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CRITICS' AWARDS FOR THEATRE IN SCOTLAND
CATS AWARDS 2018
WINNERS & NOMINEES
The 2018 CATS awards took place at Perth Theatre on Sun 10 June. Our special guest presenter was Blythe Duff, best known for her role as Jackie Reid in the ITV television series drama, Taggart.
Here are the winners and nominees for the Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland 2018.
Guest presenter Blythe Duff
Best Male Performance
Joseph Arkley (Richard III)
Richard III, Perth Theatre
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
George Costigan (James Tyrone)
Long Day’s Journey into Night, Citizens Theatre and HOME Manchester
Image © Tim Morozza
Image © Tim Morozza
Robert Jack (Berenger)
Rhinoceros, Edinburgh International Festival and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in association
with DOT Theatre, Istanbul
WINNER - Best Male Performance
Robert Jack perfectly captures the role of Berenger, the dishevelled over-refreshed bystander staggering about an apparently irrational world. Wide-eyed and hapless, his portrait of total incomprehension is stunning as is his realisation that the inhabitants of the town are all being turned into rhinoceroses and he alone is left unscathed, to fight on.
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
with DOT Theatre, Istanbul
WINNER - Best Male Performance
Robert Jack perfectly captures the role of Berenger, the dishevelled over-refreshed bystander staggering about an apparently irrational world. Wide-eyed and hapless, his portrait of total incomprehension is stunning as is his realisation that the inhabitants of the town are all being turned into rhinoceroses and he alone is left unscathed, to fight on.
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Ramesh Meyyappan
Off-Kilter, Ramesh Meyyappan Productions, Tron Theatre, Glasgow and TheatreWorks Singapore. Produced by Raw Material Arts
Best Female Performance
Charlene Boyd (Lady Macbeth)
The Macbeths, Citizens Theatre
Image © Alan Peebles
Image © Alan Peebles
Apphia Campbell (Ambrosia and Assata Shakur)
WOKE, Play the Spotlight Productions
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Jessica Hardwick (Young Woman)
Knives in Hens, Perth Theatre
WINNER - Best Female Performance
When Jessica Hardwick first came onstage in David Harrower’s remarkable play, Knives in Hens, she was as unrecognisable as she has been in pretty much everything she has done in her still short acting career. It’s not that Hardwick lacked charisma. Far from it. It’s just that she seems to possess an ability to shapeshift in a way that allows whatever character she’s playing to absorb her completely, yet still manages to stamp her personality all over it. As Harrower’s Young Woman, nameless and near inarticulate, Hardwick was utterly fearless in her embodiment of her, so the woman’s primal hunger for knowledge became a physical thing. It was in those moments that Hardwick’s emotional depth as an actress fired up the stage with an urgency that suggested she was willing to fly without a safety net.
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
WINNER - Best Female Performance
When Jessica Hardwick first came onstage in David Harrower’s remarkable play, Knives in Hens, she was as unrecognisable as she has been in pretty much everything she has done in her still short acting career. It’s not that Hardwick lacked charisma. Far from it. It’s just that she seems to possess an ability to shapeshift in a way that allows whatever character she’s playing to absorb her completely, yet still manages to stamp her personality all over it. As Harrower’s Young Woman, nameless and near inarticulate, Hardwick was utterly fearless in her embodiment of her, so the woman’s primal hunger for knowledge became a physical thing. It was in those moments that Hardwick’s emotional depth as an actress fired up the stage with an urgency that suggested she was willing to fly without a safety net.
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Sara Stewart (Martha)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Rapture Theatre
Image © Infinite Blue Designs
Image © Infinite Blue Designs
Best Ensemble
August: Osage County
Dundee Rep Ensemble
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
The Belle’s Stratagem
Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh
WINNER - Best Ensemble
The cast of this stylish, colourful comedy took it close to pantomime in their occasional breaking of the fourth wall. But they retained an intense theatricality in a series of generous performances that served both the comedy – with brilliant understanding of its rhythm – and the more serious points in a script that celebrates women as the driving force of its narrative.
