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Music Is Torture

Jake owns a recording studio. He’s been recording the same album with the same band for the past fifteen years. Everyone else gets the breaks. But Jake still has a ticket in the music industry lottery and unbeknown to him a potential windfall could be heading his way. He might just have to make a few... compromises. Read more …

Inspired by the research of musicologist and human rights campaigner Professor Morag J. Grant into the use of music as means of torture in political conflict. Music Is Torture is a jet-black comedy set in Limbo Recording Studios, featuring live music and new songs from A Band Called Quinn.


The critical consensus

It's this insider's world-view of an industry where selling out is the ultimate sin that gives the play its cynical bite, even as it bleeds its players dry.

***(*)(*)Neil Cooper, Coffee-Table Notes, 21/05/2017

The relationship of the music to the story could be clearer, the role of the band more precisely defined and the narrative more credible, but Music Is Torture also unleashes moral questions that are hard to brush aside.

***(*)(*)Mark Fisher, The Guardian, 22/05/2017

Music is Torture can occasionally be heavy handed in communicating its message but those instances are rare. This play is the blackest of black comedies, and the constant variations in emotion and intensity make it a compelling, if draining, watch.

****(*)Liam Hainey, The List, 22/05/2017

Louise Quinn’s intriguing new drama.

****(*)Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman, 23/05/2017

In the end, this alleged insider’s view about the temptations of the music industry just doesn’t have the necessary lightness of touch.

***(*)(*)Paul F Cockburn, Broadway Baby, 23/05/2017

Its dark humour enables this production to distance itself from its heavy theme, without losing sight of its gravity.

****(*)Marine Furet, Plays to See, 25/05/2017

Where and when?

Tron Theatre, Glasgow from Thursday May 18, 2017, until Saturday May 20, 2017. More info: www.tron.co.uk

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh from Thursday May 25, 2017, until Saturday May 27, 2017. More info: www.traverse.co.uk

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