theatreSCOTLAND

20 August 2015 Variety

Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour

By Lee Hall. A National Theatre of Scotland/Live Theatre review.

AS ROAD trips go, it’s a short one. The journey from Oban, a port on the west coast of Scotland, to the capital city of Edinburgh will take you less than three hours. But for the adolescent girls in Alan Warner’s vivid and funny 1998 novel “The Sopranos,” the return trip gives way to a coming-of-age odyssey of heavy drinking, sexual fumbling and self-discovery that will define them forever. Adapted as “Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour” by playwright Lee Hall (“Billy Elliot”), the production, premiering at the Edinburgh Fringe, becomes a joyful estrogen-fueled life-in-a-day romp that is one stop short of a full-blown musical, and every bit as exhilarating.

20 July 2015 Edinburgh Festivals Magazine

Dragon

By Oliver Emanuel. A Vox Motus/NTS/EIF preview.

DRAGON is exceptional in many ways. For one thing it’s the first time a piece of theatre for young people and families has appeared in the programme of the Edinburgh International Festival. It’s also a rare three-way collaboration between Glasgow’s Vox Motus, the National Theatre of Scotland and the Tianjin People’s Arts Theatre in China.

11 May 2015 The Guardian

Rites

By Cora Bissett and Yusra Warsama. A National Theatre of Scotland review.

ENGAGINGLY performed, subtly argued and quietly emotive, this collaboration between the National Theatre of Scotland and Manchester’s Contact takes female genital mutilation as its theme. The practice itself is set out with text-book clarity as part of the verbatim collage of Cora Bissett and Yusra Warsama’s script: it is a painful, abusive and unnecessary operation, rooted in misogyny and misinformation.

14 April 2015 The Guardian

Uisge-Beatha Gu Leòr (Whisky Galore)

Adapted by Iain Finlay Macleod. A National Theatre of Scotland/A Play, A Pie and a Pint theatre review.

THE SHIPWRECK that inspired Compton Mackenzie to write Whisky Galore took place in 1941 off Eriskay, the island north of Barra where, a decade earlier, he had built a house. For all his affinity with Scotland and love of the Highlands, the author was an outsider, brought up in England. It’s appropriate, therefore, that the one serious note struck by Uisge-Beatha Gu Leòr, Iain Finlay Macleod’s Gaelic-language version of the novel, is to do with who has ownership over stories.

7 April 2015 The Guardian

Last Dream (On Earth)

By Kai Fischer. A National Theatre of Scotland/Tron review

AS A LIGHTING designer, Kai Fischer understands the power of the dark. Here, as a director, creating a show we hear through headphones, he demonstrates a similar feel for the power of silence. It’s not that the sounds he creates in Last Dream (On Earth) are ever less than mesmerising. The vocal clicks, whispers and fragmentary voices of Ryan Gerald, Mercy Ojelade and Adura Onashile (all excellent) are emotionally underpinned by the expansive guitarscapes of Tyler Collins and the understated percussion of Gameli Tordzro. Along with the interventions of sound designer Matt Padden, they create a gorgeous aural tapestry.

28 March 2015 The Guardian

Kai Fischer on his new play Last Dream (On Earth)

Interview about the National Theatre of Scotland production

WHEN Kai Fischer heard the news, the first thing he did was phone work. Thinking on his feet, he told his boss he needed to take the next day off to see his brother. What he had in mind was something more ambitious. The word was out that Hungary had opened its borders to the West. Fischer did not hesitate before getting on the train. That was when he bid farewell to his East German home. This was the summer of 1989. After taking down the fence along the border with Austria, Hungary effectively paved the way for East Germans such as Fischer to escape to West Germany.

theatreSCOTLAND © Mark Fisher 2015