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Scotsman
3 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: Pussy Riot: Riot Days The Invisible Spirit
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... Pussy Riot: Riot Days ★★★★ Summerhall (Venue 26) until 23 August This production was first seen at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2018, when Russia's action in Ukraine was still viewed as a regional skirmish and protest punk group Pussy Riot could still claim relatively autonomy to make anti-Putin work without fear of much greater reprisal than harassment and possible imprisonment, both of which they endured. Yet the story which once formed the centrepiece of Riot Days feels a long time ago now. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Pussy Riot: Riot Days Based on the memoir by Pussy Riot founding member Maria Alyokhina, and performed here by Alyokhina alongside two other female members of the group in trademark fluorescent balaclavas, it was originally a chronicle of state artistic repression and its resistance. Alyokhina infamously helped perform the 'Punk Prayer' on the altar of Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in 2012, 'forty seconds of crime' which saw her jailed in a Ural mountain prison for two years. Riot Days' original account of this is still here, set to a cataclysmic live electronic soundtrack by Eric J Breitenbach of Canadian band New Age Doom. The sound is conventional industrial punk, but the autobiographical lyrical content is unique and powerful, from the thrashy, flailing revisitation of the Prayer itself, to the doomy, funereal grind (the trio literally process through the audience) of Alyokhina's transportation to her oppressive, snowed-in prison. Last time we saw Alyokhina's release and return to protest as public enemy number one at the Sochi Olympics. Now there's so much more to say. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The material is split into separately-themed song chapters, with new ones added on gay persecution, Alexei Navalny, the war in Ukraine and the concurrent clampdown at home, and finally a very tense segment about her escape from Russia. Masters of the slogan, at one point the group declares 'freedom doesn't exist unless you fight for it every day'. Alyokhina, we are reminded, remains a wanted woman in her home country. David Pollock The Invisible Spirit ★★★★ Space, Niddry Street (Venue 9) until 25 August. Colours Run ★★★★ Summerhall (Venue 26) until 25 August If plays about Scottish history feature at all on the Edinburgh Fringe, they often focus on the big, familiar figures that every visitor to the city might recognise, notably Mary Queen of Scots. The Invisible Spirit, though, based on the book by the late, great Scottish journalist Ken Roy, is a rare exception, a searching and intelligent history of modern Scotland that covers the vital years between 1945 and 1975 - from the end of the Second World War to coming of North Sea oil - but is still full of resonances for Scotland today. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The story is told through the voices of two mighty Scottish newspapers of the time, the long gone Bulletin - about which, as Roy tells us, no mother in Scotland ever had a bad word to say - and the Daily Record, still very much with us today. There's also a character called The Scotswoman, played with style by Elaine Stirrat, who offers a different view of what was then a heavily male dominated public world. And between them, these three lead us through the significant and revealing high points of those years, from VE Night in George Square, Glasgow, through the launch of the Edinburgh Festival and the shocking Peter Manuel trial and hanging of the 1950s, to the establishment sex scandals of the 1960s, the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders work-in of the early 1970s, the terrible Ibrox disaster of 1971, and Jimmy Reid's mighty rectorial address at Glasgow University in 1972, three years before the first oil came ashore. The play is sharp-eyed and unsparing about the self-protective instincts of Scotland's small and over-comfortable establishment, and lifted at every turn by the sheer, elegant power and wit of Kenneth Roy's descriptive writing. And with Chris Alexander turning in an eloquent and perfectly-pitched performance as The Bulletin (the show's narrator), and strongly supported by Fergus John McCann as The Record, The Invisible Spirit emerges as a smart and sometimes moving contribution to the recent history of a nation that too often allows others to tell its story, in a way that Kenneth Roy resisted brilliantly, throughout his writing life. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Mikey Burnett's play Colours Run, at Summerhall, is as much an Edinburgh show as The Invisible Spirit is a Glasgow one; although it boldly suggests a very different Edinburgh from the establishment one conjured up by Ken Roy. Pongo and Pete are brothers living together in the city, both strong Hibs fans; but Pongo, the older and dominant brother, is also a fighting football casual, and as the play begins, he arrives home on a Hibs-Hearts derby day to tell Pete that he may have killed a man in a post-match attack. This crisis triggers a fraught conversation between the brothers in which the strange and unsettling nature of their relationship is steadily revealed, as the submissive Pete - who rarely goes out, but has a true and loving heart - tries to comfort Pongo. Colours Run is a surreal play in many ways, the ghosts of Pinter, Genet and other mid-century modernist masters hovering over the stage as Pete dons a dress that belonged to their late mother, and the two dance awkwardly around their battered