Latest news with #RoyalLyceumTheatre
Scotsman
2 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
The Scottish theatre bringing 'powerful' new plays to people's living rooms, kitchens and gardens
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... It has been an icon of the Edinburgh theatre scene for almost 150 years, with a grand city centre auditorium seating more than 650 audience members. Now, the Royal Lyceum Theatre is to downsize its audience capacity significantly - when it takes its latest plays to be performed in living rooms, kitchens and gardens across the city. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The inside of the Royal Lyceum Theatre | Peter Dibden New initiative Lyceum at Home will involve four newly-commissioned 30-minute plays by Scottish writers, which will be taken to homes of local people all over Edinburgh - as well as to community centres and workplaces. This comes as the theatre unveiled its programme for the coming season. Highlights include the already-announced world premiere of a musical of David Nicolls novel One Day, as well as a production of Anton Chekov's The Seagull, starring Jonathan Creek star Caroline Quentin. James Brining's first season as artistic director will also include Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, a Dundee Rep Theatre production in association with the soon-to-be reopened Citizens Theatre in Glasgow, and a Christmas production of Cinderella: A Fairytale, directed by Tron Theatre's artistic director, Jemima Levick. The Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh | Contributed The Lyceum at Home initiative is part of the 60th-anniversary celebrations of the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company. The theatre said the plays will reflect the lives, choices and everyday moments that make Edinburgh and would widen its reach across the Scottish capital and 'build on the bonds and relationships which connect us all'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Mr Brining said: 'I was really keen to make a statement about our interest in the whole of the city. We're based right in the heart of Edinburgh, but we want to reach out to people and communities across the whole of Edinburgh. We're doing this project that will involve four short new plays, and we're going to take them out into people's houses.' Mr Brining said he had worked on a similar initiative when working at the Playhouse Theatre in Leeds, when actors performed to as few as five people in a residential home. The Lyceum at Home project is due to launch in mid summer. 'It's a really interesting project,' he said. 'We will actually take plays into living rooms and have people invite neighbours, friends, family, whatever, to come and see these shows. It's a brilliant, low-key thing. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'It's a statement of our interest in being involved with the city in as wide a way as we can, without compromising the work we do in the theatre. It's a beautiful, important part of the culture.' Associate artistic director Zinnie Harris said: 'For the past 60 years, The Royal Lyceum has been at the heart of Edinburgh's cultural life, creating theatre and inspiring audiences with work that is deeply rooted in Scottish culture and community. 'Now we want to spread this work into the community, bringing powerful performances and storytelling into Edinburgh residences homes. Whether it's a living room, a garden or your office we want to give everyone in the city an opportunity to experience the works of some of Scotland's leading writers.'
The Herald Scotland
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
'This play is a sensation' - Review: The Mountaintop, Lyceum
Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh Neil Cooper Five stars The heavens sound like they're splitting in two at the opening of Katori Hall's Olivier award winning play, which imagines Martin Luther King's last night on earth in fantastical fashion. It is April 1968, and Dr King is checking into his regular room in the Memphis hotel room where he'll meet his maker having just given the speech of his life. As he pretty much crawls through the door exhausted and clearly in pain, all he wants is to have some rest and a cup of coffee from room service. When a precocious maid called Camae delivers Dr King's beverage on what she says is her first day, what appears to be an after hours flirtation takes a startling turn to the celestial as Camae reveals she knows things about King that only his closest intimates are aware of. By the end, King's status as a reluctant prophet is guaranteed. Rikki Henry's revival of Hall's 2009 play is a sensation. Taking an already remarkable script, Henry and his team throw in a box of tricks that make for a thrilling experience. This is the case for Hyemi Shin's seismic set as it is for Pippa Murphy's soundscape that moves from storm battered rumblings to chapel house organ permeating Benny Goodman's low level mood lighting. Read more At the show's heart are two remarkable performances. Caleb Roberts as King presents a powerhouse study of a man much more vulnerable than his public persona suggests, while Shannon Hayes as Camae moves from sassy maid to something that defines both parties' futures. Onstage throughout more than ninety minutes without an interval, the interplay between Roberts and Hayes never lets up in an increasingly wild encounter that builds into an ever more relentless scenario. As King steps out to face his destiny, a barrage of video images accompanies a litany of things to come in a big play with big ideas that shows how history shapes the future in one of the most devastating works you're likely to witness.
