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The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Review: The Haunting of Agnes Gilfrey, Oran Mor, Glasgow
⭐⭐⭐⭐ A storm is brewing over Mull in Amy Conway's new comedy thriller that forms the latest offering from A Play, a Pie and a Pint's current season of lunchtime theatre. Agnes and her American TV actor husband James have arrived late at the old house where they are having a belated honeymoon. Greeted unexpectedly by housekeeper Mrs Carlin, Agnes and James are also seeking to escape other domestic pressures. Once things start going bump in the night, however, old ghosts making their presence felt see things spiral into a nightmare. Only when Agnes confronts a few demons does the storm calm. Shades of Inside Number 9's meticulously observed pastiches of hammy horror pulp fiction TV tropes abound in Katie Slater's production of Conway's script. This is the case from the creepy portrait of the former lady of the house Constance Laird resembling real life characters, to at one point having Manasa Tagica's Jack appearing to believe he is in a reality show. Then there is the way absolutely everyone in a 1970s thriller has a high-flying job in one creative industry or another. It is there most of all, however, in Mary Gapinski's larger than life embodiment of Mrs Carlin, whose deadly patter sounds purloined from a Victorian tombstone. Read more theatre reviews from Neil Cooper: Beyond such wilfully OTT archness there is some serious stuff at play here that says much about women, autonomy and the impending tick of the biological clock that has seen the female of the species too often presented as a mad woman in the attic of one sort or another. Played out on Fraser Lappin's pitch perfect depiction of a crumbling Highland pile and co-presented with Mull's arts centre An Tobar and Mull Theatre, Conway and Slater's construction sees Gapinski, Tagica and Sarah McCardie's Agnes having tremendous fun with all this. Conway's play nevertheless reclaims old myths in a deceptively subtle fashion to put women at the centre of this new spin on gothic fiction.
The Herald Scotland
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Review: You Won't Break My Soul, Oran Mor, Glasgow
⭐⭐⭐ When Beyoncé came to Murrayfield in 2023 as part of her Renaissance tour, the bootylicious diva caused a sensation. Beyond the show itself, there was likely plenty of drama for her fan base who worship at her feet, and not just among the single ladies either. Take Jordan and Russell. The neon pink boudoir that passes for the living room of these gay best friends in JD Stewart's new play for A Play, a Pie and a Pint's lunchtime theatre season may be a shrine to their queen, but it also requires an overload of Febreze to clear the body odours that hang around. Read more: Partly responsible for these is the bit of rough trade Jordan who has just beat a hasty retreat with two stolen tickets in hand. When Russell gets home, the pair's despair at their loss sees them embark on a quest for replacements that takes them from their friend Sooz's cafe to the local cop shop that seems to be run by a refugee from the Village People. Finally, they enter a drag contest at real life Glasgow nitespot, Delmonica's, where first prize might just get them to the show. So far so camp in Laila Noble's production, in which Jamie McKillop and James Peake rise to the occasion as Jordan and Russell, who reaffirm their personal bond as they revive their olds double act on stage. Aided by Kaylah Copeland as Sooz, and with an extra special guest in the house, the inevitable floor show all this has been leading to is delivered with glamtastic abandon in a play that goes beyond its initial japes to a more serious look at friendship, staying true to oneself and the restorative powers of a life on stage for these destiny's children in waiting.
The Herald Scotland
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Review: Meme Girls, Oran Mor: When a craving for fame goes wrong
Òran Mór, Glasgow Fame, as every wannabe pop star knows, costs. In the social media age, where everyone is famous for a lot less than five minutes, you can go viral as the next big thing one minute and be last year's spam within seconds. This is the reality the two young women in Andy McGregor's bite-size new musical are forced to square up to for this latest edition of A Play, a Pie and a Pint's ongoing lunchtime theatre season. Jade is a serious budding songwriter with an introspective air who pens power ballads in her bedroom, and would prefer to blend into the background before heading off to university. Clare, on the other hand, may have the voice of an angel, but she's the life and soul of any party until she crashes. When an ill-timed incident is captured on Tik Tok, she becomes a star for all the wrong reasons. Not that this bothers her, mind you, as her craving for the spotlight makes for a lucrative if grotesque way to make the big time. Jade, meanwhile, returns to her keyboard before the pair are thrown together again for one last number. Read more McGregor's play is a meticulously observed study of vaulting ambition, and how untutored talent can be warped by a mix of vanity, desperation and the addictive allure of interacting with strangers. Framed as each girl confesses all for a warts and all documentary on Fraser Lappin's pink boudoir of a set, McGregor's dialogue is delivered with fine tuned interplay by Julia Murray as Jade and Yana Harris as Clare. Both actors spar as beautifully as they duet on McGregor's handful of songs that drive the story. The technology may be different here, but the play's look at the fickle hand of fame and the disposability of pop bubblegum is as timelessly familiar as its depiction of the power plays between female friends. It is this latter attribute that gives the play its charm in a work where pop doesn't quite eat itself, but it comes pretty close.
