Latest news with #She'sBehindYou
Scotsman
04-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Edinburgh Fringe theatre reviews: She's Behind You Iphigenia: Dead/Alive + more
Our latest round-up of Fringe theatre reviews includes a delightfully defiant panto-about-panto, a take-no-prisoners yet big-hearted farce about contemporary student life, and a radical reimagining of a Euripides epic. 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... She's Behind You ★★★★ Traverse Theatre (Venue 15) until 24 August Spotlights rain down like snow in Traverse 1. Even though it's August, Johnny McKnight's beloved, quintessentially Scottish pantomime dame, Dorothy, whether she's Blawna-Gale or Ina-Storm-Floris, is seasonless. It takes twenty years' experience to get down stairs this steep in a froffy gingham dress, door-defying hair and age-defying glitter trainers. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Summerhall, not for me', she sings as she struts through the audience and into Kenny Miller's delightful music box set, defiantly directed by John Tiffany and immersed in an an auditorium of thunderous applause. With handfuls of glitter, music, callbacks and wordplay-based gags, what starts off feeling like pure panto is actually a panto-about-panto, in particular its ability to capture and, at its best, critique the ever-changing politics, attitudes and topics of its time. From playing 'sexless' Silly Billys to becoming a dame at the ancient age of 26, to a playwright determined to do things differently, Johnny is open about having written lines in the 'toxic 2000s' that he wouldn't now. Panto can be racist, homophobic, sexist, fattist, he observes, and the list goes on. The rules are archaic but also open for reinterpretation. Indeed, it's expected. Dorothy offers Johnny a way to come out on stage, as a gay man, which he can't for years in his life outside. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Wear the mask that allows you to be who you really are,' he says, simultaneously character and creator. But with changing times comes new challenges, as his sexual empowerment turns into an accusation of sexual assault and a gay kiss is tested out on a raucous group of primary school kids and Christian bible group. 'You don't just see panto, it sees you,' Johnny/Dorothy reflects. With 18 dames behind him, it's a reminder that we're all made up of past versions of ourselves, their successes and flaws, but also the power of shows (and reviews) to reflect, amplify and shape reality and turn it into whatever we want it to be. Sally Stott I Kissed Batman ★★★★ Just the Tonic at The Caves (Venue 88) until 11 August Damian and Tim are finally a couple, but Damian's nervous about coming out to his neurotic sister Steph - especially just before the Halloween fancy dress contest that she's desperate to win (even though his rugby team will almost certainly be victorious). Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In any case, boyfriend Jason has a big question for Steph - if he can pluck up the courage, and demonstrate it by standing up to towering rugby jock Duke, or (worse) team captain Dick, who both Damian and Steph seem strangely fascinated with. Cass, meanwhile, is just tagging along in the hope of a hook-up with a hotty from across the Channel. If that sounds like the makings of an old-fashioned farce, then Lex Joyce's breathless, joyful five-hander from Edinburgh-based Shark Bait Theatre is just that, albeit updated for the far freer and more fluid sexual identities of students in the 21st century. Joyce's dialogue crackles with one-liners and merciless put-downs, but it's far from all gags: I Kissed Batman also manages to draw five thoroughly believable characters, each with their own back story, hopes and vulnerabilities, and propelled through the plot by Douglas Yannaghas's assured, hugely detailed direction that finds a delicate balance between ringing clarity and glorious chaos. Perhaps more could have been made of Jason's evident climate worries, despite a show-stopping one-liner early on, but Ross Forbes-MacKenzie is all unconvincing blustering masculinity in any case, and Kit Laveri is achingly cool as Cass, with a nice line in withering sideways glances. Alex Paton conveys the anxiety behind Steph's obsessions, and Michael Tominey and Tom Showell as on-off couple Damian and Tim are genuinely sweet, and the fitting focus of the show's sentimental denouement. