The National Theatre of Scotland have announced their 2017 Edinburgh Festivals programme which includes five world premieres.
HOW TO ACT
Written, directed by Graham Eatough and performed by Robert Goodale and Jade Ogugua, this playful and provocative two-hander, explores art, truth and ethics. Two characters drawn together by contemporary realities in to the world of theatre. Both believe in truth, but each has their own version of it.
Venue 26: Summerhall (Main Hall)
Dates and Time: 2 to 27 August (1.10pm) Previews 2 & 3 August
Tickets: £15, £13 conc (previews £13/£12) Age 14+
www.summerhall.co.uk
ADAM – world premiere/Made in Scotland showcase.
Adam is the remarkable, true story of a young trans man and his journey to reconciliation; with himself, those closest to him, and the world as he knows it. From Egypt to Scotland, it charts Adam’s fight across borders and genders to find a place to call home.
Adam was born into a girl’s body in Egypt, but always knew that he was really a boy. In a deeply conservative society, Adam had no words to describe this feeling. In a place where falling in love with the wrong person can get you killed, he had to escape. Fleeing the country alone, Adam finds himself in a tiny room in Glasgow on the edge of despair. He manages to get online and ask the question; ‘Can the soul of a boy be trapped in the body of a girl?’ What followed was beyond Adam’s wildest dreams. A catalyst to begin the epic journey for the right to change his body, to the boy he knows himself to be.
Venue 15: Traverse Theatre (T1)
Dates and Time: 5 to 27 August (times vary) Previews 31 July & 5 August
Tickets: £15 previews (£9 conc), Full price £21.50, standard conc £16.50, other conc £9.50. Age 14+
EVE – world premiere
Written by Jo Clifford and Chris Goode
Performed by Jo Clifford. Jo Clifford’s recent world premiere staging of her War In America at the former Royal High School garnered nationwide critical acclaim.
Eve offers audiences an authentic and intimate insight into the real life experiences of a trans person. The performance is a profound reflection on one trans woman’s life, from an oppressive 1950s boyhood to the present day. Following her turbulent life journey through a time of huge personal, social and political change, Eve celebrates the victories of survival and self-actualiastion.
Venue 15: Traverse Theatre (T2) Dates and Time: 03 to 27 August (times vary) Previews 03 August
Tickets: £13 previews (£9 conc), Full price £19.50, standard conc £14.50, other conc £9.50. Age 14+
THE WHIP HAND – world premiere
A Traverse Theatre Company and Birmingham Repertory Theatre co-production, in association with National Theatre of Scotland
I’m never gonnie be Napoleon. Am I? But shouldn’t I try and do something a wee bit bigger?
Something good! It’s Dougie’s birthday. He just turned 50 and his family are throwing him a party. But it’s Dougie who has a surprise for them: A bombshell proposal.
As the touch paper under his family is lit, no one escapes the fallout.
Written by Douglas Maxwell (Yer Granny, Charlie Sonata, Promises Promises) The Whip Hand is an explosive new play about power, privilege, blood ties and our inescapable past, directed by Birmingham Rep Theatre’s Associate Director Tessa Walker.
Venue 15: Traverse Theatre (T1)
Dates and Time: 3 to 27 August (times vary) Previews 3 & 5 August
Tickets: £15 previews (£9 conc), Full price £21.50, standard conc £16.50, other conc £9.50
Age 14+ Access Performances: Audio Described and British Sign Language, Fri 25 Aug, 7pm
A Stellar Quines production, commissioned and supported by the National Theatre of Scotland and Dundee Rep Theatre present the world premiere of –
THE LAST QUEEN OF SCOTLAND
Part of the Made in Scotland Showcase
‘My Mum and Dad had £7 when they got here. They got 90 days to leave and seven shitty pounds. 90 days, two pints, one pack of fags, gone.’
August 1972 – Idi Amin had a dream and ordered the expulsion of all Asians from Uganda under a 90-day deadline.
From Uganda to Dundee, Jaimini Jethwa grew up in Scotland knowing nothing about her homeland until she found herself being haunted by Idi Amin.
She started to run but he was everywhere.
Fae Uganda to Dundee and all the way back again – how do you confront Idi Amin when he still messes with your head?
The Last Queen of Scotland sheds light on a unique period in Scotland’s social history and the particular story of a community in exile that has rarely been told. Just as Idi Amin coined the phrase ‘The Last King of Scotland’ Jaimini Jethwa has decided to reclaim her heritage. Directed by Jemima Levick and performed to a live soundtrack [Patricia Panther, Glasgow Girls] The Last Queen of Scotland is a powerful polemic rewriting Amin’s relationship with Scotland.
Venue 61: Iron Belly, Underbelly
Dates and Time: 3 to 26 August 6:50PM (60mins) no perf 9 & 16 Aug
Tickets: £6.50 previews (3, 4 August) £12(11) Off peak £14(£13) Peak. Age 12+
Fuaigh Artist Collective presents
FUAIGH- INTERWEAVING
At the Scottish Storytelling Centre (Venue 30) on 17 and 21 August 2017
‘It’s the voice, the Uist voice that I hear when I speak to my youngest child
The voice that sings from a time when my granny used to crawl on a peat floor…’
Using song, story, imagery and dance, Fuaigh – Interweaving looks at the consequences of losing words, land and language and being forced to the edge. Fuaigh starts at a ceilidh on the Hebridean island of South Uist, leaves for the big city of Glasgow and comes back again; Performed in Gaelic and English, and exploring the stories of celebration of the spirit of belonging, leaving and returning to home.
Venue 30: Scottish Storytelling Centre (Venue 30)
Dates and Time: 17 & 21 August 2017- 3pm (60 minutes)
Tickets: Full Price – £10.00, Concession £8.00, Family of 4 – £32.00, Storytelling Centre Supporter – £7.50
ORESTEIA: THIS RESTLESS HOUSE
An Edinburgh International Festival revival of the Citizens Theatre production in association with the National Theatre of Scotland.
The Edinburgh Reporter suggests that readers whom have ever pondered where the expression ‘bloodbath’ originated please pay attention to the synopsis – and those in the front row take note to take waterproofs. ‘Restless House’ is a somewhat euphemistic understatement. Coming in at over four hours (those in the cast who survive that is, last man/woman standing, mop-up the stage please!) this production is what might have happened if Tarantino had ever got his hands on the Clash of The Titans/Jason & The Argonauts source material. Brutally chaotic, offaly exposing – when you start a ten years war there is always going to be blow-back. Slaughtering your own daughter as a wedding present to the Gods – her wedding – is bound to annoy the wife.
A father’s horrifying sacrifice of his daughter sets in motion a cycle of bloody revenge. Murder and madness ensue, testing the loyalties of his remaining children and propelling them to the edge of reason. The curse that has gripped the family for generations looks as though it will never end, as the ghosts of the past continue to haunt and torment the survivors.
Award-winning playwright Zinnie Harris reimagines Aeschylus’s 2,500-year-old drama Oresteia. In this blistering new version Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, Orestes and Electra are a dysfunctional family of today, coping with the huge emotions and dark consequences of their deeds.
Oresteia: This Restless House is at once a trailblazing updating and a compelling, brutal soap opera, exposing the fragility of a family’s bonds.
Venue: The Royal Lyceum Theatre. Dates and Time: 22 to 27 August (6pm)