sofa; and with Ruaraidh Murray and Sean Langtree delivering two exquisitely observed performances, the play quietly forges a strong and revealing link between Scottish working-class drama, and 20th century European theatre at its strangest, and most challenging. Joyce McMillan Fly, You Fools! ★★★★ Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 25 August Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Lo-fi majesty sounds like a contradiction, but theatre company Recent Cutbacks conjure exactly that off with glorious theatrical inventiveness. The American troupe, already Fringe favourites for their Jurassic Park spoof Hold onto Your Butts, return with a DIY Lord of the Rings that out-epics Peter Jackson's franchise at a fraction of the cost. Armed with an onstage foley studio, shadow puppets and an arsenal of household junk, they cobble together The Fellowship of the Ring from scratch. Gloves flap into birds, coconuts become horses. There is fan service, winks to internet memes and all the quotable lines that have lodged themselves into pop culture, but the real joy lies in watching them skewer the pomposity of Hollywood. Gandalf's forced-perspective grandeur is gleefully undone, with jabs reserved for postering hunks and glitzy celebrities. Fandom and farce collide here, and in the wreckage something oddly majestic emerges. Alexander Cohen Failsafe ★ Dovecot Studios (Venue 198) until 24 August Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Failsafe, which explores a suicide and sex pact between two former schoolmates, promises the brand of black humour famed by cult TV phenomena like The End of the F***ing World. Where the 2017 serial (based on a comic book of the same name) excels in its witty and sensitive portrayal of two young, doomed adults, Failsafe visibly struggles. The lighting design, which multiplies the performers shadows and casts them in a range of colours, is to be commended. However, this is not nearly enough to carry the 90-minute production, which can hopefully enjoy a more rounded life in the future. Josephine Balfour-Oatts Jane Eyre Wasn't a Whore ★★ The Loft at PBH's Free Fringe @ The Outhouse Bar (Venue 99) until 23 August Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Sometimes when I get emotional, I see my life in Brontë quotes,' says Carly Polistina as Anne, a struggling actress living and working in New York City. Cue her divine plan to secure a role in a Brontë project, and as fate would have it, navigate the realm of modern dating. Bookworms will be delighted with this piece and its literary references. It is both brilliantly performed by Polistina and charming as it provides a close reading of the cutthroat and competitive acting world. However, the overall narrative lacks the critical discussion, immediacy and intrigue promised by the title. Josephine Balfour-Oatts
The Herald Scotland
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
The fury of Pussy Riot's Riot Days is more vital than ever
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The world has changed since Pussy Riot first bombarded their way into Edinburgh in 2018 to win a Herald Angel award. Back then, key member of the anarchic balaclava-clad Russian art collective Maria Alyokhina transformed her experiences on the frontline into an incendiary piece of multi-media punk theatre. This followed a high-profile trial after Alyokhina and two other members of the collective were imprisoned after performing an anti-Putin action in a Russian Orthodox Church. The result, adapted from Alyokhina's memoir, Riot Days, and performed by Alyokhina with a well-drilled band of actor/musicians, was an urgent piece of in-yer-face agit-prop. The Herald has teamed up with to make the purchase of tickets for the festival so much easier. Seven years on, the fifty-minute compendium of autobiographical monologues, Brechtian captions, documentary film footage, primitive martial beats and industrial sturm und drang is brought bang up to date with a new band and fresh material. The former features vocal upstarts Olga Borisova and Taso Pletner, with the latter also playing flute. While Alyokhina remains at the show's centre, Borisova and Pletner flank her in a way that gives off a guerrilla girl group vibe. This is pulsed by the martial drums and electronic beats conjured up by Eric Breitenbach of Canadian band, New Age Doom. The show's narrative has developed to draw from Alyokhina's forthcoming second book, Political Girl: Life and Fate in Russia, and includes details of Pussy Riot's disruption of the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games and Alyokhina's further arrests and imprisonment. It also honours the death of anti-corruption politician, Alexey Navalny, who was almost killed after being poisoned, and later died while in prison. There is a moving moment of silence too as film footage of Russian journalist Irina Slavina is shown of her setting herself on fire. The shadow of Russia's ongoing assault on Ukraine also hangs heavy throughout the piece. Read more: In what feels like a more disciplined if just as relentless production, overseen by producer Alexander Cheparukhin and with input from composer Alina Petrova, this new version of Riot Days is about evolution as much as revolution. While acknowledging the symbolism of yore, largely this is Pussy Riot unmasked in a blitz of a show that is part history lesson, part living newspaper. At its conclusion, Alyokhina highlights how what is currently happening in Russia could easily happen anywhere. Coming a few days after more than 400 peaceful protestors were arrested, not in the old Eastern Bloc, but in twenty-first century Britain, Riot Days remains a vital call to arms. Runs at Summerhall until 23 August.