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad I Kissed Batman might be a fast-paced, hard-edged, no-prisoners-taking snapshot of today's student life and all its excesses, in a slightly clunky staging, but it's got all the big-hearted warmth and sentiment of an old-fashioned romance. David Kettle Iphigenia: Dead/Alive ★★★★ Space 3 at theSpace on the Mile (Venue 39) until 9 August It is truly remarkable what the young people of The Fox Chase Players, all the way from Pennsylvania, USA, have brought to the stage of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this year. Iphigenia: Dead/Alive is an epic performance that takes Euripides' equally epic plays: Iphigenia in Aulis, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, and revives their central character, so she may finally reclaim her own story. Iphigenia is a figure often forgotten from Greek mythology. Sacrificed by her father, Agamemnon, under Artemis' instruction, her life usually ends here. Yet, in this radical reimagining, Iphigenia is rescued and defies her intended sacrifice to carve a life of her own, finding sisterhood as her true family. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The production is brilliantly conceived by director Kittson O'Neill, alongside the company's exceptional young ensemble, as it weaves movement and song into its compelling story, which is brought forward by passionate writing and bold original music by Clellan Hirlinger. It is the young ensemble, however, that must be ultimately commended for this production's sharpness, handling dense Greek mythology with confidence and poise. Unsurprisingly, there is a range of quality among these performances, but within them, some are stellar. Ruby Schumm, playing Agamemnon, and Madison Freeman-Bibbs, playing his wife, Clytemnestra, are surely young actors to look out for, whilst a bit more professionalism is still needed to silence the chatters from backstage. This ancient tale of patriarchy echoes loudly in the ears of its contemporary audience, now amplified by the voices of our next generation. It is these young people that must reclaim their own story in the shadow of their brave hero, Iphigenia. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad As we collectively look toward an uncertain future, Iphigenia: Dead/Alive provides a hopeful glimpse into the power, and resilience, of those that intend to shape it. Roisin McMullan Daniel Moore's Definitive Guide to Failure-Free Living ★★★ Just the Tonic Legends (Venue 27) until 11 August Daniel Moore is just moments away from 20,000 hours without a single failure - that's twice what Malcolm Gladwell counts as expertise, so it must be more than enough for a book or seminar series. Or whatever. But is there more to success than simply striking the big red button that lights up periodically but incessantly in his bare, grimy room? Like something by Samuel Beckett on acid, writer/performer Matthew Edgar's intense solo show is more a study of obsession and futility than it is a searing critique of self-appointed online success gurus. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Edgar delivers an unsettlingly passionate performance, prowling his confined space and evidently terrified of missing the button's demands for attention, while offering homilies from his past that only serve to re-emphasise his loneliness and neediness. Putting a compulsion for success down to early neglect offers few new insights, and Edgar's tales struggle to summon many emotions other than pity. What emerges over the course of his 50 minutes, however, is something darker, more abstract and more interesting than Edgar's initial strutting self-confidence suggests. Taking that as a starting point might have allowed Edgar to stare more unflinchingly into the void. As it stands, Daniel Moore's Definitive Guide… is promising and intriguing, but hardly revelatory. David Kettle Devil's Point ★★ theSpace on the Mile (Venue 39) until 16 August Although it boasts an effective original score by Oliver Armstrong and illuminated by some decent shadow puppetry, Laura J Milton's mix of folk horror and modern love is a bit less than the sum of its parts. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Set on an ill-advised jaunt up the titular Cairngorms hill, the relationship between the couple, Ailsa and Sean, never convinces and is played with a sub-breezy romcom brightness that the script can't quite live up to. It's a bold stab at blending genres but it ends up feeling compromised because it can never fully commit to either of them.
