 Cats man's charity backs CATS
THE Mackintosh Foundation, the charity set up by theatre producer Cameron Mackintosh to promote and develop theatrical, musical and dramatic arts, has pledged £3,000 over the next three years towards the ceremony for Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland. The annual celebration of all that's great on the Scottish stage – such as last year's multiple winner Interiors by Vanishing Point (pictured, pic: Tim Morozzo), returning to a theatre near you this autumn – is back at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre on Sunday 13 June at 3pm and tickets are now on sale here. Also backing the event are technical services company Northern Light, which is sponsoring the award for best technical presentation, and advertising and design agency Guy Robertson Partnership, sponsoring the award for best actor (male). Further support comes from Appetite Direct and The List. Yet more education cutsNO sooner has Edinburgh's Queen Margaret University announced its involvement in a BA (Hons) Acting for Stage and Screen in collaboration with Napier University than word gets out that campus-wide cutbacks are likely to reduce the QM drama department by nine. Staff are being consulted about where the axe will fall. When QM closed the Gateway Theatre it said there was a health and safety problem despite the building having been given a £1.5m lottery-funded refit as recently as 1997. It's surely coincidence that management at Edinburgh's Telford College is raising the issue of health and safety as it attempts to stop drama students making use of St Stephens church. Join the debate here.  Bissett backs benefit
CORA Bissett, who was nominated for best female performance in last year's CATS for her role in Midsummer (pictured, pic: Douglas Robertson), is rallying support for the Chile Earthquake Appeal. Together with Chilean glass artist Manuel Cifuentes, she is organising Chiledonia 8.8, a benefit night at Glasgow's Oran Mor on Monday 12 April. The packed bill is compered by Pauline Goldsmith and features songs by Bissett herself alongside Tam Dean Burn's punk-Burns crossover band the Bum Clocks as well as Skye Loneragan, Bruce Morton and ballboy, featuring Midsummer co-writer Gordon McIntyre. Tickets from www.ticketweb.co.uk or on the door.  Decisive moment
AT a post-show discussion about Peter Brook's 11 and 12 (pictured, pic: Pascal Victor/ArtComArt) at Glasgow's Tramway this week, producer William Wilkinson made an impromptu appearance on the stage to recall how the theatre might never have come into being. He'd been one of a party that had been searching the city for a venue for Brook's The Mahabharata in 1988. They reached the Old Transport Museum at 5pm after an exhausting and fruitless day. If it had been down to him, this dank building with its smell of stale horse's urine would have been a write-off too. But one of their number thought otherwise and suggested they give it a closer look. Without that one decision how different the city's cultural history would have been.  In brief
NEWSPAPER April fools jokes are ten a penny. It's rather more rare to find a theatre joining in the fun. So well done to Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum for making this spoof announcement yesterday . . . Glasgow's Citizens' Theatre is running a competition for the best overheard remark as it prepares for a staging of One Million Tiny Plays About Britain . . . An atmospheric picture of the Citz here . . . Eden Court in Inverness is celebrating the arrival of Karen Gillan as Dr Who's assistant. Gillan is a graduate of the theatre's Youth Dance Company and the Senior Youth Theatre and took her SQA Higher Drama and LAMDA exams at the theatre . . . The Edinburgh Festival Theatre is spending £245,000 of Scottish government money on digital equipment that will allow it to show films and to broadcast live events to other venues . . . His Majesty's Theatre, Aberdeen, has broken the £1m barrier for the first time on sales of The Sound of Music . . . Puppet Lab's Big Man Walking (pictured, pic: Murdo McLeod) will be walking once again at the forthcoming Dumfries and Galloway Arts Festival. OPENING SOONHuxley's Lab, Grid Iron/Lung Ha's, Informatics Forum, Edinburgh University, April 1–8 LAST CHANCE TO SEEMiracle Man, National Theatre of Scotland, Tron Theatre, Glasgow March 9-April 3 Empty, National Theatre of Scotland, Tron Theatre, Glasgow March 9–April 3 Mr Write, National Theatre of Scotland, Tron Theatre, Glasgow March 9-April 3 The Glass Menagerie, The Patter Merchants, Stereo, Glasgow, Mar 29–2 Apr Sick, Theatre Modo, on tour, Mar 31-Apr 3 |  | |
|  30 March 2010 Northings
By Tom McGrath. A Mull Theatre review. 27 March 2010 The Guardian The GardenBy Zinnie Harris. A Play, a Pie and a Pint/Traverse review 24 March 2010 The Guardian Every OneBy Jo Clifford. A Royal Lyceum Theatre review 17 March 2010 The Guardian By Cathy Forde/Rob Drummond. A National Theatre of Scotland review. 15 March 2010 The Guardian By Douglas Maxwell. A National Theatre of Scotland review |