Scotland Theater Reviews

Review: IRVINE WELSH'S PORNO, Kings Theatre Glasgow
by Mary Baillie - May 13, 2024

Porno lives up to its opening line: sequels are never as good as the original. Edinburgh's infamous pack of misfits (Renton, Bigbie, Sick Boy and Spud) reunite ten years after their appearances in the award-winning Trainspotting. They're all grown up, and surpisingly still alive....

Review: MAGGIE & ME, Tron Theatre
by Mary Baillie - May 13, 2024

Ten years after his award-winning memoir, Damian Barr revisits his past onstage with the National Theatre of Scotland in Maggie & Me. This brave piece recounts growing up gay in the straight world of Margaret Thatcher's working class Britain... among the Ravenscraig steelworks of Motherwell. Barr ex...

Book Review: A SENSE OF THEATRE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF BRITAIN'S NATIONAL THEATRE, by Richard Pilbrow
by Cheryl Markosky - May 13, 2024

In the summer of 1962, Sir Laurence Olivier invited lighting designer Richard Pilbrow to 'sort out the bloody awful lighting' at Chichester Theatre two days before it opened. Pilbrow replied there was nothing he could do in so short a time. 'Well, you're no bloody use, are you?' Olivier quipped....

Review: WHAT THE BUTLER SAW, Perth Theatre
by Mary Baillie - May 07, 2024

Cross-dressing, guns, psychiatry, politics, incest, adultery and accidental overdoses interlace in Joe Orton's final and most subversive play. Unfortunately to a modern audience it feels dated....

Review: LEWIS CAPALDI GOES TROPICAL, Oran Mor
by Natalie O'Donoghue - May 04, 2024

A surreal chaotic comedy following a misfit family from Glasgow’s fringes as they prepare a party to say farewell to a beloved black-market animal....

Review: UNFORTUNATE: UNTOLD STORY OF URSULA THE SEA WITCH, Pavilion Theatre Glasgow
by Mary Baillie - May 03, 2024

After spellbinding success in the Edinburgh Fringe, the not-safe-for-work musical parody Unfortunate dives into Glasgow to stage a revolutionary queerification of Disney's 1989 movie The Little Mermaid. ...

Review: SISTER ACT, Kings Theatre Glasgow
by Mary Baillie - May 01, 2024

This divine revival of the iconic movie follows nightclub singer Deloris van Cartier (Landi Oshinowo), whose life takes an unlikely turn after she witnesses a mobster murder. Seeking refuge in a holy convent, she poses as a nun revamping the sisters' struggling choir... despite protests from the aus...

Review: MACBETH IN CINEMAS, Filmed at Dock X
by Alice Cope - April 29, 2024

An intense and well filmed release of an atmospheric production of Macbeth. Showing in cinemas from 2 May....

Review: BRIDEZILLA AND THE ORCHARD OF SIN, Oran Mor
by Natalie O'Donoghue - April 27, 2024

‘Bridezilla’ Amber and her fiancé Gary are desperate to find the perfect venue for her their upcoming wedding when the peculiar Lady V offers up her seemingly ideal estate....

Review: RAGE ROOM, Tron Theatre, Glasgow
by Natalie O'Donoghue - April 27, 2024

In a world where quiet facts are repeatedly drowned out by loud opinions and with calamity around every corner, do we rock paper scissors for not just the right to be heard, but the right to survive?...

Review: JAMES V: KATHERINE, Tron Theatre
by Natalie O'Donoghue - April 26, 2024

A Raw Material and Capital Theatres co-production, James V: Katherine continues the theatrical series with the vivid historical storytelling of the previous instalments, set during the reigns of Scotland’s generations of Stewart kings. James V places a lesser-known female historical figure front and...

Review: WHO PAYS THE PIPER, Oran Mor, Glasgow
by Natalie O'Donoghue - April 21, 2024

Who Pays the Piper is a new tragicomedy exploring what it’s like to fall in love with music and who gets to make their ambitions into reality....