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
WINNER - Best Ensemble
The cast of this stylish, colourful comedy took it close to pantomime in their occasional breaking of the fourth wall. But they retained an intense theatricality in a series of generous performances that served both the comedy – with brilliant understanding of its rhythm – and the more serious points in a script that celebrates women as the driving force of its narrative.
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Cockpit
Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Rhinoceros
Edinburgh International Festival and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in association with DOT Theatre, Istanbul
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Best Director
Murat Daltaban
Rhinoceros, Edinburgh International Festival and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in association with DOT Theatre, Istanbul
WINNER - Best Director
The nomination of Murat Daltaban for his production of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros has a particular significance. The play is a powerful warning about the dangers of conformity, of a mass succumbing to a social miasma that robs us of our culture, our freedom and, ultimately, our humanity. The times in which we live can feel like the 1930s with the film running slightly slower. That is particularly true of Daltaban’s homeland Turkey, where freedom of thought and expression, not least the freedoms of theatremakers, are currently under serious threat. Daltaban’s beautifully crafted production succeeded in capturing simultaneously the quasi-surreal craziness, the midnight dark humour and the sharp social allegory of the play. Brilliantly cast, perfectly paced and impressively integrated, in terms of the combination of its performative, visual and aural elements, his unforgettable production bore the hallmark of the director as master craftsman.
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
WINNER - Best Director
The nomination of Murat Daltaban for his production of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros has a particular significance. The play is a powerful warning about the dangers of conformity, of a mass succumbing to a social miasma that robs us of our culture, our freedom and, ultimately, our humanity. The times in which we live can feel like the 1930s with the film running slightly slower. That is particularly true of Daltaban’s homeland Turkey, where freedom of thought and expression, not least the freedoms of theatremakers, are currently under serious threat. Daltaban’s beautifully crafted production succeeded in capturing simultaneously the quasi-surreal craziness, the midnight dark humour and the sharp social allegory of the play. Brilliantly cast, perfectly paced and impressively integrated, in terms of the combination of its performative, visual and aural elements, his unforgettable production bore the hallmark of the director as master craftsman.
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Angie Dight
Nursery Crymes, Mischief La-Bas and MSL Projects in association with In Situ, UZ Arts and Radiator Arts
Image © Niall Walker
Image © Niall Walker
Lu Kemp
Knives in Hens, Perth Theatre
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Wils Wilson
Cockpit, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Best Design
Jamie Harrison, Rebecca Hamilton and Simon Wilkinson
Jamie Harrison (co-designer), Rebecca Hamilton (co-designer and lead model maker), Simon Wilkinson (lighting designer), Flight, Vox Motus in association with Beacon Arts Centre, commissioned by Edinburgh International Festival
WINNER - Best Design
This sumptuous installation fitted no easy category. It was like a live graphic novel or a visual radio play or the kind of optical experiment the Victorians would have delighted in, sitting at the interface of magic and mechanics. The audience sat at a one-person booth at the side of a giant rotating cylinder watching a series of miniature tableaux, each boxed in like a frame in a comic book: desert landscapes and dark oceans, tiny figures picking even tinier fruit, ominous expressionist tower blocks and·bleak motorways at night. All of it was lit like a miniature theatre with the tiniest of light sources by Simon Wilkison. It was as exquisite as it was genre defying.
WINNER - Best Design
This sumptuous installation fitted no easy category. It was like a live graphic novel or a visual radio play or the kind of optical experiment the Victorians would have delighted in, sitting at the interface of magic and mechanics. The audience sat at a one-person booth at the side of a giant rotating cylinder watching a series of miniature tableaux, each boxed in like a frame in a comic book: desert landscapes and dark oceans, tiny figures picking even tinier fruit, ominous expressionist tower blocks and·bleak motorways at night. All of it was lit like a miniature theatre with the tiniest of light sources by Simon Wilkison. It was as exquisite as it was genre defying.