The Herald Scotland
04-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
The Fringe show charting 20 years of Scottish pantomimes
McKnight will not only be in full panto dame costume throughout the performances of his show 'She's Behind You,' but will be venturing off stage for audience interaction, and reinventing some of his favourite material for the Fringe. Read more: The show, which will see McKnight revive his hugely-popular Dorothy Blawna-Gale character, will explore Scotland's enduring love affair with panto and how it can be traced back to the country's music hall traditions. It will also examine the dramatic changes the writer, director and performer has seen in the material performed on stage, audience tastes and attitudes, and how roles are cast. Johnny McKnight is appearing in the National Theatre of Scotland show She's Behind You. (Image: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan) She's Behind You will also be partly autobiographical as McKnight his own personal relationship with his on-stage alter egos. The late-night Traverse show, which has been jointly commissioned with the National Theatre of Scotland, has evolved from a talk delivered at Glasgow University less than 18 months ago. Johnny McKnight is the star of the Fringe show She's Behind You. (Image: Ian Georgeson) He had been invited to take part in a new lecture series instigated by former student John Tiffany, who would go on to become one of British theatre's most successful theatre directors, in honour of his former lecturer Alasdair Cameron. McKnight recalled: 'When John and I started talking, the lecture was really going to be about the history of pantomimes. I started doing a lot of digging, but when I was about half-way through it just felt that it wasn't something that I would do. 'We really started off again and it became about my own history as a pantomime dame. 'I wanted to look back over the last 20 years at how Scotland has shifted, how comedy has shifted and how panto looks now compared to 20 years ago. 'The show is about being a panto dame and what panto has meant to me. It's become autobiographical and a theatrical show set in the world of panto. 'It's a bit of a surprise to both of us that it is even happening given that the original lecture was only meant to be a one-off thing.' McKnight, who was brought up in Ardrossan in Ayrshire, can trace his panto story back to his first experience as an audience member when he was taken to the [[Ayr]] Gaiety theatre as a child. He said: 'I remember being absolutely terrified when the dame come out in the audience. 'My favourite thing about panto is doing audience interaction stuff and terrorising people. 'There is something definitely weird that a therapist should probably to me about in that the thing I was most terrified about is the thing I love most about panto. 'I can still remember that feeling of danger of suddenly being part of the show.' McKnight, who studied at the then Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, got his first panto work at the Carnegie Hall, in Dunfermline, working with Scottish comedy writer and performer Tony Roper, who was directing its annual production. He recalled: 'Tony was brilliant. We had 10 days to rehearse and he taught me everything. I really took it for granted at the time. 'After the first preview, he pulled me aside and said: 'I'll be back in a week. Don't you be saying these same words. You listen to the audience. Don't care about the rest of the actors on stage. This is for the audience. Keep it alive. Don't stick to the script.' 'I just assumed that's what you were meant to do in panto. He taught me so much.' McKnight can recall the 'cultural appropriation' in the first versions of Aladdin he performed in and the male-dominated casts he appeared in, but also the impact on pantos of key political decisions, such as the legalisation of gay marriage in Scotland. Tiffany, who started his theatre career working at the Traverse, said he had first developed an interest in Scottish pantomimes while he was studying in Glasgow He said: 'I grew up in Yorkshire. Every year we would get on coach and go with my dad's company to see one of the big commercial pantos in Manchester. 'There would always be folk off the TV in them, like Cannon and Ball, or Little and Large. 'It was always great fun, but it was only when I moved to Glasgow, started studying theatre and went to the pantos at the King's Theatre with actors like Gerard Kelly that I realised it was an art form alongside the ones I was learning about. 'The pantos felt political – they punched up, instead of down. I became really interested in it as an art form.' McKnight has worked extensively on the pantos at the Macrobert Arts Centre in Stirling and the Tron [[Theatre]] in Glasgow over the last 20 years. He said: 'We take panto seriously in Scotland. Theatres that don't produce anything throughout the whole year still want to make a panto which is specific to their panto. Audiences that don't come out the rest of the year will all come out for that show. 