Joyce Mcmillan
The Scotsman
United Kingdom
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Past articles by Joyce:
EIF theatre review: Alan Cumming in Burn
Alan Cumming brings his blazing charisma to a 60-minute dance through the highs and lows of Robert Burns’ life → Read More
Edinburgh International Festival: 4 theatre highlights for 2022
Scotsman theatre critic Joyce McMillan picks her must-see shows from this year’s Edinburgh International Festival programme → Read More
Counting and Cracking: Sri Lankan playwright Shakthi on a very personal EIF debut
For his explosive new work Counting and Cracking, part of this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, Sri Lankan playwright Shakthi found inspiration in his family’s background after many years of focusing on assimilating in his new Australian home, writes Joyce McMillan → Read More
'Ukraine will survive' – actor Yevhen Nyshchuk looks to the future
Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, Yevhen Nyshchuk was a well-known actor and former culture minister who hoped to one day bring the shows he was working on to the Edinburgh Festival. Now, though, he is serving in one of more than 100 territorial defence militias protecting the Kyiv region from Russian attack. Interview by Joyce McMillan → Read More
Edinburgh Festival review: Medicine at Traverse Theatre
Medicine, Edinburgh International Festival at the Traverse Theatre. Five stars → Read More
Enda Walsh on premiering his new play Medicine at the EIF
The Edinburgh International Festival was born in 1947, out of a desire to heal the wounds of the Second World War. Seventy-four years on, Joyce McMillan speaks to Enda Walsh about his new play Medicine, set to premiere in Edinburgh, and about whether the Festival can perform the same restorative role in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic → Read More
The Scotsman Sessions #255: Bill Paterson
Welcome to the award-winning Scotsman Sessions. With performing arts activity curtailed for the foreseeable future, we are commissioning a series of short video performances from artists all around the country and releasing them on scotsman.com, with introductions from our critics. Here, the actor Bill Paterson reflects on the life and work of his friend Ivor Cutler, the inimitable absurdist… → Read More
The Scotsman Sessions #244: Dawn Sievewright and John McLarnon
Welcome to the award-winning Scotsman Sessions. With performing arts activity curtailed for the foreseeable future, we are commissioning a series of short video performances from artists all around the country and releasing them on scotsman.com, with introductions from our critics. Here, Dawn Sievewright and John McLarnon perform McLarnon’s song, Hope. → Read More
Dundee Rep to explore “all the complexities” of legendary Dundee United manager Jim McLean in new show Smile
When Jim McLean took on the job of manager of Dundee United, early in 1972, few people saw the club as anything more than a middle-ranking Scottish First Division side, with little chance of winning top honours, and no international profile at all. → Read More
Gwen Taylor on starring in Tartan Gothic thriller, The Croft, at Perth Theatre
In a long life in acting, Gwen Taylor has played so many meaty and memorable roles that it’s impossible to list them all. She has appeared in films ranging from Monty Python’s Life Of Brian in 1979 to The Lady in The Van in 2015; and on television, she has been Anne Foster in Coronation Street, Peggy Armstrong in Heartbeat, Barbara Liversidge in the sitcom Barbara, and Amy Pearce in the 1980s… → Read More
Homegrown visual theatre artists to light up new-look Manipulate Festival at Summerhall
There’s something about the word “puppet” that just doesn’t cover it, any more. From the gorgeous, almost life-size versions of elephants and giraffes that crowd the stage in The Lion King, through the huge Scottish walking figures Big Man Walking and Storm devised by Vision Mechanics of Leith, to the powerful Tiny Tim figure who starred in this year’s Edinburgh Christmas Carol at the Lyceum,… → Read More
Scottish Labour’s revival rests on dropping indyref opposition
Two weeks until polling day, in this wintry general election campaign; and the latest opinion polls are frankly grim for every party in the UK, except the Conservatives and the SNP. → Read More
Why the Queen made an error of judgement on proroguing Parliament – Joyce McMillan
Once, long ago, a committee I sat on had some dealings with people from Buckingham Palace; not the Royal Family itself, but a small group of senior officials. → Read More
Theatre review: America Is Hard To See, Underbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh
Life Jacket Theatre is a New-York-based company committed to creating theatre from real events, particularly those involving “undertold stories about marginalised and underrepresented populations." → Read More
Theatre review: Come Out From Among Them, Sweet Grassmarket, Edinburgh
What’s to be done with groups in society who derive their core sense of identity from the idea that they are different from, and superior to, other groups that do not share their beliefs? → Read More
Dance and Physical Theatre: Interbeing: Stories From A Current War, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh
The current war in Eastern Ukraine – which began in 2014, and shows no sign of ending any time soon – is often described as Europe’s forgotten conflict, even though it has already cost at least 15,000 lives. → Read More
Theatre review: The Happiness Project, Army @ The Fringe, East Claremont Street, Edinburgh
In the big downstairs hall at East Claremont Street, five young performers take the stage, each on the brink - or in the early stages - of a professional career in theatre and performance. → Read More
Theatre review: Resurrecting Bobby Awl, Summerhall, Edinburgh
Written by sculptor, poet, novelist, film maker and performance artist Brian Catling - best known to some for his Vorrh trilogy of fantasy novels - Resurrecting Bobby Awl is billed as a combination of theatre and sculpture, although in fact it contains little of either. → Read More
Theatre review: The Professor, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh
The New York writer Brian Parks is one of the great absurdists of Fringe theatre, with an Edinburgh track record stretching back more than 20 years, to his great and bewildering Americana Absurdum double-bill of 1997. → Read More
Theatre review: Green & Blue, Summerhall, Edinburgh
THERE IS no overt mention of Brexit or of any aspect of current politics in Laurence McKeown’s 2016 play for the Kabosh company of Belfast; it is set 25 years ago, in 1994, when Britain’s complete departure from the EU would have seemed unthinkable. → Read More