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Amazon Review
Bonkers Belfast Hotel
For some reason that I am unable to decipher, Tripadvisor has not listed this review. It maybe the rude words engraved on the mirror! This was a most fabulous and completely bonkers hotel. The reception bell was a large eight legged silver gilt rather menacing crab; there was a huge black octopus hanging in front... Continue Reading →
Review: BBC’s adaptation of Great Expectations
I watched the first episode of this adaption, albeit with an advance widespread and acerbic criticism of the piece, with what can only be described as small expectations. But I actually liked it. It wasn’t that bad at all. It followed the storyline closely enough and was quite entertaining. Of course, it... Continue Reading →
Review – Cat Stevens reconstructed
Poor Yusuf, murdered in an Edinburgh basement Jazz bar! In fairness, this was not advertised as a tribute act. But still, without that rich rolling velvety voice…… And Yusuf has a pharsing of his own, undulations that were, are, unique to his style I could not bear witness to the murder, I left early for... Continue Reading →
Reiview – Rob McGlade Poet.
I walked into the cellar of this small Scottish baar, just across from Edinburgh's Catholic Cathedral, and I discovered the next poet laurette! He might not make it, seeing as he's Irish, but the audience were adamant and unamimous in believing he has that level of talent. I mean, who the hell writes a poem... Continue Reading →
Review – Dorian at the Edinburhg Festival’
This was dreadful. Ten minutes in and I knew I had made a mistale and wasted the price of the ticket. Initially the sound was very low requiring some in the audience to adjust their hearing aids. Thirty minutes into the performance I would have paid to leave, but I was stuck in a tightly... Continue Reading →
Review – Admiral of the Windrush
This was a very sad piece of theatre. Shakespeare sad. A tragedy, on a stage upon which we all played a part. From the reluctant welcome of the original black Windrush passengers, bus drivers, NHS workers, pushed into low standard accommodation, rooms, crowded and cold, to the hostile environment created by Theresa May, to the... Continue Reading →
Review – An evening with seven great Irish writers
No one tells stories quite like an Irishman. And what tales to tell, Neil O’Shea, down at Venue 34 on Cockburn Street, tells us of Wilde and Joyce, Shaw and Synge, Yeats and Swift and Percy French. Seven of the greatest writers in the English language, all of them Irish!His portrayal of Christy from Synge’s... Continue Reading →
Review – Afganistan is not Funny at the Underbelly
I did not quite know what to expect of this show. After all, who is it who thinks Afghanistan is funny anyway?About 10 or so minutes into the show it occurred to me that what it was. It was a bloke in a pub, who’d been to Afghanistan, and who was a lovie, and who... Continue Reading →
Review – Dream of a King
Wow! This was simply thrilling stuff. Martin Luther King Jnr., in his Memphis hotel room, talking to his biographer, recalling his life, his inspirations, his struggles. Taking phone calls: the FBI, harassing him, recording him, bullying him. Stokely Carmichael about the tactics of the great march on Washington, his wife who has heard the FBI... Continue Reading →
Review – Waiting for Hamlet
A brilliant idea. The lost and wandering ghosts of King Hamlet and "alas I knew him well" Yorik, arguing, debating,mocking each other as they discuss a way to frighten the shite out of the castle battlements guards and annonce tot the world that King Hamlet was murdered most foul.. It's funny and poignent witty and... Continue Reading →
Aye Elvis.
I went to see “Aye, Elvis”. It was such good fun. It’s a musical. So poignant , I laughed tears and wept at the pathos. A Scottish woman, leading desperately lonely life, looking after her wheelchair bound mother, working for next to nothing as a checkout girl at the local supermarket, not well educated but... Continue Reading →
Private Peaceful – review.
Morpurgo;s Private Peaceful is very disappointing. Perhaps we expected too much after the stunning writing of War Horse, , its astonishing stage production and the film. Or perhaps World War 1, as a vehicle for drama has passed its peak and needs to take a rest. Of course one reason may be that without the... Continue Reading →
De Profundis compared – Edinburgh Festival
De Profundis must be one of the most powerful letters in English literature and each year, it appears, in one form or another at almost every Edinburgh Festival. This year it was Simon Callow in a highly praised performance at the Assembly rooms on George Street. He attracts, as one would expect for such a... Continue Reading →
The wise and foolish Wicklow Virgins
It is the unusual, out of the way things you might accidentally stumble across that make a visit to a famous city memorable. Edinburgh, like all great cities has it’s must see places, must go to events, its great houses and art galleries, its long turbulent history, royal and religious and of course the Castle,... Continue Reading →
Barry Humphries’ Weimar Caberet
We have visitors at our George Square Edinburgh Festival house, amongst them my dear friend Rob Hain, an artist from the Scottish boarder s who created this wonderful canvas of Edinburgh’s Usher Hall from where all her scholars take their graduation honours and where all the great orchestras of the world come to play. ... Continue Reading →
Barry Humphries’ Weimar Caberet
We have visitors at our George Square Edinburgh Festival house, amongst them my dear friend Rob Hain, an artist from the Scottish boarder s who created this wonderful canvas of Edinburgh’s Usher Hall from where all her scholars take their graduation honours and where all the great orchestras of the world come to play. ... Continue Reading →
Steve Larkin’s retelling of Tess of the D’Ubervilles – George Square Underbelly
You get a bit nervous when there are only a dozen or so people queuing for your chosen show. Great flows of festival folk are streaming past to go to something much more popular at a much bigger venue just round the corner, and you wonder, have I made a mistake here? But what happened... Continue Reading →
Titus Andronicus: An all female cast at the Edinburgh Fringe
Titus and Andronicus by an all-female cast looked intriguing. All that assassination, murder, ravishing of virgins, maternal betrayal, slicing off of hands and the tearing out of tongues, feasting a father on the flesh of his children, lots of revenge and corruption – all performed by a female cast. Could be fun. But this was... Continue Reading →
An Edinburgh Festival Diary (with apologies to Pepys)
Up early from my fine apartments in the Ramsey Gardens and a brisk morning walk, passing of Boswell’s close, upon the Royal Mile and to the Presbyterian Church of St. Augustine wherein a pretty Polish wench served unto me a freshly baked bread roll of bacon and the eggs whereupon I dallied in the pleasant... Continue Reading →
Broadsides - A collection of bits and pieces 