematic, evoking, by turns, the dramatic momentum of Michael Nyman and the swirling energy of Philip Glass. The music – which is played marvellously by the orchestra under conductor Martin Yates – is a perfectly integrated part of this ballet. However, such is its brilliance, that one leaves the theatre wanting to hear it again. This is a truly triumphant, world-class ballet and one that – in its depiction of the Mary, Queen of Scots story – deserves to take its place alongside Schiller's great play and Donizetti's famous opera. We move from a political cataclysm in Scottish and English history to our current age of catastrophe in Khalid Abdalla's Nowhere (Traverse, until August 24). An actor, filmmaker, producer, political activist and, now, theatre creator, Abdalla, who was born in Glasgow, self-defines as Scots-Egyptian (he spent his early life in Scotland – including, he shows us, at least one occasion on which he wore a kilt – before moving to England). The son and grandson of Egyptian political dissidents, he was in Egypt during the revolution of 2011. His self-recorded footage from, and reflections upon, those historic events forms the foundation of the show. Abdalla is a master storyteller, integrating memoir, documentary theatre and, latterly, emotive, hard-worn polemic. His narration is assisted by projected film and images. Often, and with surprising effectiveness, he displays printed photographs and mobile phone film clips by way of the decidedly analogue technology of an old overhead projector (coincidentally, a machine that is utilised elsewhere on this year's Fringe, in the fine biographical play MILES. at the Summerhall venue). The artist relates his personal experience of casual, anti-Arab racism on a London street and his casting in movies (including as 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah in United 93 and Dodi Fayed in The Crown). This autobiographical testimony is interwoven compellingly with the disastrous political history of western (particularly British and French) imperialism in the Middle East. If this sounds like a memoir-cum-lecture, that is because, in many ways, it is. However, it is done with such personal charm, humour, sincerity and performativity (including moments of music, dance and song) that one is thoroughly engrossed. READ MORE: Fringe reviews: Florence, One Man Poe, Zoe Coombs Marr and more Abdalla's complex-yet-accessible narrative leads us, with depressing inevitability, to the broken world we inhabit today and, particularly, to the ongoing and unforgivable genocide in Gaza. When, in his closing monologue, he speaks – with tremendous passion, humanity and good sense – to this gargantuan, current-day disaster, he has more than earned the right to do so. Finally to The Nature Of Forgetting (Pleasance Courtyard, until August 23), a work of physical theatre by English company Theatre Re which, sadly, does not deliver on its significant promise. Contemplating the situation of Tom, a 55-year-old man suffering with early onset dementia, this piece seemed bound to evoke the deep personal agony (both for the sufferer and his loved ones) and the vividness of the man's long-term memory. It succeeds abundantly where the latter is concerned, depicting his school days, his first love and life-changing moments, such as the conception and birth of his beloved daughter. All of this is done with tremendous colour, energy and physical dexterity. The movement is accompanied by excellently well-played, intelligently theatrical music and sound. However, the piece fails to get to the emotional heart of its subject in a way that, for instance, Ramesh Meyyappan's remarkable Love Beyond succeeds in doing. The problem is that – for all their abundant ability as physical theatre artists – the company has opted to make things easy for themselves and their audience in emotional terms. Aside from brief moments of discordant sound and visible distress on Tom's part, the show barely gets to grips with the nature and repercussions of dementia. The company prefers, instead, to go for softer options, such as – for prolonged sections of the show – the dubious comedy of adults playing school children. At times the music reflects this kind theatrical soft soaping, not least when it sounds like Phil Collins-era Genesis. This is an accomplished piece in performative terms, for sure, but one that fails to hit the emotional mark.
