A love affair best left in the past: If seeing a new play is like going on a first date, and seeing an adaptation of a classic is like meeting an old friend, then a revival play that hasn’t been staged in nearly 16 years is like hooking up with an ex. Or at least, it is with D.C. Jackson’s My Romantic History, directed by Johnny McKnight. And perhaps that is appropriate. This romcom follows Tom and Amy’s utterly doomed office fling. He’s only with her because he can’t say no;

In her programme introduction to Baby Mash-Up, what on Earth are you doing?, playwright Sally Hobson writes that the titular Baby Mash-Up has always had questions, and that we see her search for answers, and ultimately “migrate to the core of herself”. At the end, she writes, “This is the play I have written. What play will you see tonight when watching the show?” There is an implied multiplicity, a promised network of interpretations and take-aways and personal resolutions.

A Crowd-pleasing Comedy Revival: So it has been about two months since the Timothee Chalamet “no one cares about ballet and opera” scandal – and what did we learn? Well, firstly, that that’s not exactly what he said, secondly, that people don’t know how Oscar voting works, and thirdly, that people will immediately jump to the defence of the performing arts…even if they rarely actually go. As lovely as it was to see Opera and Ballet companies rally together, how many of the cr

A True Tale of Defiance and Denim from Greenock. For some time now, I have approached 80s and 90s period pieces with caution. Although almost always crowd-pleasing, they often lack substance, preferring to bathe in aesthetics and cultural touchstones of the time. So when I came to see Stand and Deliver, the telling of the 1981 protest at Lee Jeans written by Frances Poet, I had a question on my mind....

Scottish elections prove one thing more than anything else – what Scotland thinks of itself. We aren’t just voting for what we would like to see, but what we think best reflects the character of the country, deep down. The same question arises for Scottish performances that go to the Fringe. So many want to differentiate themselves from the international, but mainly the English, performances that dominate the major venues. Ironically, many end up trying too hard and creating