Hello, and welcome to my Substack! I hope you are all staying warm out there… Luckily the skies may be grey but there are some fun things to look forward to!
Theatre to book now
There’s some great new stuff coming up in 2024, but there are also some chances to catch things you might have missed last year.
ARC Stockton
I saw an early version of Umar Butt’s Welcome to The Jungle at ARC, and it’s a moving exploration of the reality of being a refugee (at one point – which I won’t spoil because the surprise is part of the effect – I was literally in tears). I’ve been a fan of Butt’s work since I saw Alex and Eliza at Northern Stage back in the Beforetimes, so I’m glad this piece is getting another airing.
There’s also another chance to see Mark Thomas’ acclaimed performance in the hard-hitting England and Son, and other shows that look worth investigating include Camp Phoenix, a play about a young person finding themselves against the backdrop of a youth camp, and Snowdrop, the story of a young Ukrainian actor.
Exciting things at Live
Live Theatre is still announcing its spring season of shows, and while I’ve mentioned Self-Raising before, a play by Artistic Director of Graeae, Jenny Sealey (co-written by Mike Kenny) which has already garnered great reviews, the theatre also just added Bi-Topia, Sam Dason’s coming of age story.
Shows sure to sell-out include A Live Encounter with Sheila Hancock and Julie Hesmondhalgh’s one-woman show These I Love.
Other shows to book now
Northumbrian folk tale The Boy and the Seahorse is touring, with venues including Gosforth Civic Centre. A Squiggle Production (so check their socials for details of the tour), it’s written by Benjamin Storey, whose Wishes on the Wind at Live I enjoyed, and directed by Katy Weir, fresh off a triumphant run of Cinderella at Northern Stage.
People’s Theatre has a Poirot double bill running this week, but if you miss out on that future shows include Alison Carr’s The Last Quiz Night on Earth (Carr recently won an award for A Street Like This and got shortlisted The Women’s Playwrighting Prize for so is a talent to watch) and Shout by Alexis Zegerman, which is a Young People’s Theatre show.
Just announced at Alphabetti is Imaginary Friends, a solo show by Daniel Bye. I really liked These Hills Are Ours, which Bye co-created with Boff Whalley and which I saw at ARC, so I am looking forward to this one.
[Image description: Tracey stands smiling in front of the National Gallery Scotland, wearing a purple fake fur coat]
Art in Edinburgh
I was in Edinburgh at the weekend, and lucky enough to catch some great free exhibitions. National Galleries in Scotland have some great stuff on, including the annual display of Turner watercolours Turner in January at the Royal Scottish Academy, which I very much enjoyed.
I also discovered the new-to-me Talbot Rice Gallery, which currently is running a fascinating multimedia exhibit, The Recent. Tackling subjects such as climate change and extinction events, it is an eerie, beautiful and disturbing show that makes great use of the space, which is the public gallery of the University of Edinburgh.
What I am watching
First up, an admission: I try to be super supportive of my friends’ endeavours, but I also tend to be a ‘do it right now or do it six to 18 months later’ person, which means I have a habit of buying books / movies / CDs when they come out because, yay, I’m supportive! Then filing them away and forgetting about them for months (or even years…) because, um, yes, I am also a bit crap. (At least if it’s theatre or a gig, I have to go on a certain date!). So, I felt a little guilty that it’s taken me so long to finally get around to watching my friend, the super talented actor / producer Zoe Cunningham in the twisty time travel movie Breaking Infinity, which came out last year and is now available to buy / rent on Prime (and some other platforms).
I admit the distraction of seeing a good friend in an actual movie meant I did spend a lot of it just yelling, ‘I KNOW HER!’ at the screen. But if you like tense, taut homegrown sci-fi that makes you think, characters you can root for and you want to support movies made by women (the film is directed by Marianna Dean), this movie should be right up your street.
Speaking of strong women, I very much enjoyed Echo on Disney Plus. It’s short enough to binge in one evening, and though the pacing and plotting could both be tighter, Alaqua Cox makes for a compelling protagonist, with a towering performance by Vincent D’Onofrio revising his role as Kingpin. Some great fights scenes and a rollcall of quality character actors (Graham Greene, Tantoo Cardinal, Zahn McClarnon) make for a series that feels like a refreshing throwback to Netflix era Marvel.
[Image description: embroidery: writing is a gift I give to myself not a chore to be ticked off a list]
What I am Reading
The lure of the self-help book is always strong in January, when if you are anything like me, you start the year feeling like your body is composed of equal parts Baileys and cheese. So, I am currently quite taken with Be Bad, Better by Rebecca Seal. While the subtitle ‘how not trying so hard will set you free’ does rather make it sound like one of those, ‘just relax and you’ll be fine!’ types of books, it’s actually quite hard-hitting about the fact that a lot of the problems that we have been taught to see as individual in nature (and with individually focused solutions) are systemic and interwoven with capitalism, white supremacy / colonialism, classism and misogyny, so far from being solvable by some meditation and affirmations, require structural change.
Basically, the book admits that loving yourself only gets you so far in a world that doesn’t love you back (or, as she puts it, ‘a hot bath won’t solve structural inequality’*.) So maybe we should both let ourselves off the hook for not attaining standards that are both impossible and toxic, and assess and address the system that promotes them.
*I may be paraphrasing. I’m very tired.
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Remember: everything included is my personal preference / opinion, and while I strive to be accurate, I always advising checking with the relevant venue.