The Herald Scotland
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Best-selling book One Day to become new Scottish musical
David Nicholls' best-selling novel, which begins and ends in the Scottish capital, will be brought to the stage of the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh next year under plans for its latest in a series of high-profile musical adaptations. Read more: Leading Scottish playwright David Greig, the Lyceum's former artistic director, is adapting Nicholls' book, which has sold six million copies and been translated into 40 different languages to date. The novel explores the twist and turns of the friendship and eventual relationship between the two main characters, Dexter and Emma, over the course of 20 years. The story unfolds after the pair meet for the first time at their Edinburgh University graduation party and revisits their lives each year on the same July day. The Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh will launch a stage musical version of One Day in February. (Image: Will Maidwell) One Day is the first major production to be confirmed by the Lyceum since it appointed a new artistic director, James Brining, who took up his post last month. Greig was approached just over a year ago about a One Day musical by producer Simon Friend, who had spent more than a decade trying to bring an adaptation to the stage. Greig is working with American singer-songwriters Abner Ramirez and Amanda Sudano - the husband-and-wife duo who record under the name Johnnyswim - on One Day, which will initially run at the Lyceum between February and April next year. Author David Nicholls is best known for his book One Day. Picture: Supplied The show will reunite Greig with Olivier and Tony-nominated theatre director Max Webster, who recently worked on stage adaptations of Macbeth and The Importance of Being Earnest, starred David Tennant and Ncuti Gatwa respectively, as well as the award-winning adaptation of Yann Martel's novel The Life of Pi, which was produced by Simon Friend. Greig and Webster previously worked together on a musical adaptation of the children's book The Lorax and also collaborated on a new version of the Shakespearean play The Winter's Tale, which the Lyceum produced in Greig's first season at the helm. The One Day musical is being billed as 'a celebration of love, fate, and the moments that define us forever, with a soaring original score, and the warmth, wit, and raw emotion of the novel that touched millions.' Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall starred in the Netflix series based on the book One Day. Picture: Ludovic Robert/Netflix Among the highlights of Greig's time as artistic director at the Lyceum was an adaptation of writer-director Bill Forsyth's classic Scottish film comedy Local Hero. Greig's previously adapted Alasdair Gray's novel Lanark, the Greek tragedy The Bacchae and Roald Dahl's classic children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for the stage. Greig said: 'I was initially approached around this time last year by Simon, who had the rights to do a One Day stage adaptation. He had previously worked with Max and also knew James (Brining) very well from his time at the Leeds Playhouse. 'I felt that One Day was a very Edinburgh story. They needed somewhere to develop the adaptation. We had already done Local Hero and were doing Wild Rose. I felt that One Day would really work in Edinburgh and it would be a lovely musical for the Lyceum to do next. I felt it could be a real win for everybody. 'It has all worked out very well, we're all really thrilled that it's going to be happening at the Lyceum and we really hope we can pull it off.' Greig's final show at the helm of the Lyceum was a musical adaptation of the hit Scottish feature film Wild Rose, about a troubled country singer dreaming of a new life in Nashville. Nicole Taylor, who wrote both the screenplay and stage adaptation of Wild Rose, was also the lead writer of the One Day series. Greig said: 'The One Day series was a phenomenon when it came out, but I didn't watch it. It hadn't long been out when I got the musical gig, so I wanted to be careful that I didn't copy anything. I'm convinced I will adore the series because I adore Nicole's writing, but I felt I needed to keep a bit of distance to keep my mind clear. 'The strange coincidence over the last year was at the same time Nicole was coming to me for advice about how to write a stage musical and I have been going to her for advice about how to write a stage version of One Day.' Greig can trace his One Day roots back to when he and Nicholls studied drama together at Bristol University in the 1980s and both in a student production at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1988. The production of the 17th century tragedy Sejanus His Fall, was directed by Matthew Warchus, who would go on to replace Kevin Spacey as artistic director of The Old Vic theatre in London. Nicholls' time in Edinburgh that summer is said to have inspired the author to write the book, which opens in 1988. He said: 'We performed in the Fringe play in the room on the top floor of a venue on Chambers Street. There were eight of us on stage dressed in our underwear. I've no idea why, but I guess it sold tickets. I think that is when David fell in love with Edinburgh. 'It has felt strangely fated that I would not only get the chance to work on a story with which I've felt a kind of closeness, but also be able to celebrate the Edinburgh-ness of the story and open it at the Lyceum. 'A musical is a chance to reinvent and think about something in a different way. You have to sort of find a logic for its existence. There was something for me about One Day being rooted in the Edinburgh moment when Emma and Dexter meet, but also its ending, on Arthur's Seat.' Greig said he had jumped at the chance to adapt a book which he had 'adored' when he read it, but admitted its episodic structure made it 'tricky' to bring to the stage. He said: 'One of the absolute joys of the book is how it approaches time passing, how it affects us and shapes us, and how were sort of the same people but also totally different as we age. 'David hit on an absolute truth, which is that time is a character in our lives. When I read One Day I totally knew who Dexter and Emma were and what they were experiencing. There is something really lovely about being able to explore that in real-time on stage. 'David writes about romance and love as we experience it in our real lives. It is deeper, stranger and harder.' Greig said both Sudano and Ramirez, who began writing songs together after meeting in Nashville more than 20 years ago, have been 'obsessed' with One Day since they both read the book. He said: 'Abner and Amanda have been one of the huge energies behind the musical happening. They feel the story is very close to them. Their songs are bringing honestly, vulnerability, beauty and heart to the show, which is allowing me as the writer to let the dialogue be as a dry and ironic as it is in the original book. 'Hopefully the show will have everything people want from it. It won't be sloppily sentimental because the book isn't sloppily sentimental, but it will have real emotion.'
