The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil tells the history and the tragedy of Scotland, performed as a Highland ceilidh, with song, humour and drama intermixed; creating a unique theatrical event, that remains as vital and relevant today as it was when 7:84 Scotland first presented it. Read more …
This astute new revival understands its history and has recreated it, not repeated it, for the here and now.
What is most striking is that, for all the play's consciously roughshod form, beneath its veneer is something expertly crafted, and when the cast sing a final song translated simultaneously from Gaelic, it's a spine-tingling call to arms that needs to be heard across the land right now.
If the roars that greet Macaulay’s fleeting appearance as David Cameron, or the odd reference to the independence referendum, suggest an appetite for updating that this memorable production doesn’t quite fulfil, those responses only point the way to a great continuing future for this vital play.
This update of John McGrath’s epic play is the rousing theatrical equivalent of a Proclaimers gig.
John McGrath's play has everything, and throws it at you in generous handfuls.
It is to be hoped that this powerful, engaging revival can secure funding to mount a tour, as it deserves to be seen by a much wider audience.
Nevertheless, despite its moments of soap box rhetoric and its relative lack of up-to-date material, this production will be remembered for its vitality, satirical humour and genuine pathos.
In a week where oil is back on the agenda, while a headline on a BBC website spoke of the Highland Clearances as 'progress', such a piece of serious fun is a necessary pleasure.
John McGrath’s influential play about the history of the Highlands lives up to expectations.
It’s to the great credit of Douglas and his cast that this touring production, which received a deserved standing ovation on opening night, feels both heartfelt and of the moment.
Tuneful, hilarious and deeply moving, Dundee Rep’s revival of The Cheviot, The Stag and The Black, Black Oil...is a triumph.
It's powerful theatre, and it's exciting to see that proper political drama is able to galvanise audiences and energise them. As the play wore on, though, it began to feel too polemical.
It’s hard to shake a sense that a fresh production, in the footprints of 7:84’s original operation and focusing on the continued political bending of Scottish culture and landscape to modern day business ventures, might have yielded more than this spirited but flawed revival, which seems a little disconnected from its own time and space.
It is hardly exaggeration to suggest ‘The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil’ changed Scottish theatre, and indeed Scotland forever.
A well-executed production that will thrill those whose hearts are in agreement and annoy those who aren’t.
While Douglas and his cast have reanimated a classic Scottish play, and tapped an informal and populist dynamism, there is a danger that it is a steam-valve for frustration rather than a bracing call to arms.
Cheviot is simply faultless.
John McGrath’s 1973 play uses ceilidhs and hoedowns to tell the shocking tale of the exploitation of Scotland’s natural resources.
Joe Douglas' direction manages to balance a reverence for the spirit of the 1973 production, remaining loose and spontaneous, playful and intense by turns, with a modern sensibility, establishing both the importance of the original script and its continued relevance.
The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil revived
Joe Douglas--The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil
The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil: Revival of a defining moment in Scottish theatre
Preview: The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil
The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil.
Preview: The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil
The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil Scottish tour begins.
Feature: The Cheviot, The Stag and the Black, Black Oil
On Tour, from Thursday May 16, 2019, until Saturday June 22, 2019.
RSS feed of Music reviews