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Theatre listings
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The Haunted Man
- tour
Playwright - John Clifford
Director - Ian Grieve
Company - Pitlochry Festival Theatre www.pitlochry.org.uk
01796 484626
Tour Dates - 1 - 8 Dec Details of 2002 Pitlochry Festival Season
see below
Run Time - 2 hrs with 15 minute interval
Reviewer - Thelma Good
Developing theatrical tour-de-force
Dickens was a writer who in one sentence could create characters
who still leap out of his stories. Jimmy Chisholm is an actor who makes
even the smallest character's appearance in play vivid and individual.
In this play we see the writer, his characters and get a real favour of
the soul and attraction of Dickens the man.
Best of all are the introductions to the less well known people who got
written into the intricate depths of Dickens stories, Mr Titherbridge
and his tribe of tumultuous boys, almost all with a name beginning with
T and the youngest, a sister. Then there are the real people like the
boy and his little sister Emma, locked in by his big sister Charlie, only
big enough by virtue of their dead mother's high heeled shoes to do laundering
to keep them all.
Dickens, the Haunted man himself who knew almost such life as a boy. Troubled
by what he saw yet knowing that adversity had made him the writer people
rushed to read. All comes in this play - a mix of horror, fun, insight
and irony as the Court of Chancery and the Board of Facts try to spin
doctor away the shortfalls of those times. The parallels with our own
are sharp and effectively brought, League Tables of Facts causing much
pained laughter in the audience.
The creative team of playwright John Clifford, director Ian Grieve and
actor Jimmy Chisholm are developing The Haunted Man which already has
the entrancing aroma of a theatrical tour-de-force especially in the second
half. It's a fine example of how a simple comission given when the fire
of inspiration has just been kindled has far more integrity than one that
has had to wait months or years for approval. It also shows this new century,
thrusting itself forward, changing all the ways we do things, needs a
Dickens to comment and warn of its excesses.
© Thelma Good 13 October 2001
Tour Details
1st December (8.15pm) The Byre Theatre St Andrews
5th December (7.30pm) Dalry School,
7th & 8th December (10.30pm) Dundee Rep
and will be seen again in the
Pitlochry 2002 season booking opens Feb 2002
30th July (8pm),
8th August (8pm), 16th August (8pm),
5th September (8pm), 13th September (8pm). Run of The Haunted Man
ends
The other plays for the season go up in this order
From 10 May Amadeus by Peter Shaffer,
16 May Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring,
23 May Absurd Person Singular by Alan Ayckbourn,
30 May The Hollow by Agatha Christie
and
11 July John Clifford's new play The Queen of Spades
Pitlochry's 50th
Festival Season finished 13 October 2001. In May 2002 the 2002 Season
starts. By the banks of the River Tummel, their theatre has most beautiful
setting. You can take in two different plays on the same day where you
see * Pitlochry is about 2hrs easy drive from Edinburgh + has lots of
hotels and B+Bs When theatre is open Restaurant booking advised 01796
484626 for dinner also Bar and Coffee Bar
The 2001 Season reviews
The Admirable Crichton
- J M Barrie's satire on the British class system
The Ladykillers - dramatisation
by Giles Croft from the original screenplay
The Shellseekers - Play
based on Rosamunde Pilcher's novel
Let Wives Tak Tent
- Robert Kemp's adaptation of Moliere's comedy L'ecole des Femmes set
in C17 Edinburgh
The Winslow Boy - Rattigan's
play about whether principle is a worse evil than disgrace.
Amy's View - David Hare's
hit play's Scottish premiere
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