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Dateline:
12th May, 2011
CATS Shortlist
The winners of the 2010 - 2011 Critics' Awards for Theatre in Scotland
(CATS) are (includes judge's comments):
Best Male Performance
- David Birrell as Sweeney Todd in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber
of Fleet Street (Dundee Rep Theatre)
"Played by David Birrell, Sweeney Todd was a figure of unruffled
determination: cool, enigmatic and self-contained. Far from being
a music-hall villain, he was a controlled obsessive, focused on revenge.
He was all the more chilling because he took no pleasure in his victories.
And, leading an impressive ensemble, he sang beautifully."
Best Female Performance, sponsored by STV
- Mercy Ojelade as Mary in Roadkill (Ankur Productions/Pachamama
Productions)
"It's easy to fake things on stage, but every second of Mercy
Ojelade's performance as Mary, the young Nigerian girl trafficked
in Roadkill, Ankur Arts and Pachamama's harrowing site-specific
piece, was utterly, heartbreakingly believable. The transformation
from a wide-eyed innocent arriving in a strange land to a brutalised
young woman forced to grow up too soon was at times painful to watch,
but Ojelade's fearless and unflinching performance was a captivating
experience that audiences will never – and, in light of similar
real life situations going on right now, must never – forget."
Best Ensemble, sponsored by Equity
- The Three Musketeers and the Princess of Spain (Traverse
Theatre Company/Belgrade Theatre, Coventry/English Touring Theatre)
"It is no exaggeration to describe this show as the most brilliant
piece of Christmas theatre to have been staged in Scotland in a generation,
and that is down, in very large part, to the immense talents, and
the boisterous, comic energy, of the ensemble. One might have taken
particular pleasure in Peter Forbes’s apparently pregnant Porthos
or Cliff Burnett’s Aramis – who one still remembers as a
'cross between Arsene Wenger and Peter Stringfellow' – but the
truth is that this extraordinary production had kids and adults in
raptures because every actor in Dominic Hill’s superb ensemble
was so wonderfully in tune with both Chris Hannan’s fantastic
script and the actors around them."
Best Director
- Muriel Romanes for Age of Arousal (Stellar Quines Theatre
Company/Royal Lyceum Theatre Company)
"The diversity of approaches taken by this year's nominees represents
the imagination and dynamism of Scottish theatre, from re-imagining
of a classic through to a site-specific examination of a very contemporary
problem. Yet our winner, Muriel Romanes, for Age of Arousal
by Stellar Quines Theatre Company and the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company,
demonstrated how the historical can shed light on the modern, and
that political seriousness need not mean humourlessness."
Best Design
- Shona Reppe (set and costumes) and Craig Fleming (lighting) for
White (Catherine Wheels Theatre Company)
"Great theatre design does not just illuminate its text, it adds
to it. Shona Reppe's design and costumes for Catherine Wheel's White
went one step further again. She created a white world of such invention
that it could have existed on its own. But then you would have missed
each intricate new detail as the show developed, the discoveries in
each birdbox, the hilarity of using a toilet pedestal mat as an apron.
Lighting white can be hell and Craig Flemming's simple design ensured
that the lighting waxed and waned with the passing of the day, Reppe's
birdhouses lit up from the inside and a mirror-ball moon threw slivers
of reflected light across the scene."
Best Use of Music and Sound
- Hilary Brooks for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
(Dundee Rep Theatre)
- Alasdair Macrae for The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart
(National Theatre of Scotland)
"We often end up comparing apples and pears but in the case of
the music and sound category this year it was more extreme than ever.
" How do you separate the challenge that Hilary Brooks had at
Dundee, faced with one of the most demanding scores in all musical
theatre, to the challenge of writing new music, and combining that
with much loved existing music to make something as wittily brilliant
and contextually clever as Alsadair Macrae managed for Prudencia
Hart? In the end, they were both tremendous achievements and we
have decided that the Best Music And Sound category this year should
be shared between Hilary Brooks and Ally Macrae."
Best Technical Presentation, sponsored by Northern Light
- White (Catherine Wheels Theatre Company)
"White's technical artistry was not only a marvel to watch
but was integral to the overall success of the production. From its
sleight-of-hand tricks to its moving conclusion of seamlessly turning
a white set into a massive celebration of colour, White’s
technical execution not only proved that small effects can have a
large impact but that excellence in technical presentation is as important
to the success of a production as any other component."
Best Production for Children and Young People
- White (Catherine Wheels Theatre Company)
"Good theatre is good theatre – whatever age group it’s
intended for. White captivated pre-school tots with its ravishing
transformation of an all-white world into a rainbow landscape. And
if adults read the arrival of colour as a profound reflection on social
values – well they too were totally smitten by the magical beauty
of this show. How did they do it? It still remains a mystery –
but it’s a winner."
Best New Play, sponsored by W&P Longreach
- Chris Hannan for The Three Musketeers and the Princess of Spain
(Traverse Theatre Company/Belgrade Theatre, Coventry/English Touring
Theatre)
"Chris Hannan's version of the famous Alexandre Dumas adventure
stories was anarchic, witty, intelligent, rude, irreligious and coarse.
It had all the swashbuckling sword fights and knockabout humour you
could wish for, but it also told a story of self-discovery that was
deeply moving. It was a script that was genuinely for all the family."
Best Production
- Roadkill (Ankur Productions/Pachamama Productions)
"In the end, despite a terrific shortlist, there was no doubt
about the outstanding choice as Best Production of 2010–2011.
Roadkill, created by Cora Bissett and written by Stef Smith
for Ankur Production and Pachamama, is a show that achieves the highest
artistic standards in every area, from writing, acting and directing
to design, sound and technical co-ordination. Even more importantly,
though, it draws that artistic energy from the company's passion for
its subject, and from their shared determination to make us aware
of the scandal and tragedy of people-trafficking in our time - not
as some distant problem in faraway places, but as something that is
happening now, in the very fabric of our own cities, and perhaps even
in the flat next door."
The CATS judging panel for 2011 was made up of: Mary Brennan (The Herald),
Mark Brown (The Sunday Herald and the Daily Telegraph), Neil Cooper
(The Herald), Michael Cox (onstagescotland.co.uk), Robert Dawson Scott
(The Times), Thom Dibdin (Edinburgh Evening News and The Stage), Mark
Fisher (The Guardian), Joyce McMillan (The Scotsman), Gareth K Vile
(The Skinny) and Joy Watters (The Courier).
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