Scotsman
3 days ago
- Scotsman
Edinburgh International Festival dance review: Scottish Ballet's Mary, Queen of Scots
The iconic title character is upstaged by an older Queen Elizabeth in Scottish Ballet's vivid portrayal of the parallel courts of Scotland and England, writes Lucy Ribchester Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... DANCE Mary, Queen of Scots ★★★★ Festival Theatre, until 17 August Mary, Queen of Scots has an inexorable grip on the Scottish imagination; a reminder that our history is as bloody as it is proud. Or perhaps a totem to the notion that women, no matter how powerful they become, must always watch their backs. Charlotta Öfverholm as Older Elizabeth in Scottish Ballet's Mary, Queen of Scots. | Andy Ross Scottish Ballet's new version of the Mary tale enters a vast and rich tradition of re-tellings, and stamps its own mark on the story with a vivid eye for the sexiness, grotesquery, grandeur and paranoia of the parallel courts of England and Scotland. Director James Bonas and choreographer Sophie Laplane have chosen the lens of Queen Elizabeth in her dying days through which to view Mary. In Elizabeth's fragmented memories and feverish fantasies we journey from Mary's childhood marriage to the Dauphin all the way to her afterlife as a startling, resurrected stain on Elizabeth's conscience. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The older Elizabeth is danced by Charlotta Öfverholm, a mature performer who brings a wisdom and vulnerability to her movement that is endlessly compelling to watch. As the piece opens she is almost naked, frolicking in a haze of feathers, playful as a child, skittish as a deeply disturbed woman. Aided by a Jester in a lime-green Pierrot-meets-garden-gnome outfit (a nimble Kayla-Maree Tarantolo), she conjures up visions of her past, sometimes entering the action to grasp for Mary (Roseanna Leney), or to mirror her pregnancy in a mournful dance-echo, sometimes watching from the sidelines or disappearing. Elizabeth's younger self meanwhile is danced by Harvey Littlefield, occasionally on stilts, boldly visualising the uncanny difference between the imposing masculine role Elizabeth had to cultivate and the fragile soul within. Laplane's choreography flows like quicksilver through different styles and influences, bringing in graceful courtly posturing, flat-footed earthy ceilidhs and even glimpses of tango in a sultry duet between Mary and Darnley. Similarly Mikael Karlsson and Michael P Atkinson's original score is a silky mash-up of Scottish melodies, Elizabethan jigs and pure musical drama. But overall the piece ends up hovering between two stools, unsure if it wants to be a collage of arresting visual metaphors speaking to Elizabeth's guilt, or a straightforward narrative of the beats of Mary's life. Despite some striking duets (particularly Rizzio and Darnley's sensual tussling) the real intrigue takes place when Öfverholm is on stage, dancing like a ghost through her past. In the end the more psychologically interesting queen here isn't Mary at all, but Elizabeth. LUCY RIBCHESTER
Wales Online
07-08-2025
- Wales Online
First-look at Father Brown series 13 shows Dame Maureen Lipman in guest role
First-look at Father Brown series 13 shows Dame Maureen Lipman in guest role Filming has wrapped on the upcoming series of the BBC drama, which follows a Roman Catholic priest – played by Harry Potter star Mark Williams – as he fights crime in the fictional village of Kembleford, located in Gloucestershire. (Image: BBC) Dame Maureen Lipman can be seen guest starring in Father Brown in first look images for the 13th series. Filming has wrapped on the upcoming series of the BBC drama, which follows a Roman Catholic priest – played by Harry Potter star Mark Williams – as he fights crime in the fictional village of Kembleford, located in Gloucestershire. Among the other guest stars of the new series are Absolutely Fabulous's Julia Sawalha, Quadrophenia actor Phil Daniels and soap star Debra Stephenson. Photos from the set show Dame Maureen, 79, with coiffed hair wearing a patterned dress and red cardigan standing alongside Williams and Sawalha, who wears a French maid's costume, as well as The Inbetweeners star Alex Macqueen – who is in a tailcoat and bow tie. Williams, 65, said: "My Dad was a surveyor and taught me how to look at buildings, not just their architecture but how they were used, and why they were where they are. So one of the constant pleasures of filming Father Brown for me is the places we film in, and I always have the relevant Pevsner's Buildings Of England book to hand. "This year, our 13th, has been a great year for interesting locations. "We have filmed in The Chateau Impney – a French fantasy in Droitwich, the little theatre in Chipping Norton (an ex-Salvation Army citadel), the wonderful 18th century octagonal Crown Courts in Warwick and an atmospheric ex-nunnery in Great Malvern with a glorious chapel by Ninian Comper. "Also, The Fleece Inn in Bretforton which is a English pub time capsule, the spectacular Baroque church at Great Witley, and to top it off a selection of lovely stone Cotswold houses and churches. What a fabulous itinerary. And we filmed an episode at the seaside. Lucky lad, as my Dad would have said." The next series will see the return of cast members including Tom Chambers as Inspector Sullivan, Claudie Blakley as the new Mrs Isabel Sullivan, Ruby-May Martinwood as Brenda and John Burton as Sergeant Goodfellow. Irish TV actress Sorcha Cusack will also be making a special return as Mrs McCarthy for the first episode. Series 13 will see the new Mr and Mrs Sullivan settle into married life after the wedding celebrations at the end of series 12. Elsewhere, Father Brown is tasked by Flambeau to visit excommunicated priest Father Lazarus in prison and Canon Fox plans to enact revenge upon Father Brown. Article continues below Based on the short stories by English author GK Chesterton, the crime series is set in a quiet village in the Cotswolds and first aired on BBC daytime in 2013. Father Brown series 13 will air on BBC One and BBC iPlayer early next year.
