The Ktten Has Claws - The Miss Kitty Show / Funk 'n' Love @ Arches Live!

The Kitten Has Claws: The Miss Kitty Show
In The Miss Kitty Show, a one woman performance, Catriona Ruth Paterson performs as Miss Kitty, bringing out the claws as she dishes out a recipe for cucumber sandwiches, followed by advice on fashion and relationships tailored to the members of the audience. Even if you are in the back row, she will seek you out to share her wisdom. 

Miss Kitty describes herself ever-so-modestly as the picture of perfection. Having had the perfect upbringing, she wishes to help the less fortunate masses rise from the mud of their daily miserable lives, and become like her. What greater honour could be bestowed upon us?

This performance works extremely well for a small audience and proves how ridiculous our struggle towards absolute perfection is. Humorously putting down every member of the audience to their face for either their appearance or for their 'relationship problem,' Miss Kitty reminds us that images of people and relationships in the media are hard, if not impossible, to live up to.  

Funk 'n' Love - Solar Bear Deaf Youth Theatre with Tigerstyle
Funk 'n' Love discusses how our imagination evolves through music, through the eyes, ears and body of Solar Bear Deaf Youth Theatre. Set to the music of Glasgow-based duo Tigerstyle, the young performers take to the stage. Despite their obvious lack of professional training (they are a community theatre troupe), this is a group with something to say. 

With accompanying British Sign Language and physical movement, we are led through the definitions of 'inspiration.' Five definitions in we reach "inspiration: the act of taking air into the lungs." Inspiration - it is genuinely as simple as breathing. It doesn't take much for us as human beings to retreat into our imagination.

The young performers fuse the sign language with rhythmic physical movement that gives it a certain melodic quality. The movements are not irrelevant to the music, however. Looking at the ensemble one can match a movement with each individual instrument on the tracks. This is an incredibly synchronised, high-energy and funny performance, while being meaningful and evocative at times.