So Young
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…
A History of Paper
The Guardian 4 August 2024 When Oliver Emanuel was taken by brain cancer at 43, one friend observed that the playwright had “taught us how to die”. By all accounts,…
Manipulate festival 2024
The Guardian 5 February 2024 You can rely on Edinburgh’s Manipulate festival to give you something you have never seen before. This year, it comes in the form of Simple…
Same Team: A Street Soccer Story
The Guardian 14 December 2023 There is plenty of talent on the field, but the early game is marred by obvious set pieces. In this wish-fulfilment fantasy by Robbie Gordon…
Same Team preview
The Scotsman 12 December 2023 When Bryony Shanahan was launching herself as a theatre director, she went for an interview at the Manchester Royal Exchange. They asked her who her…
Ann Marie Di Mambro on Tally’s Blood
The Scotsman 5 September 2023 Ann Marie Di Mambro teaches on a television writing course at Glasgow Caledonian University. She gives her students one crucial piece of advice. As she…
Adults
The Guardian 9 August With this uneven three-hander, Kieran Hurley has fielded two plays in one. The first is a sex farce about a middle-aged man paying his first call…
Sean and Daro Flake It ’Til They Make It
The Guardian 7 August 2023 Playwright Laurie Motherwell is sensitive about stereotypes. In a comedy about two working-class Glasgow lads with entrepreneurial ambitions, he repeatedly resists the temptation to lead…
The Grand Old Opera House Hotel
The Guardian 7 August 2023 Early in Isobel McArthur’s head-spinning new comedy, there is a gag about the uniformity of hotel decor. The joke is plain to see. Ana Inés…
Sean And Daro Flake It ‘Til They Make It
The Scotsman, 31 March 2023 When you hear they’re putting on a comedy about two men running a Glasgow ice-cream van, you think immediately of the city’s notorious turf wars.…