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Authorised Kate Bane, The

Kate Bane returns home to her eccentric family for a winter weekend to introduce her new boyfriend. As the snow falls, mobile phone signal fails and the trains stop running, Kate finds herself searching with increasing desperation for an authentic account of her family's past. Read more …

Are her memories fact, or rather are they continually shifting acts of imagination?

Unable to pin down the truth, what does this mean for her future… which version of the family mythology will ensure her own happiness?

Ella Hickson's new painfully comic excavation of a family history asks if there is an authorised version of the past - or just the one we can live with.

Multi-award winning Grid Iron present the latest play from this brilliant young writer with original music from MJ McCarthy (Zoey Van Goey).

More information on this production is available at www.gridiron.org.uk.

The critical consensus

This is a fascinating production with an Escher-like playfulness in its examination of the nature of creation.

Thom Dibdin, The Stage, 17/10/2012

Congratulations to Grid Iron for bringing this writer back to Edinburgh and providing an excellent cast and production team for a play which is never less than thought provoking.

****(*)Bill Dunlop, Edinburgh Guide, 17/10/2012

The cast, and particularly Jenny Hulse in the title role, rise bravely to moments of deliberately heightened performance and (less successful) repetition of lines as the on-stage playwright explores nuances of meaning.

****(*)Keith Bruce, The Herald, 18/10/2012

An elegant but oddly uninteresting new play.

***(*)(*)Joyce McMillan, 18/10/2012

It’s an excruciatingly frank portrayal of growing up, realising (and coming to terms with) who you are, packed into a compelling 100 minutes. Hickson grasps the correlation between perception, memory and truth and uses it to powerful effect as the play twists towards closing.

****(*)Emma Hay, TVBomb, 19/10/2012

An over–long piece. Albeit one which is held together with solid performances from the four-strong cast.

Thom Dibdin, Annals of Edinburgh Stage, 22/10/2012

There are times when the play drifts away from its central thesis, leaving some ideas dramatically unprocessed, but the clever concept holds it together, as does Hulse's impassioned central performance.

***(*)(*)Mark Fisher, The Guardian, 22/10/2012

There's something a little so-what about this piece, partly due to the alienating effect of the play-wthin-a-play structure, but also because you're left feeling that - despite Hulse's passionate performance - there's not actually all that much at stake here.

***(*)(*)Allan Radcliffe, The List, 23/10/2012


Features about Authorised Kate Bane, The

Grid Iron's Ben Harrison talks Ella Hickson and The Authorised Kate Bane

Mark Brown, The List, 07/09/2012

Preview: The Authorised Kate Bane

Mark Fisher, The Scotsman, 11/10/2012

Staging tricks of the memory

Neil Cooper, The Herald, 09/10/2012

Where and when?

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh from Friday October 12, 2012, until Friday October 26, 2012. More info: www.traverse.co.uk

Tron Theatre, Glasgow from Tuesday October 30, 2012, until Saturday November 3, 2012. More info: www.tron.co.uk

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