'I think it comes down to the fact that our theatre history in Scotland is music hall, it's not Shakespeare. 'It feels like panto is embedded in our culture. It comes back to the fact that you're guaranteed a good night out. Good will triumph. 'The audience are there to have a laugh, they're there to have a good night out and have the previous year reflected back at them. 'The people on stage are there to make them laugh about crap stuff like the fear of welfare bills getting cut and sort of find a punchline for stuff that might be unbearable. 'I read so many articles about people saying had their night at the theatre ruined by people singing. When did we get so po-faced in a theatre so that singing has become a joyless activity? In panto, you want people to join in and shout out. You want it to feel anarchic and fun. 'I did an Adele song one year and the weans would all join in. I felt like Robbie Williams at Knebworth, although I didn't sound like him! The audience sing along because they love it, not because they're bored.' Tiffany, a regular collaborator with the National Theatre of Scotland since he directed one of its first productions, Black Watch, is back working on a Traverse festival show for the first time since the award-winning play Gagarin Way - by the same writer, Gregory Burke, in 2001. He said: 'I've taken work to a lot of festivals around the world since then. But there is just nothing to touch Edinburgh. 'When we knew there was going to do a three-week run of She's Behind You I said to Johnny that I wouldn't only do it if he actually learned the script! 'We're kind of taking all the accoutrements and transposing them into the world of the Fringe. There will be songs, call and response, shout outs, terrible old jokes and a lot of audience interaction. 'We have gone for a late-night slot. A slightly merry Traverse audience is going to be perfection for us.' To purchase tickets, please click here
Scotsman
31-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Johnny McKnight on his fabulous one-dame Edinburgh Fringe show She's Behind You
Christmas comes early as Johnny McKnight explores the history and cultural significance of the classic Scottish panto dame in his uproarious show at the Fringe. By David Pollock 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... 'I love panto in Scotland, because I think it's different to panto anywhere else,' says actor and writer Johnny McKnight, who's carved a successful career as one of Scotland's most outrageous and effective pantomime dames through his work at Glasgow's Tron Theatre and Stirling's Macrobert Arts Centre. 'Here an actor can be in Medea for the National Theatre, then a month later be on stage at the Macrobert as the Silly Billy, and there's no stigma attached. Panto is theatre for families, it's telling a story, it needs to be well-acted. Music hall's our Shakespeare, it's what our theatre's built on, so we take it seriously.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Johnny McKnight in She's Behind You | Contributed McKnight puts that seriousness to the test this Fringe with She's Behind You, a one-dame show played in character as his outrageous drag creation Dorothy Blawna-Gale. An hour of late-night comedy in the panto tradition, albeit taking the genre out of its traditional pre-Christmas environment, it's also a subversive storytelling dissection of the genre, McKnight's relationship with it and the very nature of theatre as an evolving mirror of the times. Make sure you keep up to date with Arts and Culture news from across Scotland by signing up to our free newsletter here. She's Behind You began life as the second of the Cameron Lectures at the University of Glasgow's Bute Hall in February 2024, with McKnight following in the footsteps of inaugural speaker Alan Cumming. These lectures were founded by John Tiffany, director of apex Fringe hit Black Watch and the West End's Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, in honour of his late former lecturer Alasdair Cameron, under whom Tiffany studied Theatre and Classics at the University in the early 1990s. 'Johnny let loose on a merry festival audience at the Traverse is going to be something to behold,' says Tiffany, who also directs She's Behind You (like Black Watch, it's produced with the National Theatre of Scotland). 'The whole point about these lectures is that they're not really lectures, they're performance art. I knew Johnny's would be hilarious, but it was also raw, honest, heartbreaking and incredibly life-affirming. He managed to articulate the bare bones of what pantomime is, that it's political, it's subversive, it's anarchic and it can be a real force for good.