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The Herald Scotland
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Review: Meme Girls, Oran Mor: When a craving for fame goes wrong
Òran Mór, Glasgow Fame, as every wannabe pop star knows, costs. In the social media age, where everyone is famous for a lot less than five minutes, you can go viral as the next big thing one minute and be last year's spam within seconds. This is the reality the two young women in Andy McGregor's bite-size new musical are forced to square up to for this latest edition of A Play, a Pie and a Pint's ongoing lunchtime theatre season. Jade is a serious budding songwriter with an introspective air who pens power ballads in her bedroom, and would prefer to blend into the background before heading off to university. Clare, on the other hand, may have the voice of an angel, but she's the life and soul of any party until she crashes. When an ill-timed incident is captured on Tik Tok, she becomes a star for all the wrong reasons. Not that this bothers her, mind you, as her craving for the spotlight makes for a lucrative if grotesque way to make the big time. Jade, meanwhile, returns to her keyboard before the pair are thrown together again for one last number. Read more McGregor's play is a meticulously observed study of vaulting ambition, and how untutored talent can be warped by a mix of vanity, desperation and the addictive allure of interacting with strangers. Framed as each girl confesses all for a warts and all documentary on Fraser Lappin's pink boudoir of a set, McGregor's dialogue is delivered with fine tuned interplay by Julia Murray as Jade and Yana Harris as Clare. Both actors spar as beautifully as they duet on McGregor's handful of songs that drive the story. The technology may be different here, but the play's look at the fickle hand of fame and the disposability of pop bubblegum is as timelessly familiar as its depiction of the power plays between female friends. It is this latter attribute that gives the play its charm in a work where pop doesn't quite eat itself, but it comes pretty close.
The Herald Scotland
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Review: Sunshine Spa, Òran Mór: Like an old-school Play for Today
Òran Mór, Glasgow Neil Cooper Three stars The heat is on when Iain meets Zainab after going in search of a place to cool down. Being downtown Marrakesh, however, things don't quite turn out as planned. Iain is a gay man from Manchester who turns up at Zainab's spa. Given the strict rules in Morocco regarding the rights of women, the two shouldn't even be in the same room, let alone be preparing a very special massage. With Iain wheelchair bound and unable to bear to be touched, even that comes with complications. With protests on the streets outside, Zainab is as alive to the power of dissent as Iain is, and once both let their guard down they find a surprising amount of common ground. Simon Jay's new play - the latest in this season's A Play, a Pie and a Pint series of lunchtime plays - is a warm and human take on everyday solidarity across cultures where differences might normally turn into something toxic. Read more Jay's script may have a polemical heart, but the way his characters make a connection in the oddest of circumstances is a neat sleight of hand that endears you to their respective causes rather than leaving the theatre feeling harangued. Presented in association with the Glasgow based Birds of Paradise company, Jay's play is the result of a callout to develop work with a disabled playwright. The result, directed by BOP's artistic director Robert Softley Gale, sees Stephen Smith Taylor make his professional debut as Iain opposite Fatima Jawara as Zainab. As they spar, the duo show off a text that feels rooted in old school plays for today with potential for a sit-com spin-off. A word as well for designer Heather Grace Currie's convincingly realised spa set, which looks like an oasis of calm in a play that may be set several thousand miles away, but which feels familiarly close to home.
The Herald Scotland
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
'Charm aplenty' - Review: Goodbye Dreamland Bowlarama, Oran Mor
Oran Mor, Glasgow Neil Cooper Three stars Life is one great big musical for Charlie, the young woman at the heart of Taylor Dyson and Calum Kelly's lo-fi musical, the latest lunchtime treat as part of Oran Mor's current A Play, a Pie and a Pint season of bite-size theatre. For Charlie, alas, where once all she had to think about was the job she loved in the Inverness bowling alley that gives the play its title, a run of everyday tragedies suggests any kind of happy ending is a long way off yet. When she loses pretty much everything except her brother Ross overnight, Charlie does a runner to Dundee, where her granddad's long lost brother may or may not be hiding behind sunglasses and a Stetson. Missing presumed lost by Ross, Charlie's penchant for attracting disaster causes him to fear the worst. Charlie, however, is merely changing lanes as she finds a new song to sing. There is charm aplenty in Dyson and Kelly's quirky tale of an innocent abroad whose world is turned upside down before she finds her feet again. Read more The fact that the world Charlie inhabits is coloured with the fantastical largesse of cheap pleasure palaces and country and western bars gives Beth Morton's production a sense of low rent surrealism. This is heightened by Fraser Lappin's set, which looks like it could be a backdrop for an out of season end of the pier cabaret night. If this were a film, it would come in vivid Eastman colour with a cast sporting vintage apparel. As it is, Dyson's turn as a kooky but vulnerable Charlie takes her on an off-kilter rites of passage, while Ewan Somers' doubling up as Ross and assorted grandparents and workmates lends to the show's overriding sense of oddness. Co-presented with Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival, and with Dyson and Kelly's creative partnership as the Dundee based Elfie Picket Theatre joining forces here, the result is an archly realised getting of wisdom containing more substance than its surface slightness suggests.
