Scottish Theatre Highlights: February 2020

February's full of excellent shows guaranteed to beat the winter blues

Preview by Eliza Gearty | 04 Feb 2020
  • This Month in Theatre: February Highlights

February may be cold and festivity-free, but theatres in Scotland have worked hard to give us plenty to look forward to. Hooray!

manipulate, Puppet Animation Scotland's annual festival that we mentioned here last month, continues until 8 February: shows include Dreams Of The Small Gods (4 Feb), a mythology-inspired one woman show, and Faultlines (5-6 Feb), 'a fashion show on the fracture between feminism and fabric'.  

The Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh has really outdone itself with a month full of exciting new work, including, but not limited to, the following. The wonderful Tandem Writing Collective's evening of play readings (7 Feb), Helen Monks and Matt Woodhead's play Trojan Horsewhich follows the real life stories of Muslim teachers and governers accused of plotting extremism in Birmingham schools (11-12 Feb), and The Pride Plays1 and 2 (14-15 Feb), which puts LGBTQ+ voices in the spotlight. Check out the rest of the Traverse's February programme because it really is fantastic. Elsewhere in Edinburgh, Bertolt Brecht's Mrs Puntila and Her Man Matti is given a gender-switching revamp at the Lyceum – catch Elaine C Smith, Glaswegian actress of sitcom fame, treading the boards in the leading role (28 Feb-21 Mar).

In Glasgow, you can head along to Rosalind Sydney's world premiere of The Secret Garden (11-12 Feb) or Ed Edwards' semi-autobiographical The Political History of Smack and Crack (20-22 Feb), depending on what kind of thing you're into. Or hey, why not go to both? We're multi-dimensional creatures after all. Both shows are at the Tron. You can also see Leyla Josephine's remarkable Daddy Drag there at the end of the month, if you missed it at the Fringe last summer (26-29 Feb). 

The Tramway in Glasgow's Southside has some interesting productions programmed, including Born to Manifest, a new hip-hop dance double bill from Just Us Dance Theatre, that seeks to 'illuminate the experiences of young black British men' (7 Feb). Glasgow's Glad Cafe will host The Workers Theatre's second festival Something Has to Happen (12-16 Feb) – check out our Q&A with the cooperative in this month's magazine. Over in Dundee, the Rep are staging Gillian Duffy's heartwarming tale The Ghosting of Rabbie Burns on 4 February, and Philip Differ's portrayal of footballer Jim McLean, Smile (18 Feb - 7 Mar).