Scotsman
07-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Pussy Riot on their raucous Fringe return: ‘In times of crisis, silence becomes complicity'
The world has become even more volatile since Pussy Riot first performed at the Fringe in 2018. But the Russian activist collective are still determined to make their protests heard with a raucous updated show. By Fiona Shepherd 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... At a time when the right to protest peacefully feels more crucial than ever and yet also increasingly imperilled, who you gonna call? Russian activist and artist collective Pussy Riot are the superheroes of the moment, a notorious, confrontational and inspirational outfit who testify to firsthand experience of life under totalitarian rule, some of whose members have been repeatedly charged and detained for their flagrant inability to put up and shut up about the reality of day-to-day living in Putin's Russia. They made worldwide headlines in 2011 with an audacious act of protest, performing their Punk Prayer in multi-coloured balaclavas on the altar of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. Three members of the group were subsequently arrested and imprisoned, including Maria 'Masha' Vladimirovna Alyokhina, who used her spotlight during the Pussy Riot trial to deliver a defiant and universal defence of freedom of expression. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Pussy Riot, pictured on their US tour earlier this year | Contributed Since 2017, she and fellow Pussy Rioters have been touring their show Riot Days, a strident multi-media celebration of DIY music, striking visuals and uncomfortable truths based on her memoir of the same name, which shook up Summerhall during the 2018 Fringe. Much has changed for Masha, Russia and global geopolitics since then, developments which Pussy Riot intend to address on their return to the Fringe with a reworked and updated Riot Days based on her new book, Political Girl, which will recount her subsequent arrests and flight from Russia against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine. For Alyokhina, 2025 is such a different world that she almost looks back on the early days of Pussy Riot with nostalgia. 'It was a different political climate, a different group,' she says via Zoom. 'Everything was different so there was a lot of hope and joy and brightness which we also bring to the protest. Now we have something that we didn't expect to witness ever at any age. We have the war going on for the fourth year, mass repressions, military censorship, news about bombings and deaths every day.' Criticising the war and the Russian army is a criminal offence in Russia. As Alyokhina notes, Pussy Riot do this on a daily basis so it is no longer possible for most of the core members to operate in their homeland. Following a number of arrests, she finally fled in spring 2022. 'I was a person who thought that I will never leave the country,' she says, choking up at the memory, 'but I decided to go to help Ukraine in this war because it's not just a Russian issue now. That was a heartbreaking hard decision.' She has since been offered citizenship by Iceland and there are no shortage of territories keen to host Riot Days. Maria 'Masha' Vladimirovna Alyokhina of Pussy Riot | Contributed Alyokhina may be the lightning rod but she is supported by a tight collective of fellow activists and performers, most of whom join her on the call from different locations. Producer Alexander Cheparukhin has been an advocate from the start. 'What happened to Pussy Riot shocked me because I had never encountered a situation where artists have been sent to prison for their artistic action,' he says. He visited them in prison as a representative of a human rights organisation and used his connections as a festival promoter to garner high-profile support from Paul McCartney and Peter Gabriel. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Vocalist Olga Borisova has been a member of Pussy Riot for the past decade. 'I think it's fair to say we lost our lives we had before to tell this story to other people,' she says. 'A year ago they opened a new criminal case against all of us and we cannot go back to Russia. We paid our price to tell this story. It gives you strength but that's all we've got.' Composer Alina Petrova won't even name her chief musical collaborator, the one member of the Riot Days company who remains in Moscow. Together, they worked up the soundtrack to complement the latest visuals. 'It's much more brutal,' she says, 'and we have some moments we show on the screen that are very uncomfortable for people to see but it's important to show. It doesn't mean that we should make slogans. Art doesn't need to shout to be political, art could whisper, it could ask questions or simply reveal what is often hidden.' Drummer Eric Breitenbach is new to the group, having previously collaborated with legendary dub artist Lee 'Scratch' Perry as a member of Vancouver metal band New Age Doom. 'The live performance is a call to action to the audience, urging them not to be indifferent and to pay attention to what is happening in the world,' he says. Borisova is even more blunt. 'In times of crisis, silence becomes complicity and art becomes one of the last places where complexity can still breathe,' she says. 'Political art is not just about protest, it's about attention and care and also about making meaning where meaning has been erased.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Make sure you keep up to date with Arts and Culture news from across Scotland by signing up to our free newsletter here. The group are interested to hear that for the duration of the Fringe and beyond, the Steve McQueen-curated Resistance exhibition at the National Gallery's Modern Two will be celebrating a century of protest in Britain as documented by its photojournalists. Everywhere Pussy Riot go, they tap into local concerns and movements, ignite conversations and strengthen cross-border bonds. Alyokhina has been particularly struck by the reaction to Trump's disruptive second term. 'The new wave of protest is still under formation,' she says. 'This term is more brutal than the first one and a lot of people decided to leave the country immediately. They have migration, brutal conditions and deportation prisons but they don't have war and pure censorship and they already started to run.' As for Edinburgh, alliances can be struck in an altogether safer environment. 'I think it's great that there is a place for political art in a festival known more for comedy,' says Borisova. 'I hope to see lots of people that just got lost and are having fun.'
