From Laurie Sansom's recent appointment as artistic director of the National Theatre of Scotland (where he inherits an intriguing 2013 programme from his predecessor, Vicky Featherstone) to Christopher Hampson's ambitious new leadership of Scottish Ballet, Scottish theatre and dance are in exciting times.
Add to that the early successes of Dominic Hill (recently appointed director of the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow) and Fleur Darkin (who has led Scottish Dance Theatre for less than a year), and there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful.
Indeed, the on-stage prospects for the coming year might just shine through the grey clouds created by such off-stage nonsense as the Creative Scotland debacle, arts funding cuts and ethno-nationalist grumblings about leaders of Scottish arts organisations who happen to be English.
Whether it is Andy Arnold (director of the Tron Theatre, Glasgow) following his glorious production of James Joyce's Ulysses last autumn with a stage adaptation of Julia Donaldson's Running On The Cracks or the excellent Communicado reviving their production of Gogol's The Government Inspector, the Scottish stage continues to punch above its weight. Which is why we can look forward to the following highlights.
Time And The Conways
Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh
(February 15-March 9)
Dundee Rep
(March 13-30)
A co-production between the Lyceum and Dundee Rep, directed by the latter's talented new joint artistic director Jemima Levick, this staging of JB Priestley's 20th-century morality tale promises to be a hit.
Quiz Show
Traverse, Edinburgh
(April 2-20)
Creator of the award-winning Mr Write and last year's Edinburgh Fringe hit Bullet Catch, devised theatre master Rob Drummond offers us a play which goes beyond the shallow surfaces of the TV quiz show and seeks to "question the nature of memory, truth and lies".
Doctor Faustus
Citizens, Glasgow
(April 5-27)
With a string of award-winning classical productions (from Henrik Ibsen to Harold Pinter) to his name, Citz director Dominic Hill turns his hand to Christopher Marlowe's great dramatisation of the Faust myth. A co-production with the West Yorkshire Playhouse (where it will open in February), the show brings the excellent Siobhan Redmond (pictured below) back to the Citizens.
Let The Right One In
National Theatre of Scotland at Dundee Rep
(June 6-29)
Adapted (by Jack Thorne) from the novel and screenplay by acclaimed Swedish horror writer John Ajvide Lindqvist, this world premiere relocates the tale of romance and terror to a Scottish village. Directed by former NTS associate director and Tony Award-winner John Tiffany, it is co-produced by the NTS and London producer Marla Rubin Productions.
Second Coming / Winter, Again
Scottish Dance Theatre tour
(February 20-May 29)
With Second Coming, by hip-hop influenced, Los Angeles-born choreographer Victor Quijada, and Winter, Again, by Norwegian choreographer and visual theatre maker Jo Stromgren, SDT offer a double bill of tantalising contrasts. Stromgren's witty work will be remembered fondly by lovers of the Aurora Nova programme at the Edinburgh Fringe during the past decade.
Hansel & Gretel
Scottish Ballet tour
(December 10-January 25)
Scottish Ballet director Christopher Hampson has pledged to commission new works by a diverse group of choreographers, rather than creating a string of pieces of his own. This new ballet, based upon the story by the Brothers Grimm and set to the opera score by German composer Engelbert Humperdinck, will be a rare opportunity to sample Hampson's choreographic mind at work on a major production.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article