Vivien Devlin

Willy: ‘Funny, y’know?

On the eve of the world premiere of Matthew Bourne’s ‘Dorian Gray’ at the King's Theatre on 22 August 2008, 11,212 people had already booked to see it, and w

Ballet BC, Canada’s leading contemporary dance company from British Columbia, aims to create dance at its most essential: visceral, thought-provoking, and tr

Kismet: a hypothetical force, the notion of fate and destiny which determines the course of future events.

‘You’ve got yourself in a bit of a pickle, Fred. – Idiot!” This sardonic remark by the moral philosopher, Adam Smith is addressed to the CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland as he faces the global financial crash of 2008 and his own disastrous downfall from grace.  This is a dynamic and damning portrait of Mr. Fred Goodwin (no longer Sir, having lost his knighthood), who put his unwavering faith in his Bible, ‘The Wealth of Nations’ without due diligence, in his pursuit of power and success. 

‘A ladies’ bathroom is a magical place. It is a melting pot, an equal playing field and most importantly, a safe space, sacred and confessional by structure and nature’. April Hope Miller In the Upstairs theatre at Pleasance Courtyard we are invited to enter the totally private, enclosed space of a Ladies Loo at a nightclub, in Shoreditch, London.  No men allowed.  The action takes place over the course of one night, as fourteen individual women come in and out, giggling teenagers, 20-30 somethings, office colleagues and a few clucking Hens. 

‘The fact is that no species has ever had control over everything on Earth as we now have.  In our hands now lies not only our own future, but that of all other living creatures. We need to work with nature, not against it.”  David Attenborough  When two giants of contemporary performance join forces, expectations soar. Choreographer Crystal Pite and theatre director Simon McBurney combine surreal imagination and emotional power to reflect on the climate crisis, fragility of the animal kingdom and humanity’s disconnection from nature.  

It is 1995. Annie and her siblings, Preeny, Sam and Brawn, are holidaying on the Isle of Skye when they glimpse their father walking across the beach. The problem is he died in a car crash four years earlier.  What follows is a relentless search for the truth on a rugged island where grief, memory, and the supernatural blur together.

Winner of the 2024 Nero Book Award for Non-Fiction, Sophie Elmhirst appeared at the Edinburgh International Book Festival to discuss the true life adventure of ‘Maurice and Maralyn.’ Subtitled, ‘A Whale, A Shipwreck, A Love Story’,  it’s described as an ‘enthralling, engrossing story of survival and the resilience of the human spirit".

During the 1940s and 1950s, Gene Kelly was a performer whose athletic style and classical ballet technique transformed the film musical through his innovativ