Review: BONNIE AND CLYDE, King's Theatre, Glasgow
by Natalie O'Donoghue - April 17, 2024

Two small-town kids from the middle of nowhere became the biggest folk heroes in all America. They craved adventure—and each other. Their names were Bonnie and Clyde....

Review: NESS, Oran Mor, Glasgow
by Natalie O'Donoghue - April 13, 2024

Em, a young queer Scot, is on the bonnie banks of Loch Ness when they encounter the fabled monster…only Nessie sincerely wishes that they wouldn’t use the word ‘monster.’...

Book Review: THE ACTOR AND THE SPACE, Declan Donnellan
by Cindy Marcolina - April 13, 2024

His first publication went viral (once again, in a way) when Mr Jeremy Strong of Succession fame featured it in his GQ interview about his essentials, saying he swears by it. Declan Donnellan succeeds at describing the indescribable, putting the ephemeral art of acting on paper in another gem of a b...

Review: DON'T. MAKE. TEA. Tron Theatre, Glasgow
by Natalie O'Donoghue - April 12, 2024

Another bloody serious comedy from BOP, makers of the hilarious My Left Right Foot – The Musical....

Review: Shō and the Demons of the Deep, Platform
by Natalie O'Donoghue - April 14, 2024

Shō and the Demons of the Deep is a visual adventure story about overcoming fear, climate crisis and how the actions of one generation can affect the next. Designed for everyone aged 8+, the show is inspired by the picture book of the same name by Annouchka Gravel Galouchko....

Review: THE DRIFTERS GIRL, King's Theatre
by Natalie O'Donoghue - April 11, 2024

Discover the remarkable story of the Drifters and the truth about the woman who made them. From the highs of hit records to the lows of legal battles and personal tragedy, Faye Treadwell is the legendary manager of The Drifters who refused to give up on the group she loved....

Review: THE KITE RUNNER, Theatre Royal, Glasgow
by Natalie O'Donoghue - April 10, 2024

Based on Khaled Hosseini’s international bestselling novel, adapted by Mathew Spangler and directed by Giles Croft, this haunting tale of friendship spans cultures and continents and follows one man’s journey to confront his past and find redemption....

Review: ADAM KAY: UNDOCTORED, Pavilion Theatre Glasgow
by Mary Baillie - April 06, 2024

Adam Kay is the doctor-turned-comic who secured paramount success with his show and book 'This is Going to Hurt'. In his latest piece based on his new book, the audience undergo another emotional rollercoaster as Kay recounts the laborious laments of being an NHS frontliner....

Review: JUST ONE MORE LAUGH, Blackfriars
by Natalie O'Donoghue - April 04, 2024

The new weekly Wednesday night of Comedy in Glasgows OG Comedy Club, hosted by Darren Connell the star of BBC's Scot Squad....

Review: THE 39 STEPS, Richmond Theatre
by Aliya Al-Hassan - April 05, 2024

Mix a classic spy novel with the genius of Alfred Hitchcock, add a dash of Monty Python and you have The 39 Steps. With a history spanning over 100 years, John Buchan’s 1915 novel was adapted by Alfred Hitchcock which then went on to become a stage play in 1996, adapted again in 2005 by Patrick Barl...

Review: TAMÁM SHUD, Oran Mor, Glasgow
by Natalie O'Donoghue - April 02, 2024

Keene is seemingly an unremarkable man who worries about buying good slippers, but is actually a British spy willing to kill to protect the interests of the British Government....

Review: THE SCAFF, Òran Mór, Glasgow
by Natalie O'Donoghue - March 29, 2024

Liam plays football at school with a close-knit group of lads who decide to enact revenge when they find out that he has been called the worst thing ever – a ‘Scaff’....

Review: THIS IS MEMORIAL DEVICE, Tron Theatre
by Natalie O'Donoghue - March 29, 2024

Following a sold-out, Fringe First-winning run at the 2022 Edinburgh Festival, This Is Memorial Device, based on David Keenan’s cult novel, returns....