THEATRE LIST
LISTINGS
GLASGOW
I THE ARCHES THEATRE Glasgow‘s Glasgow. Midland Street. Tickets from Ticket Centre. Candleriggs 2275511. [Access: L. R. WC. G. C]. Daytime prices (9.30am—8pm) include entrance to whole exhibition. while evening prices (after 8pm) give access to the bar. restaurant and free entertainment.
Promenade Performances Daily. 11am. 2pm & 5pm. Free with admission. One of the many attractions in Glasgow's Glasgow is a changing programme of performances by a special in-house company. Scripts are by Andy Arnold and music has been written by Vivian Stanshall Of the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band. Threetwoone Until Sat 2 Jun. 7.30pm. Sun—Thurs £4 (£2 ). Fri—Sat £5 (£3). Highly-rated Polish experimental theatre company in a show about the lonelinessof the human condition.
The Age DI the Cage Tue 5—Wed bJun. 7.30pm. £4 (£2). Birds of Paradise. a mixed-ability theatre company formed in association with Fablevision. in a new play by Tom Lannon based on the worksof R.D. Laing. Comedy. drama. musicand dance presented in a highly visual style. Christina Fri iii—Sun 10Jun. 7.30pm. £4 (£2). Sandra Voe stars in this tragic true life story set in 1846 when Kirstic (‘addcl took on the local authority after being made homeless. The production has come down from the Shetland ArtsTrust.
The Freedom of the City 'I‘tic 12—t~‘ri 15. Sun 17. Tue l9—Fri 22 Jun 7.30pm. Sun-Thurs £4 (£2). Fri £5 (£3). The ArchesTheatrc Company contributes to the Strathclydc/lrish season in this revival of Brian Friel's drama which pits civil rights marchers against the security forces. Powerful contemporary lrish drama.
I BLACKFRIARS 45 Albion Strcct. Merchant City. 552 5924.
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How To Put Over A Song and Sing ThatSong Wed 6& Wed 13Jun. 7.30—10pm. £4(£3). Jazz singer Catherine Kerr tells Performance Exchange members everything they need to know about the practicalities of live singing from working with an audience to dealing with a PA system. Details and booking on 041 227 5557. See Tramway below.
Comic Club See Cabaret.
I BUCHANAN BUS STATION Killermont Street. Tickets from Ticket Centre. Candleriggs. 227 5511.
City Until Sat 2 Jun. 6.45pm (for 7pm). £5 (£3.50). This year. Glasgow‘s biggest community project mutates into a performance involving three locations between which the audience is shipped on Scottish Citylink Coaches. The show finishes back at the bus station.
I CITIZENS' THEATRE Gorbals Street. 429 0022. Box Office Mon—Sat 10am—8pm.
Bar. [Accessz P. 1.. Facilities: WC. W5. Li. I
(i. R. Help: AA] Mother Courage Until Sat 2 Jun. 7.30pm. £5
f (£1/free). Glenda Jackson is splendid in
Philip Prowsc‘s production ofBrecht's epic of the Thirty Years War. The supporting cast are similarly strong in a production that emphasises the relentless brutality ofwar. Tickets are scarce.
I CLYDE THEATRE Boquhanran Road. Clydebank. 951 1200. Box Office Mon—Sat 10am—6pm. Tickets also available from Ticket Centre. Candleriggs. 227 551 1 and all Ticketlink outlets.
The Guid Sisters Until Sat 9 Jun. 7.30pm. Sat Mats 2.30pm. £5.50 (£3). Matinecs £4 (£2). The Tron Theatre heads out to Clydebank to revive last ycar‘scelebratcd Scots production of Michele Tremblay‘s trading stamp comedy. See it now before it heads off to Toronto as Britain‘sonly representitive in the du Maurier World Stage Festival. See Competion Page to win tickets.
I CRAWFURD THEATRE Jordanhill College. 76 Southbrae Drive. Glasgow. 950343773438. [Accessz P. R. Facilities: WC. WS. E. G. R. B. Help: A.AA].