The Herald Scotland
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
'Most blasphemous play in history': Review: Mistero Buffo, Glasgow
When the late Robbie Coltrane took to the stage in 1990 with Joseph Farrell's translation, Rame and Fo's comic theological riffs were as damning of assorted establishments as ever. Three and a half decades on again, as Farrell's new Scots version is brought to turbo charged life in this week's edition of A Play, a Pie and a Pint's latest season of lunchtime theatre, not much has changed. Robbie Coltrane in Mistero Buffo (Image: free) Nevertheless, Lawrence Boothman's rude intrusion as an anarchist on the run from the rioting outside the theatre he is seeking sanctuary in is a motor-mouthed tour de force that might still give the Vatican cause for concern if they weren't a bit busy just now. The stage area of Ben Pritchard's production - as in the round as Oran Mor's interior will allow - is regally decked out on designer Heather Grace Currie's set with a crown and a skull for what looks like a traditional performance of Hamlet. As Boothman's thoroughly modern frontline protestor finds his spotlight, he embarks on a rapid fire series of bite-size monologues that recall Italian cinema's one time vogue for themed short story compendiums as much as a wildly camp stand up comedy take on bible studies. Read more As Boothman embodies the spirit of the Giullare – the funny guy holding court – with shape shifting glee, shades of Monty Python's Life of Brian abound in his larger than life portraits of the rabble in this people's eye view of history, co-presented with Ayr Gaiety in association with the Italian Institute of Culture in Edinburgh. A particular standout of Boothman's routine is the Jesus fanboy trying to get his idol's attention as the Messiah raises Lazarus from the dead in a kind of sideshow spectacle. Also in the mix is a bad Pope Boniface doing his very worst in furious fashion. This all comes to an abrupt end when the forces of the law catch up with our hero, by which time he has exposed their masters' inherent ridiculousness in a breathless piece of serious fun.
The Herald Scotland
04-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
A bitesize showcase of three wildly different plays
Tron Theatre, Glasgow Neil Cooper Four stars Take three plays, each around an hour in length, and all originally commissioned and performed at Glasgow's Oran Mor venue as part of the lunchtime phenomenon that is A Play, a Pie and a Pint. Then put them into the Tron's bijou Changing Room space with a trio of directors and a cast of three in a mini rep season of brand new productions and see what happens. The result in Studio3, an initiative introduced by the Tron's new artistic director Jemima Levick, is a bitesize showcase of wildly different work. Alright Sunshine is a monologue by Isla Cowan that sees police officer Nicky describes her life in a day patrolling Edinburgh's Meadows. As Nicky recounts her observations, her initially chatty portrait takes an increasingly dark turn as a seemingly minor incident over a Frisbee gives way to all too justifiable anger. Dani Heron is magnificent as Nicky in Debbie Hannan's tautly paced production. As she delivers Cowan's words, Heron exposes what women are up against in a world of institutional misogyny, domestic trauma and the very real dangers of life on the street. Read More: Calamity Jane at Festival Theatre, Edinburgh Jocasta review: ferocious production for a Play, a Pie and a Pint Glasgow Film Theatre to celebrate Gene Hackman with mini-season FLEG sees director Dominic Hill revisit Meghan Tyler's wild cartoonish comedy set in Protestant East Belfast on the day the Queen dies. Here, Caroline and Bobby hold court in their red, white and blue bedecked home and garden, one of three very different environments created by designer Kenny Miller. As council employee Tierna attempts to lower all flags to half-mast, Caroline and Bobby defend its honour with exaggerated zeal. Bobby in particular sees his lager soaked fantasies personified as a pole-dancing temptress in a Union Jack mini dress. Jo Freer as Caroline and Kevin Lennon as Bobby strut the stage like a pair of Viz comic grotesques come to life, while Heron doubles up as Tierna and the Fleg with similar abandon. Fruitcake is the new title of Frances Poet's play formerly known as The Prognostications of Mikey Noyce. It charts the awkward reunion between life long friends Holly and Mikey after Mikey calls Holly following several years' silence seeking the return of a Maroon 5 CD. Holly isn't happy, especially as Mikey never showed up for her mum's funeral. But then, Mikey hasn't left the house since before lockdown, since when he has developed all manner of conspiracy theories that he has to tell the world. Levick's own revival of Poet's play taps in to the long term side effects of lockdown and the pains of confinement in a battily manic display of sparring between Freer as Holly and Lennon as Mikey. This s only interrupted by Heron as Cassie, the motor-mouthed old school friend of Holly who might just be able to sort things out. While all three plays could easily stand alone, Studio3 is nevertheless a welcome compendium that sees serious subjects dealt with in a variety of ways that showcases the glorious range of playwriting that exists right now.
