Review: The Mystery of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

Surviving an event where other people experience loss of life is likely to follow, if not define, you for the rest of your life. This was the lot of Yuri Yudin.

In January 1959, 10 experienced Soviet hikers set out on an expedition to the Ural Mountains. Part of this initiative was the attainment of the highest level of Soviet accreditation. An honour none of the party would attain. 9 hikers died on Kholat Syakhi and the sole survivor, Yuri Yudin, earlier succumbed to the recurrence of an ailment forcing him to abort his mission. Yudin became one of life’s guilty without guilt.

Burnham DramaturgyAugust 22, 2023Nick Field, Acting Coach Scotland, Dyatlov Pass, theSpace, EdFringeComment

Review: Being Sophie Scholl

The danger of presenting the body as complete in itself is that the society which gave that body its place in a code of social relations turns on it. Sophie Scholl and her friends spent a long time pondering how an individual must act under a dictatorship. And when that dictatorship finally arrived, they were confronted with Nazis.

Review: Enquiry Concerning Hereafter

Compared with French counterparts Voltaire and Comte, Scottish philosophers are perhaps less well known amongst the general public. The protagonists thrown up by the Scottish Enlightenment are, no question; their equal. Enquiry Concerning Hereafter goes some way to redress this. Duane Kelly’s play, directed by Andy Corelli, presents the friendship between David Hume and Adam Smith in their autumn years. They debate, laugh, cajole, challenge and support each other as they stave off the impending tap of Charon’s staff.

Review: After The Act

The evidence of testimonial witness is that once there was another point of view; existing beyond the critical angle of mainstream public opinion, and thus cut off. Suppressed…with force if necessary. The trick of time is always to take that which was once thought beyond the pale and veil it with incomprehension that it was ever contentious at all.

After The Act by Ellice Stevens is a piece of verbatim theatre that entwines several stories within its narrative. It begins with a group of lesbian protestors who storm the BBC 6 O’clock news on 23rd May 1988. “We have rather been invaded” utters a seemingly unperturbed Sue Lawley…

Review: (le) Pain

(Le) Pain is a genre-hopping performative tour of life and bread. I had no idea the etymology of ‘companion’ had latin roots (com: ‘together with’; panis: ‘bread’)…sprinkle with a little French et viola: ‘to break bread with one another’. Lovely. As is this whole show.

TheatreBurnham DramaturgyAugust 31, 2022theatre, performance, Jean-Daniel Brousse, (Le) Pain, EdFringeComment

Review: She Wolf

She Wolf is a one-woman play on the corrosive effects of living in an unfettered, free-market capitalist society that is imbued with unrelenting masculinist tendencies. The protagonist works hard in an office when an opportunity for promotion presents itself. Being the best in her rank, and well placed for elevation, she applies for the position only to be passed over in favour of an incompetent male candidate who also happens to be related to one of the bosses.

What happens next is a salutary lesson on the consequences of so blatantly subverting the mirage of meritocracy.

Burnham DramaturgyAugust 31, 2022theatre, Isla Cowan, EdFringeComment

Review: Silkworm

Life is different on the 17th floor. The elasticity of the building fabric feels quite unlike that experienced on the 1st or 2nd floors. At this height, it bleeds into daily existence. It facilitates views normally afforded only to gulls but at the parallel 55.8 and the meridian -4.2 (an intersection better known as Glasgow) the proximity to an unleavened sky bows heads and lies heavy on souls. Its deleterious effects, imperceptible by all but the newly arrived, is worn as a coat amongst locals for whom this is but the tapestry of life. Indeed, if gravitational extremities connote any religious sense of place at all, then it is observed…this heaven rains. Heavily. Some bear crosses. Glaswegians bear clouds…a spritz of water enough to dampen (but not snuff out) the joy of life. These are the perfect conditions for black humour. The oil to grease the grinding day. The genius of Vlad Butucea’s Silkworm is we see the genesis of that.

Burnham DramaturgyAugust 27, 2022EdFringe, Silkworm, Vlad Butucea, Theatre, Ewa Dina, Antonia Layiwola, Mojisola ElufowojuComment

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