The Herald Scotland
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Review: Sunshine Spa, Òran Mór: Like an old-school Play for Today
Òran Mór, Glasgow Neil Cooper Three stars The heat is on when Iain meets Zainab after going in search of a place to cool down. Being downtown Marrakesh, however, things don't quite turn out as planned. Iain is a gay man from Manchester who turns up at Zainab's spa. Given the strict rules in Morocco regarding the rights of women, the two shouldn't even be in the same room, let alone be preparing a very special massage. With Iain wheelchair bound and unable to bear to be touched, even that comes with complications. With protests on the streets outside, Zainab is as alive to the power of dissent as Iain is, and once both let their guard down they find a surprising amount of common ground. Simon Jay's new play - the latest in this season's A Play, a Pie and a Pint series of lunchtime plays - is a warm and human take on everyday solidarity across cultures where differences might normally turn into something toxic. Read more Jay's script may have a polemical heart, but the way his characters make a connection in the oddest of circumstances is a neat sleight of hand that endears you to their respective causes rather than leaving the theatre feeling harangued. Presented in association with the Glasgow based Birds of Paradise company, Jay's play is the result of a callout to develop work with a disabled playwright. The result, directed by BOP's artistic director Robert Softley Gale, sees Stephen Smith Taylor make his professional debut as Iain opposite Fatima Jawara as Zainab. As they spar, the duo show off a text that feels rooted in old school plays for today with potential for a sit-com spin-off. A word as well for designer Heather Grace Currie's convincingly realised spa set, which looks like an oasis of calm in a play that may be set several thousand miles away, but which feels familiarly close to home.
The Herald Scotland
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
'Charm aplenty' - Review: Goodbye Dreamland Bowlarama, Oran Mor
Oran Mor, Glasgow Neil Cooper Three stars Life is one great big musical for Charlie, the young woman at the heart of Taylor Dyson and Calum Kelly's lo-fi musical, the latest lunchtime treat as part of Oran Mor's current A Play, a Pie and a Pint season of bite-size theatre. For Charlie, alas, where once all she had to think about was the job she loved in the Inverness bowling alley that gives the play its title, a run of everyday tragedies suggests any kind of happy ending is a long way off yet. When she loses pretty much everything except her brother Ross overnight, Charlie does a runner to Dundee, where her granddad's long lost brother may or may not be hiding behind sunglasses and a Stetson. Missing presumed lost by Ross, Charlie's penchant for attracting disaster causes him to fear the worst. Charlie, however, is merely changing lanes as she finds a new song to sing. There is charm aplenty in Dyson and Kelly's quirky tale of an innocent abroad whose world is turned upside down before she finds her feet again. Read more The fact that the world Charlie inhabits is coloured with the fantastical largesse of cheap pleasure palaces and country and western bars gives Beth Morton's production a sense of low rent surrealism. This is heightened by Fraser Lappin's set, which looks like it could be a backdrop for an out of season end of the pier cabaret night. If this were a film, it would come in vivid Eastman colour with a cast sporting vintage apparel. As it is, Dyson's turn as a kooky but vulnerable Charlie takes her on an off-kilter rites of passage, while Ewan Somers' doubling up as Ross and assorted grandparents and workmates lends to the show's overriding sense of oddness. Co-presented with Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival, and with Dyson and Kelly's creative partnership as the Dundee based Elfie Picket Theatre joining forces here, the result is an archly realised getting of wisdom containing more substance than its surface slightness suggests.
