theatreSCOTLAND

Johnny McKnight in Little Johnny's Big Gay Wedding Pic: Tim Morozzo

8 June 2010 The Guardian

Little Johnny's Big Gay Wedding

By Johnny McKnight. A Random Accomplice/National Theatre of Scotland review.

FOR a recap of the story of modern theatre, check out this daft and delightful mock wedding reception by Random Accomplice and the National Theatre of Scotland. It is a whirlpool collision of performance art, site-specific theatre, pantomime, camp, Broadway musical, sentimental drama, standup comedy and first-person confessional. There's even a line from Shakespeare.

10 February 2010 The Guardian

Promises Promises

By Douglas Maxwell. A Random Accomplice review.

YOU could say this play was purpose-built for readers of this newspaper's ­Education and Society sections. ­Margaret Ann Brodie has just arrived as a supply teacher in a London school when she discovers a community group is about to perform an exorcism on one of her pupils, a six-year-old Somali girl who is an elective mute. The scene is set for a debate about classroom control and multiculturalism: should tolerance of beliefs extend to summoning devils before playtime?

9 February 2010 Northings

Promises Promises

By Douglas Maxwell. A Random Accomplice review.

TEACHING is all about living up to a promise. So said an old associate of Maggie Brodie, the supply teacher at the unsteady heart of this excellent one-woman play by Douglas Maxwell. The teacher promises to teach and her job is to fulfil that promise one short lesson at a time.

1 September 2009 Northings

Little Johnny's Big Gay Musical

By Johnny McKnight. A Random Accomplice review.

DID someone put something in the Ayrshire water 30 years ago? How else to explain the glut of young playwrights from the area who all have a hang-up about their teenage years? First on the scene was Douglas Maxwell who, in plays such as Decky Does a Bronco, Our Bad Magnet and If Destroyed True, has returned repeatedly to his small town adolescence. Snapping at his heels is Daniel Jackson whose The Wall and The Ducky have added to the sub-genre of Ayrshire teen comedy.

20 October 2006 Northings

Something Wicked

By the company. A Random Accomplice review.

ANYONE who's been to a funeral will know how hilarity hangs on the tail of tragedy. With every outpouring of emotion comes a repressed giggle, every attempt at decorum a scurrilous joke. To laugh in the face of adversity is a better survival strategy than buckling under the senselessness of it all.

theatreSCOTLAND © Mark Fisher 2009–2010