Stage Archive

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Say the word "Coalition" around these parts, and it's rarely a laughing matter.

When The Full Monty film was released in 1997 there was a delicious irony that it did so a week after Tony Blair was elected UK Prime Minister with a landslide victory that saw his New Labour project end 18 years of Conservative rule.

This comedy two-hander by Semyon Zlotnikov was initially banned in Russia – and wasn't seen until 1989 – because (shock, horror) the romantic encounter it charted hinted at a degree of despair, disappointment and loneliness that was deemed unacceptable for public consumption.

Just in case you were wondering ...

In September 1956, in the Burnside area of Glasgow, three women – Marion Watt, her sister Margaret Brown and Marion's 16 year-old daughter Vivienne – were found murdered in their beds.

AS one of the big names of the Glasgow International Comedy Festival, Paul Merton played to a sell-out crowd on Friday night – no mean feat at the large venue that is the King's.

Chicken Licken (Anna Schneider in colourful frou-frou frock and feathers) is merrily drilling us new chicks in the routines of the Chicken Parade.

'The Glasgow crowd are up for it," says Andy Parsons, explaining why he's bringing his latest stand-up show (entitled, Monty Python-style, I've Got A Shed) to the Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

There are hidden depths to this eight play compendium of unperformed miniatures by established writers alongside new works by younger voices.

You could say that the essence of Paragon's new collaborative commission is to make the invisible not just visible, but thrilling to the eye and ear.

When Mark Thomas premiered his new show, Bravo Figaro, at the Traverse Theatre as part of the 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, it came as something of a surprise.

First there was the movie, The Queen (2006), Stephen Frears's elegant apologia for what went on between monarch and Prime Minister in 1997 in the year of Princess Diana's death.

John Godber – the prolific dramatist whose 1992 play April In Paris is about to be staged in Perth – is one of the biggest names in contemporary English theatre.