BBC News
24-02-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Wild Rose: Glasgow country music film blooms as a musical
Long before Taylor Swift made country music cool, a character called Rose Lynn Harlan took root in writer Nicole Taylor's head."I was just obsessed with this girl who was just chatting away in my mind," she recalls."I wanted to bring her to life but back in 2009, country music was the love which daren't speak its name. It was really cringey."Sixteen years later, Nicole has not only brought Rose Lynn to the big screen in the Bafta-nominated film Wild Rose, but a stage version is about to have its world premiere at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in story is the same: Rose-Lynn is a former prisoner and single mum in Glasgow working as a cleaner by day and fronting a country band by night, with dreams of fame tempered by the reality of caring for her two young rooted in Glasgow's real-life country music scene, as home to the UK's biggest country club the Grand Ole Opry and Celtic Connections' Transatlantic Sessions. The film version starred Jessie Buckley as Rose-Lynn, with Julie Walters playing her long suffering mother had its Scottish premiere at the Glasgow Film Festival in whose screen credits include Three Girls, The Nest and the recent Netflix hit One Day was delighted when the film won audiences and awards, including Best Actress and Best Feature Film at the Scottish she was already thinking where Rose-Lynn could go next and despite never having written for the stage, she reserved the rights for the show."I just knew it was naturally theatrical," she says."The way she expresses herself through country music. What is that, if not a musical?"During the pandemic, she wrote to director John Tiffany who had directed Black Watch for the National Theatre of Scotland."I loved how audacious it was, how Scottish it was and I wanted it to have that amazing Scottishness and energy."John Tiffany had moved to London, where he'd directed Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and Once, a musical adaptation of the Oscar winning film which went on to win eight Tony he already knew Rose-Lynn. "I had seen the film in London when it first came out and absolutely adored it," he says."That last scene with Jessie singing the song Glasgow in the Fruitmarket where Black Watch had been first staged, had me and my partner in tears."I was so homesick for Scotland, having left five years earlier and I said to my partner as we left the cinema, if I had still been working in Scottish theatre, I'd be all over that like a rash."The musical is now in the final stages of rehearsal, ahead of its world premiere in features songs by Wyonna Judd, The Chicks, Patti Griffin and Dolly Parton - as well as that original song Glasgow (No Place Like Home) which reduced John Tiffany to nominated actress and singer Dawn Sievewright, whose credits include Legally Blonde in London's West End and Twelfth Night at the Lyceum will play Rose-Lynn. She too recalls being "blown away" by "this film about a wild Glaswegian lassie"."I love slipping into her skin," she says."I think she's the most exciting, unpredictable emotional character I have ever played. "It's testing me to every end. The singing, the dancing, the way the set moves, the way the people move. "It's a swirl of a world which is amazing to be part of." Blythe Duff takes on the role of her mother. Best known for her long running role in TV's Taggart, she has been in a number of theatre productions in recent years, including Harry Potter and the Cursed says the role has brought her full circle, having started her career in Edinburgh with the musical infused Wildcat Theatre company. The company was co-founded by Dave Anderson, whose son Davey Anderson has worked with Sarah Travis on the orchestration and arrangements for Wild music is performed onstage by a band of eight musicians playing 14 different instruments, and of course there's line also believes that the show brings country music full circle."I think we've always had a strong connection," she says."Partly because of the Grand Ole Opry in Glasgow but also because of Celtic Connections and in particular, the Transatlantic Sessions. "Those moments have brought incredible country singers to Scotland so we've been really lucky and well served and that audience has been there for years and I think this will just tap into that."Dawn agrees: "We love anything that's about big emotion."We love to laugh hard, cry hard, shout hard. Country music encapsulates that in a way that there's no shame. "I got dumped, I'm bankrupt, and I've got nowhere to live. There'll be a song about that." Wild Rose opens at The Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh on March 14th, with previews from 6 March.
BBC News
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Theatre adaptation of Neil Gaiman book scrapped
A new musical based on Neil Gaiman's book Coraline has been scrapped following sexual misconduct allegations against the show had been due to open at Leeds Playhouse in April before being staged at Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum Theatre, the Birmingham Rep and Manchester's a joint statement, the theatres said: "After careful consideration, we feel it would be impossible to continue in the context of the allegations against its original author."Gaiman, 64, has denied allegations of sexual misconduct made by eight women, saying he has "never engaged in non-consensual sexual activity with anyone. Ever". Coraline, a dark fantasy horror children's novella, was first published in 2002, and made into an animated film in three venues due to host the stage adaptation said ticket holders had been contacted directly via details to follow The "family friendly" musical was based on Gaiman's best-selling 2002 shiow had been described as "a darkly imaginative, richly rendered fantasy story", and had been written by playwright Zinnie Harris with music by Louis had been due to be a major production for the four theatres, and will leave a major hole in their schedules and they said they could not carry on after details of allegations against the British author emerged in recent weeks.