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Tue 5—Fri 8 Jun. Tue—Thurs7.30pm. Fri 8pm. £1.50 (£1). Most tickets available for Wed & Thurs. A stream-lined version of Shakespeare‘s romance performed by Jordanhill students with an emphasis on the play‘s lively comedy. Particularly suitable for people approaching Shakespeare for the first time.
I CUMBERNAULD THEATRE Cumbernauld. 0236 732887. Box Office Mon—Fri 10am—6pm: Sat 10am—3pm; 6—8pm perf. evgs Bar/Cafe. [Accessz PPA. ST. Facilities: WC. W8. G. B. Help: A. AA]. Gargling Willi Jelly Thurs 7—Sat 16Jun. Mon—Fri 10am & 2pm. Sat 2pm & 7pm. £2. Aimed at 7—12 year olds. Brian Patten's play is a struggle between good and evil. as every child in the land. bar one. is turned sensible by a wicked doctor. Cumbernauld Theatre Company leads the fun.
Just Kidding Sun 10—Sat 23 Jun. Cumbernauld Theatre follows up last year‘s successful international Festival of Theatre For Children. See Kids Listings. Writers Workshop Mon 1 1 Jun. 7.30pm. Classes continue every other Monday.
I DUNDAS VALE TEACHER’S CENTRE Next to Cowcaddcns Station. 332 7201.
Black Market Sat 2 Jun. Afternoon. Free. The most performance-based event in an intriguing ten days of innovative visual art presented by Edge 90 ( 1—10Jun). This show has been created collaboratively by seven artists from all over Europe.
I EAST KILBRIDE VILLAGE THEATRE Maxwell Drive. 03552 48669.
East Kilbride Festival Until Sun 3Jun. Contact theatre for details.
The Winslow Boy ch 13—Sat 16Jun. 7.30pm. £3 (£1.50). High drama asa father insists on upholding his son's name after the boy has been accused of stealinga postal order. Terrence Rattigan‘s play is performed by East Kilbride Rep. I KINGS THEATRE Bath Street. Box Office. Mon—Sat noon—6pm. 4 bars. Phone bookings. Ticket Centre. Candleriggs. Mon—Sat 10.30am—8pm. 227 551 l or other Ticket Link box offices.
[Accessz P. L. Facilities: WC. R. G. Help: A. AA]. King's High Mon 4 Jun-Sat 7 July. 7.30pm. Sat Mats 3pm. £3.50 (£8). Third year running for the King‘s summer variety package starring Rikki Fulton and Jack Milroy as Francie and Josie. Also on the line-up is comic actor Walter Carr. singer Mari Gordon-Price and two international speciality acts. A chance to see some ofthe real culture of Glasgow is promised. I MITCHELL THEATRE Granville Street. 221 3198. Box Office Mon—Sat noon—8pm. Bar. Cafe. Tickets also available from the Ticket Centre. Candleriggs. 227 5511 Mon—Sat 10.30am~6.30pm. [Accessz PPA. ST. Facilities: WC. W8. G. R. B. Help: A. AA]. Evelyn Wilson School of Dance Mon 4—Tue 5 Jun. 7.30pm. Sec Dance Listings. Glasgow Schools Youth Theatre Thurs 7-Sat 9 Jun. 7.30pm. Thurs & Fri Mats 2pm. Sat Mat 2.30pm. Energetic entertainment from the crop of Glasgow schools. I OLD ATHENAEUM THEATRE 179 Buchanan Street. 332 5127. Box Office open 10am—6pm and 8pm on performance days. [Accessz limited]. The Big Noise Play Fri 1 Jun . 7.30pm; Sat 2 Jun. 10.30am & 2.30pm. £4 (£2). Skint Knees. a brand new company for the under- 12s. starts its life with a play byJohn Harvey about keeping big secrets locked up in a box. I PAISLEY ARTS CENTRE New Street . Paisley. 887 1010. Box Office open Tue—Sun noon—8.30pm. Bar (open noon-11pm Tue—Sat; 12.30—2. 30pm & 6.30-11pm Sun. Meals served). Cafe (open noon—11pm). [Accessz PPA. ST. Facilities: WC. W8. E. G. R. B. Help: A. AA]. Vodka and Daisies Sat 2 Jun. 8pm. £4 (£2). See Touring. SailmakerThurs 7 Jun. 8pm. £4 (£2). Sec Touring. Perseus & Medusa Sat 9 Jun. 11.30am & 1.30pm. Daytime puppet entertainment from Clydebuilt Puppets. Lambs of God Sat 9Jun. 8pm. £4 (£2). Scc Touring and Review.
llifliflllllllllll A FAMILY AFFAIR
Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh. Unu19Jun.
