Latest news with #Theatre118
The Herald Scotland
25-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Review: Theatre 118's debut season ends with a bang
Theatre 118, Glasgow For the last month, Theatre 118 has hosted four editions of Play of the Week. This is a series of new short plays rehearsed and produced on no budget in a makeshift sixty seat studio space in a former city centre office block the company currently call home. This has been at the behest of Outerspaces, a Scotland wide initiative to open up unused buildings to artists in order to create work without external financial pressures. While Outerspaces has been embraced mainly by the visual art community, those behind Theatre 118 have seized the opportunity to reveal a seam of untapped theatrical talent that exists outwith the mainstream. Read More: This final play of the season sets out its store in a spartan high rise in Springburn, where old Ms Maara sits waiting for a knock on the door. A murder has been committed, and a High Court appeal from the apparently guilty party is ongoing. When a man from the council turns up and starts asking Ms Maara some awkward questions, she quickly exposes him as not being the person he says he is. She too, it seems, has a secret identity about to be unleashed. What follows over the next hour of Alan Muir's play is a devilish debate that tests the moral fibre of each participant. As things take a multitude of fantastical twists and turns, the action enters the realms of supernatural cult fiction and psychological thriller. This is played out with diabolical vigour in Sara Robertson's tightly wound production, which sees Angela Edgar's Ms Maara and Derek Banner as Bobby Johnson spar for dear life itself in an increasingly wild affair that finishes off Theatre 118's debut season with a bang. As long as the landlord doesn't sell up in the meantime, the company aim to be back for more in October. In the meantime, audiences have until Saturday to step into the unknown.
The Herald Scotland
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
A sharp, serial killer shocker - Review: Madonna/Whore, Theatre 118
Theatre 118, Glasgow Serial killers have been a mainstay of true crime TV for decades. Julie Calderwood's new play puts the makers of such programmes in the dock as much as their subjects in a work that looks at men in power and the abuses they wield on the women who get in their way. Calderwood sets her play in a maximum-security prison, where man of the people TV host Hugo Cameron prepares for his exclusive interview with Thomas Cullen. Cullen is incarcerated for the murders of five women, but the interview is his last chance to convince the world of his innocence, with his on-camera plea aimed especially at his daughter. Before all that, researcher Grace has had to navigate her way between the two evils that confront her. On the one hand, putting up with Hugo's old school obnoxiousness seems to be part of the job description. On the other, Thomas' initial charm points to a different side of a man with nothing to lose. On camera, the two men are at loggerheads, and it is left to Grace to negotiate the fallout, even if she has to demean herself, be it as office flunky, waitress and, finally, bait. The secrets revealed from this finally give voice to the killer's lost victims. Read more: While Calderwood flags up how badly women in the media can be treated, despite the provocative title she has actually created a prime-time psychological revenge thriller. This is brought to life in her own production by Sarah Pieraccini, who plays Grace as a woman on a mission. Thrown into the lion's den, she more than holds her own with Gregory Bonnar's sleazebag Hugo and James Keenan's driven Thomas. This second show by grassroots company Theatre 118 as part of its Play of the Week season makes the most of its DIY studio space in an empty Glasgow office block. By ramping up the captive claustrophobia of the situation, Calderwood's short, sharp shocker is captivating enough to potentially spawn a TV drama of its own.
The Herald Scotland
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
The Lord moves in mysterious ways in this rapid fire play
Theatre 118, Glasgow Everyone has their crosses to bear in Chris Patrick's new play, in which a couple of believers meet in the sort of outdoor venue where decidedly unchristian things might happen in order to curry favour with the big guy upstairs. Our hapless pair aim to do this by way of hammer, nails, some handy DIY and a lot of faith to muffle the screams. When an angel finally does turn up to show them the way, rather than some beatific saviour bathed in a holy glow, this winged wonder is a grumpy naysayer who keeps his halo in his briefcase and is in permanent dispute with his boss. The Lord moves in mysterious ways in Colin McGowan's rapid-fire production that sees Patrick's stream of one liners go beyond what initially looks like an extended routine into a scabrous comic look at the painful extremes of blind faith. Erin Scanlan's naive disciple makes a kooky comic foil to Ross Flynn's self appointed right hand man of God, played by Flynn as a kind of ecclesiastical middle manager. McGowan himself plays Angie the Angel as the sort of fly patter merchant with an attitude problem not seen since Peter Cook played the devil in his and Dudley Moore's groovy swinging sixties take on Faust in Bedazzled. Read More: Patrick's play forms the first edition of Play of the Week, a new venture set up by the recently formed Theatre 118, who have found a home in a former office block on Osborne Street in Glasgow's city centre. This is at the behest of Outer Spaces, the innovative organisation set up to fill empty shops and offices with artistic life as makeshift studios, galleries and venues. This has enabled Theatre 118 to tap into a necessary need for cheap grassroots theatre spaces in which artists can experiment without financial risk. With a background in scratch nights, play readings and other self generated developmental initiatives, Theatre 118's move into full productions looks promising. As the Play of the Week name suggests, this inaugural season of four short plays running each Thursday to Saturday showcases work that once upon a time might have ended up on TV. This follows in a tradition forged by the likes of A Play, a Pie and a Pint's lunchtime theatre institution in that it works from the ground up. The unseen saviour in Patrick's play might not approve, but the resurrection of grassroots Scottish theatre might just start here. Hallelujah to that.