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad From detailing his biggest influences in pantomime, including Johnny Beattie, Janette 'Jimmy Krankie' Tough and Elaine C Smith, that lecture became about so much more than just a history of pantomime. 'I was thinking about the difference in what panto looks like in the 20 years I've been doing it, in terms of gender makeup, cultural appropriation, in terms of how the world's changed and moved forward, or in some places hasn't,' says McKnight. 'When I first started we were still doing Aladdin dressed up like we were Chinese people, and that's not entirely banished. It was 90% men onstage, with one woman who never got a punchline, she was just there to look pretty for the dads. Yet there's always a new generation that fights against that and does even more unexpected, brilliant, push-it-forward stuff. It keeps changing, that's why panto's survived so long.' As well as digging into the medium, She's Behind You is McKnight's personal journey. 'It's about what I've discovered about being a man by being a panto dame, and what I'm still trying to figure out about the world through doing it,' he says. 'I'd only just come out when I started being a dame, so there's me in a dress talking about being a mother, and actually I was still trying to find myself sexually.' The lecture went down a storm. Once word got round, McKnight was invited to give a repeat performance at Glasgow's Pavilion Theatre earlier this year. 'I'd never stood on the Pavilion stage before, that was a dream come true,' he says. 'I just wanted to know what it was like, because when you're talking about panto there's so much that's connected to the Pavilion. 'Janette Krankie Beanstalk Horror', I've a poster of that headline from the Daily Record in my office looking down at me while I work.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Everyone who was at the Pavilion that Sunday afternoon raved about it, and now She's Behind You has arrived in Edinburgh, where the fast-talking, Scots-accented McKnight promises to 'pronounce those Ts and Ds' for an international audience, but absolutely not water down the comedy or dumb down the message. Who knows where it will go after this? 'I came off stage at the Pavilion and felt I was ready to die in an aircraft accident, it was like a retirement party or a farewell tour,' laughs McKnight. 'But it turns out it's Cher's farewell tour and it lasts about 20 years.'
The Herald Scotland
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Scottish stories being told at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe
With new shows and events being added every week to the line-up, here are just a few highlights from the ever-expanding programme that is taking shape. Read more: When Billy Met Alasdair, Scottish Storytelling Centre: Award-winning writer Alan Bissett's show is inspired by an encounter between Sir Billy Connolly and Alasdair Gray when the comic met the writer at the launch of his novel Lanark in 1981. Bissett, who is best known at the Fringe for The Moira Monologues, will be exploring the 'origins stories,' struggles and triumphs of Connolly and Gray in a show given a sneak preview at this year's Glasgow Comedy Festival. The birdlife of Shetland has inspired Kathryn Gordon's Fringe show A Journey of Flight. (Image: Supplied) A Journey of Flight, Dace Base: Choreographer Kathryn Gordon has created immersive experience inspired by the birdlife of Shetland, where she lives. Dance, live music and visual projects will be combined to explore themes of arrivals, departures, place and flight. The piece, which was created in Shetland is aimed at encouraging audiences to 'reflect on the delicate balance between 'nature, movement and our emotional ties to place and each other.' River City and Shetland star Gail Watson will be appearing in Faye's Red Lines at the Fringe. Windblown, Queen's Hall: A palm tree removed from Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Garden after more than 200 years has inspired a new stage from award-winning singer-songwriter Karine Polwart. The Sabel bemudana palm was removed last year from the tropical palm house after outgrowing the building, which is currently closed for refurbishment. The tree, which had been transported to the attraction in the 1820s from its previous home on Leith Walk, had 'outgrow' the building and was said to be too frail to be relocated again. Johnny McKnight will be performing his pantomime-inspired stage show She's Behind You at this year's Fringe. (Image: Traverse Theatre) Polwart's show will imagine the poetic and musical voice of the tree in what she describes as 'an exploration of historical legacies, ecological loss, collective ritual and the multi-generational