Black Diamonds and the Blue Brazil
The Guardian 21 July 2021 Who doesn’t love an underdog? When Brora Rangers played eight-times Scottish cup winners Hearts in March, they enjoyed a perfect David-and-Goliath victory. The part-time team…
Twelfth Night
The Guardian 12 July 2021 You can see why director Gordon Barr chose to set Twelfth Night in the wings of a theatre. Heather Grace Currie’s design – all ropes,…
The Wind in the Willows
The Guardian 10 July 2021 The National Trust should see about hiring Colin McCredie’s Mr Toad. When he gets his comeuppance in this jolly production, the owner of Toad Hall…
White Nights
The Guardian 9 July 2021 “I am alone,” says the narrator of Dostoevsky’s 1848 short story, a man who has had so little interaction with the world that he has…
Adventures with the Painted People
The Guardian 14 June 2021 Pitlochry Festival theatre already has a claim to be the most beautifully situated in the country. Now, with the advent of an outdoor amphitheatre deep…
Edinburgh international children’s festival
The Guardian 31 May 2021 There’s a video for delegates to the Edinburgh international children’s festival showing a primary-school class responding to Katy Wilson’s film Mixed Up (5 and 6…
Hindu Times
The Guardian 26 May 2021 Body-swap comedies are big in the cinema. From the mother-daughter switch of Freaky Friday to the boy who finds himself an adult in Big, Hollywood…
Take Me Somewhere
The Guardian 24 May 2021 The animating force behind The Adventures of Pinocchio is the desire of the wooden puppet to become a real boy. Every scrape and digression is…
John Byrne: ‘If I don’t laugh when I’m writing, it gets tossed out’
The Guardian 21 April 2021 If you were in Edinburgh during the 1977 festival there were two shows you couldn’t miss. One was the revue Beyond a Joke starring a…