Tom Piper and Ben Ormerod
Tom Piper (designer) and Ben Ormerod (lighting designer), Long Day’s Journey into Night, Citizens Theatre and HOME Manchester
Image © Tim Morozza
Image © Tim Morozza
Tom Piper and Chris Davey
Tom Piper (designer) and Chris Davey (lighting designer), Rhinoceros, Edinburgh International Festival and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in association with DOT Theatre, Istanbul
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Jamie Vartan and Simon Wilkinson
Jamie Vartan (designer) and Simon Wilkinson (lighting designer), Knives in Hens, Perth Theatre
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Best Music & Sound
Oğuz Kaplangı
Oğuz Kaplangı (composer, sound designer), Rhinoceros, Edinburgh International Festival and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in association with DOT Theatre, Istanbul
WINNER - Best Music & Sound
Eastern sounds and whirling Turkish dance-rhythms played on a range of instruments and mixed with live foley on stage from Oğuz Kaplangi, added a haunting and subtle beauty to this outstanding production.
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
WINNER - Best Music & Sound
Eastern sounds and whirling Turkish dance-rhythms played on a range of instruments and mixed with live foley on stage from Oğuz Kaplangi, added a haunting and subtle beauty to this outstanding production.
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Michael John McCarthy
Michael John McCarthy (composer and sound designer), Glory on Earth, Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh
Image © Drew Farrell
Image © Drew Farrell
Florencia Garcia Chafuen and Team
Florencia Garcia Chafuen, Laini Christmas, Jen Cunningham, Breezy Elthalion, Aaron Jeffrey, Philip Alexander McDonald, Sarah McFadyen, Richard Merchant, Judith Milligan, Alex Rigg, Anders Rigg, Oliver Rigg, Joey Sanderson, Lewis Sherlock, Jane Simpson, Cammy Sinclair, Anna Tagg, Pete Tagg and Guy Veale, Sea Hames, Oceanallover in association with Feral
Image © Brian Hartley & Florencia García Chafuén
Image © Brian Hartley & Florencia García Chafuén
Gareth Williams and Claire McKenzie
Gareth Williams (composer) and Claire McKenzie (musical director), The 306: Day, National Theatre of Scotland, Perth Theatre and Stellar Quines, in association with Red Note Ensemble and co-commissioned with 14–18 NOW
Image © Marilyn Kingwell
Image © Marilyn Kingwell
Best Technical Presentation
Cinderella
Citizens Theatre
Image © Tim Morozzo
Image © Tim Morozzo
Flight
Vox Motus in association with Beacon Arts Centre, commissioned by Edinburgh International Festival
WINNER - Best Technical Presentation
Vox Motus’s Edinburgh International Festival show used pre-recorded voices and soundtrack to accompany a revolving diorama to tell the story of two refugees fleeing to Europe. Every single element was an impressive technical achievement, adding up to an extraordinary and unique theatrical experience.
WINNER - Best Technical Presentation
Vox Motus’s Edinburgh International Festival show used pre-recorded voices and soundtrack to accompany a revolving diorama to tell the story of two refugees fleeing to Europe. Every single element was an impressive technical achievement, adding up to an extraordinary and unique theatrical experience.
Nursery Crymes
Mischief La-Bas and MSL Projects in association with In Situ, UZ Arts and Radiator Arts
Image © Eoin Carey
Image © Eoin Carey
Rhinoceros
Edinburgh International Festival and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in association with DOT Theatre, Istanbul
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Best Production for Children & Young People
Cinderella
Citizens Theatre
Image © Tim Morozza
Image © Tim Morozza
Eaten
Mamoru Iriguchi
Image © Manuel Vasco
Image © Manuel Vasco
Night Light
Andy Manley and Teater Refleksion, co-produced with Imaginate and Red Bridge Arts
Image © Bo Amstrup
Image © Bo Amstrup
Space Ape
Andy Cannon and Red Bridge Arts
WINNER - Best Production for Children & Young People
A boyhood fascination with the 1969 Moon landing is the starting point for Andy Cannon’s utterly engaging solo show in which science and imagination take flight together in a wishful- thinking story about a girl, a chimpanzee and a manned mission to Mars. The message – and not just for space travellers? Dare to dream, and boldly go!
