Alan Cranston

Edinburgh

Contributor at ThreeWeeks Edinburgh

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Articles

Bark Bark (Buzzcut)

Sep 23, 2024 | threeweeksedinburgh.com | Alan Cranston

ED2024 Reviews ED2024 Theatre ReviewsBased on an intriguing idea – a dog’s eye view of the world – engaging puppetry, atmospheric dolls house settings, and good music, give this technically accomplished show a solid foundation. A cleverly designed puppet dog allows the audience to invent and then empathise with its feelings, but the dog’s perspective is ultimately little more than a low viewing angle.
Thor The Walrus (WattWhereWhy)

Sep 23, 2024 | threeweeksedinburgh.com | Alan Cranston

ED2024 Reviews ED2024 Theatre ReviewsAny play about global warming must be relatable and avoid lecturing. Claire Watt’s new play achieves this through anarchic humour which, though fully through-written, owes something to university sketch comedy. Based on the real-life story of a visit to the UK of a walrus named Thor, the action moves swiftly along, cleverly punctuated with information – and misinformation – presented by conflicted news presenters on a denialist TV channel.
Dante And The Robot (Duncan Hodgkinson)

Aug 25, 2024 | threeweeksedinburgh.com | Alan Cranston

ED2024 Reviews ED2024 Theatre ReviewsWith a strong performance from Duncan Hodgkinson, this show offers a bleak view of life in a not-so-remote future when robots and AI have advanced as they might. Dante’s girlfriend has left, rejecting a society in which human frailty is gradually being lost as robotics increasingly become part of life itself. Dante is initially less concerned despite a soul-destroying job and anxieties about his upcoming ‘re-boot’.
3 Chickens Confront Existence (LookFWD Arts)

Aug 24, 2024 | threeweeksedinburgh.com | Alan Cranston

ED2024 Reviews ED2024 Theatre ReviewsThree chickens, as billed, confront us as the lights go up. They are finely feathered, black, white and brown, caged. One is rationalist, one a dreamer, the third perhaps more directly perplexed by life’s uncertainties. Like humans, they know they will die but are still deeply uneasy: if death is inevitable, is it to be welcomed or feared? As they ponder their predicament there is some humour, some pathos and much tedium.
Garry Starr: Classic Penguins (Stamptown And MILKE)

Aug 24, 2024 | threeweeksedinburgh.com | Alan Cranston

ED2024 Comedy Reviews ED2024 ReviewsIt’s scarcely a novel idea, but Garry Starr creates great entertainment out of a sequence of titles from the Penguin Classics collection. It’s cleverly and confidently done: almost every new title generates the laughter that flows from knowing what is coming but only once seen. In truth, most of the humour is pretty puerile but Starr gets away with it through artistic risk-taking and sheer comic genius.
FREAK OUT! (Coin Toss Collective)

Aug 23, 2024 | threeweeksedinburgh.com | Alan Cranston

ED2024 Reviews ED2024 Theatre ReviewsFirstmost inventive and engaging theatre, this show uses many forms: word, song, video and movement; plus friendly audience participation. Often beautiful, it generates a sense of nostalgia for the seaside to underpin a story about the increasingly immediate and direct threats of climate change. A seaside town has to plan its response to coastal erosion. Even if there are choices, how should they be made?
Lord Of The Flies (Muchmuchmore Theatre)

Aug 23, 2024 | threeweeksedinburgh.com | Alan Cranston

ED2024 Reviews ED2024 Theatre ReviewsMuchmuchmore have a distinguished fringe history, most recently with the excellent ‘The Penelopiad’, so I was keen to see their take on William Golding’s classic novel. Much adapted for stage and film, its considerable challenge is met with confidence by the young cast. The book’s central theme, the conflict between civil order and lust for power, is presented with clarity and sometimes terrifying force.
All Eyes And Ears (Zic Zazou Company)

Aug 23, 2024 | threeweeksedinburgh.com | Alan Cranston

ED2024 Music Reviews ED2024 ReviewsBefore the performers’ cleverly contrived late entrance, we admire a motley collection of objects on stage, all subsequently used as musical instruments. The aim is to demonstrate how music affects our perceptions of movies. The show is certainly informative, but much more than that it is clever, funny, and highly entertaining. The two fine performers, Jean-François Hoël and Hervé Mabille, appear to have the ability to create music from almost any artefact.
Kafka’s Metamorphosis: The Musical! With Puppets! (Throughline Projects LLC In Association With Rocket Productions)

Aug 23, 2024 | threeweeksedinburgh.com | Alan Cranston

ED2024 Musical Reviews ED2024 ReviewsEveryone knows that Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ tells of a man who wakes up one morning as an insect. Here the story of that insect, Grigor, and his increasingly strained relationship with his family, is succinctly told in musical form. It’s cleverly framed with a well-founded device implying that the story is based on Kafka’s relationship with his father, of whom he was afraid.
In the Lady Garden (The Lady Gardeners, Theatre Royal Plymouth And Pleasance)

Aug 19, 2024 | threeweeksedinburgh.com | Alan Cranston

ED2024 Reviews ED2024 Theatre ReviewsWe start, improbably, with 69-year-old Alice in a police cell. The top-class dramatic monologue that follows visits key moments in Alice’s life to explore how this unfortunate situation has arisen. The writing is sharp and funny, the performance accomplished and assured. With many cracking one-liners, there is wry sadness too.