The closing words of Jo Clifford's play War in America were "Be kind!"  Now one knows that one has to be cruel to be kind but perhaps not to the extent of the nastiness, cruelty and sado-masochism culminating in death and invasion by terrorist gunmen that had gone before.

We'd gone to see the show to support the excellent scheme for young actors that is The Attic Collective and to get a peek into the Old Royal High School which is threatened with conversion into an unlovely hotel, though it may be be saved from the forces of mammon to become the new home of St Mary's Music School.

Let me share that peek with you.  First the space in which the performance took place.

Then two views of the same room as it was at two earlier points in time. 

And finally how it might look if the hotel development goes ahead

Now back to the show.  It was in many ways an excellent production.  The debating chamber was absolutely ideal for a play about political machinations and the company used it brilliantly and imaginatively.  The cast attacked their roles with vigour but there was a missing element.

The actors delivered the words well and there could be no complaint about their committment but I never had the impression that this was a possible world populated by real people.  There was a distinct lack of tension in scenes where we should have been gripped and, for me, a distinct lack of being engaged by the argument.  Did it seem just too far-fetched or did the writing fail to flesh out the characters sufficiently?  Or, as some of our party felt, did it really need age appropriate actors with a deal more life experience than these young people?

It was nonetheless worthwhile seeing a neglected play (reckoned too offensive by The Lyceum who commissioned it twenty years ago) and I look forward to the Collective's third outing which is The Threepenny Opera in September.

The Dissection Room at Summerhall is not as classy a space as the Sculpture Court but the costumes that swept through it last night proved that QMU has students as inventive and skilful as any in the city.  One of the most interesting aspects of the show was seeing how different students had visualised the same character.  They showed a couple of Mrs Peachums and at least three Lucy Lockits from The Beggars Opera.  One of those (alas no picture) was a decadent looking Lucius Lockit.

No picture of Lucius because as at the Art College snapping was a bit of a distraction from simply enjoying the show.  But I did take some and here are one or two that I particularly liked.

Lavinia from Titus Andronicus.  A trio of lads in Regency costumes rushed out after her to wipe up the blood that dripped from her mouth and dress onto the floor.  They performed a similar service for those who cast off some of their garments as they paraded, like the Marquise de Mertueil from Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Of the forty three students whose work was featured only two were male, an imbalance that maybe needs to be addressed just as efforts are made to encourage girls into STEM subjects. Maybe.

Anyway here's one boy's dance outfit.

Suitable for all forms of dance he reckons.  As long as you don't need to see where you're going.

At the show I picked up a flyer for an open air production of As You Like It by QMU Performing Arts students and staff, including I imagine the costume students.  It's in early June.  For my comfort if not safety from being rained on I've chosen a seat rather than a spot on the grass.

Inspired by Claire's enthusiasm over Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead I cast about to find an encore screening that I could get to.  Too full a diary to get there without foregoing a Friends of the Queen's Hall freebie concert but it was well worth it.  Tom Stoppard's play is a feast of wordsmithery and ingenious invention around the Hamlet story, and the Old Vic's production on an essentially bare stage abounded in fine acting and clever stagecraft.

The Grads had a greater staging challenge in presenting The Ladykillers in Assembly Roxy but rose to it.  Their excellent tumbledown house on stage spilling forwards into the centre and sides of the hall most effectively.  Each member of the criminal band led magnificently by Lawrence Waring was a piece of spot-on characterisation.  We had a slightly bewildered but morally firm and thoroughly believable old lady plus a host of delightful cameos.  Costumes and props (those musical instruments!) deserve a medal of their own.  A very good production slightly spoilt for anyone not in the front row by the lack of raked seating.

The Art College Performance Costume Show teemed with medal deserving outfits.  It opened with a bang as third year students poured into the sculpture court in richly coloured costumes inspired by the Hindu festival of Diwali. Diwali is a festival of lights and when the main lighting was dimmed lights incorporated in the costumes gleamed and shimmered as the students danced.

It was a spectacular start not equalled in the course of the hour but the imagination of design and skill of construction shone brightly from every piece that appeared.  I snatched a few blurry pics with my phone but mostly sat in awe at the talent on display.  Here's one of my better snaps, an example of costumes and puppets for James and the Magic Peach.

Will the Queen Margaret University students do as well?  A visit to Summerhall will be made to resolve that question.

Charlie Sonata at The Lyceum, Breakin' Convention and The Red Shoes at the Festival Theatre are shows I've enjoyed recently.  Fortunately I don't have to wrack my brains to describe them because Claire was of the company on each occasion and has written far more accurately, perspicaciously and entertainingly than I would so follow the links to learn more.

In the concert hall the SCO gave an excellent Missa Solemnis by Beethoven which I almost missed because I went to their usual home, The Queen's Hall, instead of the Usher Hall.  Fortunately I was a bit early and even more fortunately a combination of buses ran in my favour and I entered the auditorium simultaneously with the conductor.  I almost did the same for the next concert, getting on the wrong bus to start with.  That was Beethoven again, a superb and exuberant 7th Symphony.

The Usher Hall is the RSNO's Edinburgh home so I'm not likely to get on the wrong bus for their concerts and I enjoyed a Russian evening of Scriabin, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky from them a couple of weeks ago.

The SNJO was also in action in the Usher Hall on the eve of International Jazz Day. They played Miles Davis's Sketches of Spain and his version of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess.  On the day itself there was a big shindig in Havana and thanks to Youtube here it is.


The critics have generally been more enthusiastic than me about the films I've seen in recent weeks but I was pleased to see The Telegraph limit itself to two stars for The Handmaiden.  Melodramatic, verging on the ham, codswallop beautifully costumed and filmed that told me far more than I needed to know about lesbian sexual gymnastics. It had a well merited happy ending though.

The Sense of an Ending on the other hand rather petered out but on the way through told a not entirely unintereresting story about a letter unwisely written in his youth catching up on its author in later life.  I did sympathise with the protagonist or perhaps pitied him, even to the extent of not deploring his stalking like behaviour.

Even though he cuts a somewhat ridiculous figure it would be hard not to sympathise with the middle-aged doctor bewitched by a beautiful young tourist on the Greek island where he has washed up after what has clearly been an unsuccessful and unhappy life.  But that's an old man's perspective.  Younger cinemagoers might be revolted.  Suntan was I thought worth the four stars it got from The Guardian.

I couldn't be bothered with The Student though.  Not that there was anything wrong with the film I suppose but my antipathy to the bible beating scripture spouting character at the centre of it made it hard to enjoy.

Definitely the film I've enjoyed most is Lady Macbeth and here the critics are at one with me.  In a dankly oppressive country house somewhere in the north of England comes a young bride, purchased we are told by her father-in-law for a son who we quickly learn is unable or unwilling to consummate the marriage.  Father and son require her to do nothing more than wait indoors day and night to do their bidding.

It's no surprise that she breaks out of this prison in the absence of the two men to take deep breaths of fresh air in the open moorland.  No surprise either that she lusts after a healthy young groom nor that she gives way to that lust.

So we are set up for nasty happenings when first father-in-law then husband return.  And we get them.

The film's genesis is a Russian novella of 1865,  Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District that gave rise to the better known opera of the same name by Shostakovich.  I'm told the film has a different ending but I've neither read the novella nor seen the opera and I love this ending.

The film, as the Spectator said is "plain terrific".