Edinburgh International Festival: theatre highlights
Dir: Cal Brunker 1hr 31mins (U) Nut very good
Flight This “small but miraculous” show from the Scottish touring company Vox Motus is essential viewing, said Maxie Szalwinska in The Sunday Times. The audience is corralled into individual booths for a refugee saga following two orphaned brothers as they cross Europe from Afghanistan. The staging is “revolving diorama meets graphic novel” in a way never seen before, and has “an exquisite freshness of vision”. Church Hill Theatre and Studio, until 27 August.
Krapp’s Last Tape Performed by Barry Mcgovern, “one of Ireland’s finest actors”, and directed by Michael Colgan, who has just retired after 33 years as the head of Dublin’s Gate Theatre, this is Beckett’s one-man masterpiece in experienced hands and done “masterfully”, said Ann Treneman in The Times. It’s the first production from the new theatre company that the pair have set up together, and it is clearly a “labour of love”. Church Hill Theatre and Studio, until 27 August.
Martin Creed’s Words and Music In this “endearing, exposing show” full of “ticklish humour”, the “impish” Turner Prizewinning artist improvises with a microphone and guitar and sings a few songs, said Lyn Gardner in The Guardian. The results “veer from the inconsequential to the profound”. Creed’s show won’t be for everyone, said Ann Treneman in The Times, and it certainly wasn’t for me. It is, in short, “drivel”: a “bit of chat interspersed with some hilariously bad songs”. The Studio, until 27 August.
Meet Me at Dawn Zinne Harris’s new play, in which two women called Robyn and Helen meet on a beach after a boating accident, is a “21st century classic” full of passionate poetry, love and despair, said Joyce Mcmillan in The Scotsman. Inspired in part by the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, it is an 85-minute “symphony of loss, longing and occasional wild comedy”. Orla O’loughlin’s “pitchperfect” production boasts “exquisite” performances. Traverse Theatre, until 27 August.
The Divide (Parts One and Two) Alan Ayckbourn’s “Handmaid’s Tale- esque” projection of a plague-ravaged dystopian future – where the sexes are strictly segregated – has “many nice ironies and performances”, says Michael Billington in The Guardian. But the two-part epic drama often strains the audience’s patience over its six-hour running time. “You can see where Ayckbourn is taking us. It just takes a long time to get there.” King’s Theatre, until 20 August; then The Old Vic, London, 30 January-10 February 2018.
(For tickets, see www.eif.co.uk or call 0131-473 2000)
The original Nut Job, which came out in 2014, was “sawdust-grade summer-holiday filler”, said Robbie Collin in The Daily Telegraph. This sequel, I’m sorry to report, is even worse – and it “knows it”. As before, the main characters are an obnoxious squirrel named Surly (voiced by Will Arnett), his longsuffering squirrel girlfriend Andie (Katherine Heigl), and their assorted animal friends. This time, the challenge is to stop the park where they live being turned into an amusement park by the rapacious mayor (Bobby Moynihan). Pixar films such as Inside Out have proved that children don’t need “relentless” hyperactivity to hold their attention, said Jonathan Dean in The Sunday Times. Yet Cal Brunker’s exhausting movie ricochets from explosions to rollercoasters to hurricanes without letting up. There’s an amusing cameo from Jackie Chan as a ninja rodent, said Helen O’hara in Empire. But overall, this film will give anyone aged over five a “severe nut allergy”.