The Guardian 8 August 2024

Instead of Chekhov’s gun, we have Maxwell’s whisky. The bottle of Japanese spirits shows up early in Douglas Maxwell’s comedy of social awkwardness and at some point someone is going to pull the stopper out.

What is surprising is how it happens. So Young shows every sign of heading for an implosion, a front-room breakdown like that of Abigail’s Party or something by Alan Ayckbourn. Long-time married couple Liane (Lucianne McEvoy) and Davie (Andy Clark) have turned out for an evening with their old pal Milo (Nicholas Karimi), ready to commiserate with him soon after his wife’s death, only to find he has already hooked up with someone new. They are shocked and embarrassed. It gets worse. [READ MORE]

By Mark Fisher

MARK FISHER is a freelance theatre critic and feature writer based in Edinburgh and has written about theatre in Scotland since the late-1980s. He is a theatre critic for The Guardian, a former editor of The List magazine and a frequent contributor to the Scotsman and other publications. He is the co-editor of the play anthology Made in Scotland (1995), and the author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide (2012) and How to Write About Theatre (2015) – all Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. He is also the editor of The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls and What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book (both Mark Fisher Ltd).