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
WINNER - Best Production for Children & Young People
A boyhood fascination with the 1969 Moon landing is the starting point for Andy Cannon’s utterly engaging solo show in which science and imagination take flight together in a wishful- thinking story about a girl, a chimpanzee and a manned mission to Mars. The message – and not just for space travellers? Dare to dream, and boldly go!
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Best New Play
Peter Arnott
The Monarch of the Glen (adapted from the novel by Compton Mackenzie), Pitlochry Festival Theatre
WINNER - Best New Play
Peter Arnott’s play is not just an affectionate adaptation of a much-loved classic but serves both as a brilliant satire of Scottish clichés and a witty look at the state of the Scottish nation. It might be set in the past, but this is a multi-layered play that cleverly looks at Scotland’s place in the modern world.
Image © Douglas McBride
WINNER - Best New Play
Peter Arnott’s play is not just an affectionate adaptation of a much-loved classic but serves both as a brilliant satire of Scottish clichés and a witty look at the state of the Scottish nation. It might be set in the past, but this is a multi-layered play that cleverly looks at Scotland’s place in the modern world.
Image © Douglas McBride
Alan Bissett
(More) Moira Monologues, Alan Bissett and Sacha Kyle
Image © Stephanie Gibson
Image © Stephanie Gibson
Angie Dight, Mischief La-Bas and·Bill Breckenridge
Nursery Crymes, Mischief La-Bas and MSL
Image © Eoin Carey
Image © Eoin Carey
Zinnie Harris
Meet Me at Dawn, Traverse Theatre Company and Edinburgh International Festival
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Best Production
Cockpit
Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
Flight
Vox Motus in association with Beacon Arts Centre, commissioned by Edinburgh International Festival
Knives in Hens
Perth Theatre
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Image © Tommy Ga Ken Wan
Rhinoceros
Edinburgh International Festival and Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh in association with DOT Theatre, Istanbul
WINNER - Best Production
Sometimes, a show appears that not only captures the moment, but takes full possession of it, and slams it straight through the goalposts of the time we live in; and Murat Daltaban’s brilliant production of Rhinoceros –Eugene Ionesco’s 1959 satirical masterpiece, in which a “civilised” city makes a rapid descent into complete social collapse as its residents turn one by one into rampaging rhinoceroses – was one of those shows. It made a thrilling start to the 2017 Edinburgh International Festival theatre programme, bringing together brilliant design, music and lighting with a series of superb performances to create a show full of blazing theatrical energy and wit; as well as of·controlled terror at what may happen next, in a word where Ionesco’s vision seems more timely than ever.
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
WINNER - Best Production
Sometimes, a show appears that not only captures the moment, but takes full possession of it, and slams it straight through the goalposts of the time we live in; and Murat Daltaban’s brilliant production of Rhinoceros –Eugene Ionesco’s 1959 satirical masterpiece, in which a “civilised” city makes a rapid descent into complete social collapse as its residents turn one by one into rampaging rhinoceroses – was one of those shows. It made a thrilling start to the 2017 Edinburgh International Festival theatre programme, bringing together brilliant design, music and lighting with a series of superb performances to create a show full of blazing theatrical energy and wit; as well as of·controlled terror at what may happen next, in a word where Ionesco’s vision seems more timely than ever.
Image © Mihaela Bodlovic
The CATS judging panel for 2018 was made up of: Mary Brennan (The Herald), Irene Brown (edinburghguide.com), Mark Brown (The Sunday Herald and the Daily Telegraph), Paul F Cockburn (BroadwayBaby), Neil Cooper (The Herald), Michael Cox (Across the Arts), Thom Dibdin (The Stage and AllEdinburghTheatre.com), Mark Fisher (The Guardian), Joyce McMillan (The Scotsman), David Pollock (The Independent), Allan Radcliffe (The Times) and Joy Watters (Across the Arts).
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