Epiphany! So the Three Kings have come and gone, the Christmas trees have been taken down, and the Twelfth Night revellers have sobered up. The world is no longer turned upside down – everything’s back in its rightful place. It’s back to work, then… Except of course that for many working in theatreland, the Christmas […]

Circus and narrative: discuss. Of course, a regular linear narrative is not at all necessary in circus. Circus is, traditionally, a series of acts, including aerial of all kinds, balancing acts using various devices, object manipulation of one sort or another, and sundry ‘specialist’ things like dance numbers or magic acts (or in old-school circus, […]

In the tiny world of contemporary circuses it is rare to catch one as big, fat and juicy as this at a theatre near you. The crowd at the luxurious Wales Millennium Centre was purring with anticipation as the curtain went up on an expectedlyurban landscape of flats and boxes, seedy street-lampesque lighting, graffiti, video projections, […]

It was a chance remark from a friend that started me thinking. We were discussing the dilemma for contemporary ‘liberal’ parents in choosing whether to send children to private school or to throw them to the sharks of state education in the inner London boroughs, and this somehow moved on to a discussion about the number […]

So, where was I? Ah yes, autumn in Edinburgh – although these past few days it’s been almost like summer. There are cricket whites on the Meadows, and hippies blowing giant bubbles – but there’s also a rustling in the trees, and the odd leaf or two falling just as a warning. On the edge […]