Snapping back out of the challenging and radical Off The Wall season, the Royal Lyceum acts like nothing‘s happened and returns to a summer season of comedies from the classic repertoire. In a modern, but unneccesarily profane translation by Nick Dear, Alexander Dstrovsky's play is a social satire of upwardly mobile Muscovites in the 18505. Tenuously linked to our contemporary lust for financial wealth, it takes a heartfelt swipe at the dog-eat-dog mentality while remaining true to the orthodox class structure.
On an untypically shoddy set by Marjoke Hendrichs— hall cartoon, hall naturalistic and irritatingly flung together- it is essentially a light-weight tale of social gambling and marrying for money. Robert J. Carson's production is a haphazard affair, veering wildly from the very funny to the supremely dull, to the extent that you wonder whether its successes are coincidental. That it lacks style or wit would be lorgiveable, were it not for a complete absence of unity; one minute it‘s a sparkling comedy, the next a drawing room
melodrama and for the sake of variety there's a couple of Russian dances to boot
Without exception, success comes only when Kathryn Howden is on stage. Playing Lipochka, the aspiring bride-to-be, she brings to the part a frivolous yet finely-observed comic sensibility which, with well-timed support mainly from the women in the cast. sets the stage alight. With the sharpest of Kelvinside accents she dances and darts about the stage with the kind of comic glee sorely missing from so many long passages in the production.
Much of the problem is Kenneth Byrans' interpretation of Lazar, the scheming employee who turns the tables on his boss, not as a wily, devious and comic miscreant, but as a painfully dull social climber. This emphasis leaves all the comic
responsibility to Lipochka and leaves the play hopelessly imbalanced. (Mark Fisher)
[31311131— THE LAMBS 0F coo
Seen at The Old Athenaeum, Glasgow. Now on tour.
it was a warm and enthusiastic reception for the first night of Clyde Unity's first large scale fully professional production, a revival of The Lambs of God, originally produced by Glasgow Unity in 1948. Benedict Scott explores collisions between love and hate, cynicism and innocence, dreams and reality, within the claustrophobic 1930s setting of the Vennel, a district of Drumnoull in Central Scotland.
The motor force of the play is sex, but a form of sex that is as warped and twisted by the poverty of the circumstances as the doorways and windows of Robin Mitchell's set. Sex is a dream forthe innocent, a brief escape forthe lucky, and a powerful weapon for the cynical. This is a seething mess of life repressed behind closed doors and drawn curtains.
The play begins by setting up a number of clues and conundrums given meaning by the bitter feud between Kate McShane (who ‘has been around') and the gay loner, Dick Marshall.
which infects the relationship of the innocent lovers, Jamie Macphee and Molly Brown. The conflict hinges on what they all know to be the cost of losing the facade of respectable poverty.
This cost will be exacted by the chorus of gossiping women who wait to pounce gleefully on any titbit. Although this choric quality is intimated through the use of masks in the opening sequence, the stock roles are filled out by Alrae Edwards, Anne Downie and Sandra Billington to provide much of the play’s humour in counterpoint to its overall pessimism.
Problematlcally, the production gets a little lost in the melodramatic heights of its high emotion, tensions and fateful coincidences. The imbalances of the script are occasionally matched by an unevenness in the performances in the more demanding emotional scenes. Furtherthe lighting gives little sense of the shadowy world which the playwright illuminates, or the changes between day and ever-darkening nights.
This remains an interesting and above all entertaining production, but a little more of the archive dust will have to be shaken off before it speaks to us powerfully and meaningfully, irrespective of which Jimmy Sommervllle track is added to the music. (Tom Magulre)
52 The List 1 — 14June 1990