Vicki Manderson
Mayflies
★★★★☆ Sparkling
Grid Iron’s site-specific Mayflies is in part a massively spirited hymn to the youth culture of the 1980s. But you don’t have to have lived through that decade to appreciate such a melancholy yet defiantly bright production.
Lear
★★★★☆ Compelling
Lear at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre is a powerful production, with Maureen Beattie’s towering central performance backed up by an excellent cast.
Inexperience
★★★★☆ Human
Inexperience, the new play by Douglas Maxwell at the Pitlochry Festival Theatre Studio, is a stimulating production full of life and emotion.
The Mountaintop
★★★★☆ Vital
The Lyceum’s production of The Mountaintop is an enthralling, beautifully performed examination of history and humanity.
Wild Rose
★★★★★ Triumphant
New musical Wild Rose is the last show of David Greig’s eight years as Artistic Director of the Lyceum and it is an absolute triumph.
When Prophecy Fails
★★★★★ Purposeful
Adapted from a 1954 American study into the social psychology and cognitive dissonance of a UFO religion called the Seekers, When Prophecy Fails is an exploration of the community and humanity behind what could easily be perceived as cult.
The Outrun (EIF)
★★★★☆ Grandeur
The Outrun, from the International Festival and the Lyceum at the Church Hill Theatre for the whole three weeks, is a hugely ambitious, beautifully staged and extremely impressive production.
Sunset Song
★★★☆☆ Well performed
Stage versions of Sunset Song seem to come around every couple of years, perhaps because no-one has managed to come up with the definitive adaptation yet. Dundee Rep’s new version (a co-production with the Lyceum) has great strengths as well as weaknesses.
Moonset
★★★☆☆ Brave
Moonset, Maryam Hamidi’s coming-of-age story from the Citizens Theatre at the Traverse, is full of fire and anger. Its wilful refusal to settle down proves both a strength and a weakness.
Burn (EIF)
★★★★☆ Fiery
Burn, Alan Cumming’s solo dance-theatre interpretation of Robert Burns in the International Festival at the King’s, has a definite spark of passion.
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