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Russian punk band Pussy Riot warns America to ‘wake up!' at Washington Square Park protest in NYC
NEW YORK — Pussy Riot, the provocative, political Russian punk band, came to Washington Square Park Wednesday to deliver a stern warning: 'Wake up, America!' Their faces hidden behind red ski masks, six members of the feminist art collective marched down Fifth Ave. and into the Greenwich Village park around 1 p.m. Standing in front of the Washington Square Arch, they unfurled two large banners bearing messages: 'Don't Give Up' and 'Freedom of Speech?' Two other members of the group held up a rotating collection of placards with phrases like 'Fever Dream,' '1984' and 'Great Again: The Greatest Greatness But Mine Is Greater (Again).' 'We've been imprisoned in Russia,' said band member Masha Alyokhina. 'We've been persecuted. We are in federal wanted lists in our country. So if we appear on the border, we'll be immediately arrested for our anti-Putin and anti-war — (a war) which he started — activities. 'We are here now because we see the (rise) of authoritarian(ism) here. We want to call people to not be silent and we want people to remember to not to give up, even in the difficult conditions — to have hope inside, to have belief.' Alyokhina served 21 months in prison in Russia after the band was accused of 'hooliganism' for performing in a Moscow cathedral in 2012. Two years later, they were attacked by Cossacks with whips and pepper spray at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. In October 2016, with Donald Trump on the verge of winning his first term as U.S. president, the anti-authoritarian band released a song and video, 'Make America Great Again,' featuring the refrain, 'Let other people in / Listen to your women / Stop killing Black children / Make America great again.' Claudia Emilyn Schwalb, 72, a visual artist and longtime Village resident who was enjoying her usual 'park time,' said she was honored to have seen Pussy Riot, albeit briefly. 'I had no idea they were going to be here,' she said. 'I'm thrilled. I like everything in art that's liberal. … They're stubborn exhibitionists.' Pussy Riot's park action coincides with the start of their North American tour, which kicks off Thursday in Montreal. On May 2, they'll play at The Hall at Elsewhere, in Brooklyn. _____
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pussy Riot warns America to ‘wake up!' at Washington Square Park protest in NYC
Pussy Riot, the provocative, political Russian punk band, came to Washington Square Park Wednesday to deliver a stern warning: 'Wake up, America!' Their faces hidden behind red ski masks, six members of the feminist art collective marched down Fifth Ave. and into the Greenwich Village park around 1 p.m. Standing in front of the Washington Square Arch, they unfurled two large banners bearing messages: 'Don't Give Up' and 'Freedom of Speech?' Two other members of the group held up a rotating collection of placards with phrases like 'Fever Dream,' '1984' and 'Great Again: The Greatest Greatness But Mine Is Greater (Again).' 'We've been imprisoned in Russia,' said band member Masha Alyokhina. 'We've been persecuted. We are in federal wanted lists in our country. So if we appear on the border, we'll be immediately arrested for our anti-Putin and anti-war — [a war] which he started — activities. 'We are here now because we see the [rise] of authoritarian[ism] here. We want to call people to not be silent and we want people to remember to not to give up, even in the difficult conditions — to have hope inside, to have belief.' Alyokhina served 21 months in prison in Russia after the band was accused of 'hooliganism' for performing in a Moscow cathedral in 2012. Two years later, they were attacked by Cossacks with whips and pepper spray at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. In October 2016, with Donald Trump on the verge of winning his first term as U.S. president, the anti-authoritarian band released a song and video, 'Make America Great Again,' featuring the refrain, 'Let other people in/ Listen to your women/ Stop killing Black children/ Make America great again.' Claudia Emilyn Schwalb, 72, a visual artist and longtime Village resident who was enjoying her usual 'park time,' said she was honored to have seen Pussy Riot, albeit briefly. 'I had no idea they were going to be here,' she said. 'I'm thrilled. I like everything in art that's liberal. … They're stubborn exhibitionists.' Pussy Riot's park action coincides with the start of their North American tour, which kicks off Thursday in Montreal. On May 2, they'll play at The Hall at Elsewhere, in Brooklyn.
