theatreSCOTLAND

24 January 2009 The Guardian

Sub Rosa

By David Leddy.

WAS ever a penny dreadful as lurid as David Leddy's Sub Rosa? A site-specific journey into the bowels of a theatre built in 1878, it is as if a rococo Victorian melodrama has been laced with the ugly authenticity of the in-your-face playwrights of the 1990s. By offsetting a story laden with murder, sexual exploitation and back-street abortions with a romantic promenade through wardrobes and scenery stores, Leddy creates a show that is as ravishing as it is unpleasant.

David Leddy's Home Hindrance

9 May 2007 The Guardian

Home Hindrance

By David Leddy.

IN the face of mass-media uniformity, theatre-makers are turning to intimate venues to offer us something unique. In Homemade, Chris Goode brought the show into his audience's living rooms, and in Spend a Penny, Andy Arnold's actors staged one-to-one sessions in the Arches' toilet cubicles. Here, we find ourselves on the top floor of a Glasgow towerblock, sharing a bathroom with actor Louise Ludgate as she strips off and nips into the shower. Theatre doesn't come more up close and personal than this.

15 August 2006 The Scotsman

David Leddy's Reekie

By David Leddy.

28 June 2006 The Guardian

Sussurus

By David Leddy.

PRODUCTIONS of A Midsummer Night's Dream are ten a penny. This month alone, there have been outdoor performances in both Glasgow and Edinburgh. Such cheery familiarity makes it too easy to glide over Shakespeare's troubling themes of desire, sexuality and death in favour of a funny Bottom.

David Leddy's In the Shade

1 June 2005 The Guardian

In the Shade

By David Leddy.

AS a writer, David Leddy has something to say. As a performer, he has the means to say it. Yet somewhere between conception and execution his purpose has become obscured. Watching his latest one-man show is a draining experience: you see the effort that's gone into it, but get little in return. Sitting round cabaret-style tables, it initially seems we're in for another night of cross-dressing campery. Leddy appears in drag, garishly attired in clashing zebra stripes and leopard spots, and bolstered to emulate the shape of the beautiful black women he adores. As LaToya Levine, he presents himself as the world's only "psychic soul sister", able to channel the voices of the great divas, alive and dead, at will.

theatreSCOTLAND © Mark Fisher 2009