The Month in Scottish Theatre: June 2018

As June starts festivals like the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival, Take Me Somewhere and Hidden Door are still going strong, so remember to check our past coverage to see what we've already recommended from their programmes. Running 31 May-2 June, the Lyceum’s revival of the 1992 play, The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, directed by Wils Wilson and Janice Parker, features a cast of nearly 100 people and no words. Written by the award-winning Austrian playwright and political activist Peter Handke, this huge community project will see 450 characters and costumes come to life in what will be one of the Lyceum’s biggest productions to date. This unusual and rarely-performed play is unconstrained by traditional expectations, such as plot or dialogue. Instead, hundreds of stories are told but not one word is spoken.  

Bard in the Botanics, the annual celebration of William Shakespeare plays, is staged in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Glasgow every summer. This year’s festival, which runs from 20 June to 28 July, has been dubbed ‘The Star-Cross’d Lovers' season, and features four of Shakespeare’s best-known romances, or possibly tragedies: Antony & Cleopatra, Much Ado About Nothing, Edward II and, of course, Romeo & Juliet. Remember to bring your own seating if needed, although stools are also available for hire.

Staying in Glasgow, Jack Nurse and Robbie Gordon’s The Coolidge Effect returns to the city and discusses our relationship with pornography, analysing why while porn becomes more accessible, our willingness to talk about it does not. Taking place at The Art School on 20-21 June, before touring to London and Manchester, this show fuses spoken word, science, and storytelling to examine how porn affects our mental health and our relationships.

Moving briefly to Edinburgh, where Assembly Roxy will play host to the Scottish premiere of The Pride, the award-winning play by Alexi Kaye Campbell, performed by Edinburgh-based company Different Works Theatre Productions to mark the 10^th anniversary of the play’s London premiere and Edinburgh’s Pride weekend. Alternating between 1958 and 2008, the play follows three complex characters as they examine changing attitudes to sexuality and wonder if their lives would have been different had they been born 50 years earlier, or 50 years later.

Going back to Glasgow, Blood of the Young return to the Tron Theatre with their latest work, Pride & Prejudice* (*Sort of) a new play irreverent take on the classic Jane Austen novel, from Isobel McArthur. This co-production with the Tron runs from 28 June to 14 July, and features an all-female cast celebrating Austen’s humour with a contemporary edge, as well as karaoke and disco balls.

The Citz mark the end of an era this month as they prepare to move from 119 Gorbals Street to their new, temporary home at Tramway on Albert Drive for two years as they make way for their long-awaited £19.4 million redevelopment. To mark the occasion, the Citz have created On the Move, a unique all-day event on 23 June that lets the public see behind the scenes at the iconic theatre before the building work begins. It will include backstage tours, sale of costumes and other mementos, and begins at 10am sharp. Tickets are not needed for the backstage tours, but they will operate on a first-come-first-serve basis at the box office on the day.