Now Booking / Coming Soon - Autumn 2009

Despite it seeming like only yesterday that the theatre world was consumed by The Fringe, we’ve suddenly found ourselves at the start of a hectic period of shows as the Autumn/Winter season is up and running. So, here’s a quick run through of what we’ll be seeing over the next couple of months…

We’re starting off with a trip to Dundee Rep for “The Cherry Orchard” this week and we might be tempted to make another trip at the end of October for "The Elephant Man".

Only slightly closer to home, through in Edinburgh the Lyceum has a very strong start to their season where Vanishing Point stage their futuristic version of “The Beggar's Opera” (also at Tramway in October) followed by The Lyceum’s production of “Confessions of a Justified Sinner” in October. James Hogg’s book fascinated me when I studied it at school so I’m really looking forward to this one. And more than likely we’ll make our now traditional trip to their Christmas show – this year it’s “Peter Pan”.

But the Lyceum have a surprising competitor to their Christmas show this time round – although not exactly festive sounding, the Traverse and Visible Fiction's production of “Zorro” sounds in tone and date range (4-24 Dec) very much like a family show filled with swashbuckling adventure aimed as an alternative to panto. Before that we’ll be through for "The Dark Things" in October and next week we'll be catching one of a series of "New Works" presented by the RSAMD & Playwrights' Studio which we missed at the Tron last week. On each of three evenings a double bill is staged of 2 from 3 new plays from Douglas Maxwell, David Harrower and Linda Mclean - but disappointingly this means that unless you’re prepared to sit through one twice you can only see two out of the three plays.

Speaking of the Tron, its attention grabbing production this Autumn is a new production of “That Face” – Polly Stenham's play which was first produced in London last year to great acclaim and much attention. It will be interesting to see how a new production of it is received and should certainly be one to get people talking. There are a lot of short-run touring shows at the Tron this season including many in their Changing House studio space. We’ve not really had the chance to check into them sufficiently to see if we plan to see any but we do recommend David Leddy’s “White Tea” which we saw in Edinburgh when it takes up residence for a time in September.

Across the river at the Citizens we’ve booked up to see the National Theatre of Scotland’s “House of Bernarda Alba” in a version by Rona Munro set in Glasgow. For me it’s the cast here that is the big draw – Siobhan Redmond and Carmen Pieraccini in particular. The show also tours to Dundee, Edinburgh & Dunfermline. The Citizens' own major production of the season is “Othello” and I’ll confess my first reaction was to yawn. I guess getting in the school trips makes for good attendances but it just feels dreadfully safe and uninspiring. And although we enjoyed his Hamlet in 2007, the casting of Andrew Clark as Iago seemed equally unadventurous. But sometimes marketing can make a huge difference to a piece and the image used to promote the show of Clark in the shadows with a raised eyebrow and enigmatic grin really convinced me that he could bring something memorable to the role. We’re holding fire at the moment on the Citz Christmas show – Cinderella as it sounds a little too traditional for our taste but we will definitely be booking up for the Citz Community Company's Wicked Christmas.

Finally, the Play, Pie & Pint season at Oran Mor started last week. We didn’t make it along last week due to being out of the country but I'll be trying to catch as many as I can between now and the end of the year.

Do let us know if there's anything else we should be seeing...