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The Herald Scotland
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Cutting the Tightrope is a powerful piece of no-holds barred theatre
Church Hill Theatre Neil Cooper Four stars What to do when artists are told by those bankrolling them not to say certain things lest the plug be pulled on them? In the case of those behind this compendium of bite-size plays responding to Art Council England's guidelines warning those in receipt of public funding not to be 'political', you do the exact opposite of what was asked. Leaving aside the very obvious truism that all art is political, the result is a series of urgent statements on the ongoing atrocities being carried out in Palestine and elsewhere. The show begins with one of the eight-strong ensemble stepping out as a festival director attempting to rein in those programmed. The theme is continued in the next piece, in which the dead victim of a bombing attempts to pitch their story to a theatre director, only to be sidelined with a litany of bureaucrat-speak. A young man brings his artist activist girlfriend home to his middle class parents who would rather not discuss uncomfortable topics. A flower seller reminisces about life before the invasion and the man who bought different flowers for each of his girlfriends. A Zionist writer giving a presentation is interrupted from the stalls by an anti-Zionist Jewish playwright. Most powerful of all is 46 Women, based around the incident when Westminster MP Diane Abbott tried in vain to speak in a debate forty-six times after a Tory donor allegedly said she made him hate all black women, and needed 'to be shot.' As women rise from the audience to ask each question, it becomes a vital reclaiming of power. Read more With writers of the calibre of Dawn King, Ed Edwards and Philip Arditti on board alongside Zia Ahmed, Nina Bowers and Hassan Abdulrazzak, rather than be credited individually, the twelve playwrights behind the works are listed as a collective. Equal responsibility for the plays also goes to Mojisola Adebayo, Roxy Cook, Ahmed Masoud, Sami Abu Wardeh and cast members Waleed Elgadi and Joel Samuels. Each act ends with a ferocious monologue, with the latter seeing a young Muslim attempting to walk to Walthamstow following outbreaks of violence after three children were killed in Southport by what was wrongly claimed to be an asylum seeker. Originating at London's Dalston based grassroots Arcola Theatre, all this is brought to life by directors Cressida Brown and Kirsty Housley with Zainab Hasan on a stage lined with the sort of plastic orange bucket seats that look leftover from a 1980s job centre. This inadvertently reflects how the dole was regarded at the time by many would be artists as an unofficial form of funding, no questions asked. Those days may be long gone, but the desire to create contentious work remains. The series of statistics of the daily horrors in Palestine projected on to the stage may break Arts Council England's guidelines as much as the plays, but both bring home the of the moment call to arms that matters more. Until August 17th
The Herald Scotland
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
The reviews for Edinburgh's festivals are in...
Our reviewers have been busy on the ground, taking in all the best comedy, theatre, and performance. But what came out on top? The Herald has teamed up with to make the purchase of tickets for the festival so much easier. When Karine Polwart heard the story of the 200-year-old Sabal palm tree that was about to be felled in Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Garden, it sparked the idea for this new illustrated fusion of song cycle and storytelling. Produced by the Raw Material company as part of this year's Made in Scotland Edinburgh Festival Fringe showcase, Polwart's story comes with a twist that lends even more charm to a work of monumental beauty, says Neil Cooper. Superstar musicians playing the repertoire they learned in the 1990s is all the rage in Edinburgh this week. In Nicola Benedetti's case, she was 11 years old and a pupil at the Yehudi Menuhin School in London where 15-year-old Alexander Sitkovetsky was one of the star students. He is now artistic director of Wroclaw's NFM Leopoldinum Orchestra and the second concert of its Edinburgh residency reunited the schoolmates to play music that they had played for Menuhin shortly before his death. The result was not only the most joyous music-making but also the most perfect expression of Benedetti's position as a working musician directing the Edinburgh International Festival, writes Keith Bruce. Which came first? Chicken or egg? In the case of this remarkable work by Belgium's FC Bergman company, who open the show by getting a real life hen to let loose an egg into the earth beneath, probably both. Surrounded by the eight performers of this seventy minute ritual navigation through ancient Greek poet Hesiod's idea of the five ages in his poem that gives the show its title, the hen's egg drop is as golden a statement on new life as it gets, even if it does come a cropper later on, writes Neil Cooper. At the production's heart are the two towering central performances by Grierson and Cox. Grierson is in typical chameleon-like form as Fred, presented here as a rather sad, pathetic figure without empathy or morality. Grierson doesn't crack a smile throughout, delivering each line with withering intent, writes Neil Cooper. Good comedy requires light and shade. For the first ten minutes, she embraces the shade. Memories of her mother's death, four days before Rosie's 11th birthday, leave many of the sell-out crowd in tears. 'Don't worry, you haven't bought the wrong ticket. This isn't Angela's Ashes, The Musical. There will be jokes,' she promises. And there are. Jokes and anecdotes and gentle whimsy. She conducts the tempo and tone of this show like a maestro. We all lean in, writes Gayle Anderson. Alison Spittle bursts onto the stage in an explosion of tulle and sequins. It's like a transformation challenge on The Great British Sewing Bee and they've raided the Strictly wardrobe. A seasoned stand-up, she's absolutely bossing that stage and she knows it. There's a couple of cracking Shrek puns and an Adele gag before she gets to the meat of this year's set, writes Gayle Anderson. Dancer Dan Daw is unflinchingly forthright when it comes to describing himself. He openly identifies as an 'Australian, queer, crip artist' - before adding the crucially important factor of 'kink'.