promise of gardens.' She's Behind You, Traverse Theatre: Scottish theatre-maker Johnny McKnight will be reflecting on 'a lifetime spent in pantomimes' in the one-man show he is creating with award-winning director John Tiffany, who was at the helm of the recent Edinburgh stage hit Wild Rose. McKnight, who has written more than 30 pantos and played 18 dames himself, will be looking back at his personal experiences across 20 years of Scottish production. The show, which is being adapted from a lecture McKnight delivered in full custom for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, is expected to be exploration of identity, courage and acceptance. The Traverse has billed She's Behind You as 'a celebration of shifting traditions and the unexpected beauty found in the anarchy of pantomime.' Faye's Red Lines, Gilded Balloon: River City and Shetland actress Gail Watson portray a woman with a paralysing fear of intimacy in Rab C Nesbitt creator Ian Pattison's play. The character played by Watson, who starred alongside Andy Gray and Jordan Young in last year's Gilded Balloon hit Chemo Savvy, will confront her long buried past and her solitary life. Skye: A Thriller, Summerhall: The Isle of Skye provides the backdrop to best-selling author and theatre producer Ellie Keel's debut play. It explores the events which unfold when four siblings on holiday believe they saw their their father on a beach four years after he passed away. The show is billed as 'a relentless search for the truth, on a rugged island where real people and ghosts seem to walk hand in hand among the mountains and lochs.' 24 Weeks, Gilded Balloon: The debate over reproduction rights in Scotland has inspired a play set in a not-so-distant future Scotland where abortion has been made illegal. The show focuses on the relationships between three friends who are divided on what to do when one of them falls pregnant.
Scotsman
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Edinburgh festivals: 12 shows to be performed at Traverse Theatre this August
An 'honest, wicked and moving unpicking' of the character of the pantomime dame is among a range of original performances unveiled for this year's festival programme at the Traverse Theatre. Scotland's new writing theatre said it had unveiled a programme that 'reaffirms its unwavering commitment to discovering, developing and showcasing the most vital new voices in theatre'. This year's TravFest, which is comprised of 12 productions, including ten premieres, deals with issues from climate change to radicalisation and loved ones developing dementia. Other themes include global conflict and dysfunctional family dynamics, while also bringing joy, humanity, commonality and humour. Gary McNair's solo fable A Gambler's Guide to Dying returns to the Traverse ten years on from its sell-out, award-winning debut. Another production is Standing In The Shadows of Giants, a world premiere of an autobiographical musical play written and performed by Lucie Barât – sister of The Libertines' frontman and guitarist Carl Barât. Meanwhile, The Beautiful Future is Coming – an 'urgent' new play about the onrushing climate apocalypse - will span 250 years of real and imagined history through the eyes of three couples, from 1850s New York to present-day London. The new play by Karis Kelly, winner of the Women's Prize for Playwriting 2022, entitled Consumed, directed by Katie Posner, receives its world premiere on the Traverse stage this August. 1 . Standing In The Shadows Of Giants Lucie Barât, sister of The Libertines' frontman Carl Barât, steps into the spotlight in the world premiere of her autobiographical musical play Standing In The Shadows of Giants, directed by Traverse Associate Artist Bryony Shanahan. | Traverse Photo Sales 2 . She's Behind You Director John Tiffany returns to the Traverse alongside Johnny McKnight with She's Behind You, written by McKnight, an uplifting journey exploring our love of panto and the dames that define it. | Traverse Photo Sales 3 . Rift Inspired by playwright Gabriel Jason Dean's relationship with his own brother, a currently-incarcerated high-level member of the alt-right, RIFT is a story of estrangement, ideological divide, and the fight to change the world. The UK premiere is directed by Ari Laura Kreith and is presented by Luna Stage & Richard Jordan Productions. | Traverse Photo Sales 4 . Red Like Fruit A haunting exploration of complicity, consent, patriarchy and trauma in a post-#MeToo world, Red Like Fruit, brings audiences the latest work of award-winning Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch. This European premiere from 2b theatre company from Halifax Nova Scotia, directed by Christian Barry, sees Luke narrate Lauren's life: her fraying mental health and the unease she feels in the world. | Traverse Photo Sales
