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Knives in Hens

NTS present a new staging of the modern classic

In a pre-industrial landscape, an unsettling and threatening love triangle emerges between the young woman, the ploughman and the hated miller.

As the young woman journeys from ignorance to knowledge, her liberation is found through language and her need to name things to understand their place and hers in the world. Read more …

“I look at a tree and say tree and walk on. But there is more of the tree that is god which I have no names for. Each day I want to know more. A puddle I can see under. A tree when it is blown by the wind. A carrot that is sweeter than the others. The cold earth under a rock. The warm breath of a tired horse. A man’s face in the evening after work. The sound a woman makes when no one hears her. I now know I must find out the names for myself.”

Knives in Hens is a remarkable play about the transformative power of knowledge and an emerging consciousness as the world moves from rural to the urban and industrial.

First staged at the Traverse Theatre in 1995, Knives in Hens was playwright David Harrower’s first professionally produced work. It has since been staged in 25 countries around the world and is widely acknowledged as a modern Scottish classic.


The critical consensus

It’s a challenge to anyone who likes their theatre cosy, predictable and polite, but that seems exactly like the kind of challenge the NTS should be laying down.

Mark Fisher, Northings, 08/06/2011

This at times appears to be over-complex. Ultimately, however, it is a thoroughly satisfying and intriguing reinterpretation of a modern Scottish classic.

Thom Dibdin, The Stage, 08/06/2011

When it does work, driven by the thrilling, wild-eyed performances of Susan Vidler, Duncan Anderson and Owen Whitelaw, the production hits moments of electrifying intensity.

****(*)Mark Fisher, The Guardian, 08/06/2011

Purists will hate it, but a series of rituals are played out signalling a much bigger sense of renewal that goes beyond words to get a grip of the body politic in all its lusty glory.

****(*)Neil Cooper, The Herald, 09/06/2011

Lies Pauwels and The National Theatre of Scotland have created a production that can only add to the play’s reputation and have created utterly absorbing drama at the Traverse. There’s a name for this sort of thing and that’s brilliant.

*****Neil, TV Bomb, 08/06/2011

Brilliantly performed by its committed ensemble ... likely to split audiences.

Michael Cox, Onstage Scotland, 09/06/2011

This show will outrage many people; don’t go there if you don’t want to be irritated, baffled, amused, shaken and stirred. Once again, though, the NTS have defied expectations, to create a production that reinvents Harrower’s play as the kind of classic text on which directors can unleash their imaginations.

****(*)Joyce McMillan, 09/06/2011

The director’s playfulness has robbed the play of its pathos, sentiment and sexuality. It is, surely, not Pauwels’s intention that one feels the soaring beauty of Bach’s music as a contrast to the often hollow atmosphere generated by her production.

Mark Brown, Sunday Herald, 13/06/2011

Hats off to the Belgian director for such an irreverent take on Harrower’s spare, lyrical three-hander (four here), which traces a woman’s sexual awakening and transition to literacy in a pre-industrialised landscape.

****(*)Allan Radcliffe, The List, 14/06/2011

While Pauwels’ production many not be the original setting for the play, her take on this modern Scottish classic reveals that there is so much that can still be taken from Harrower’s original script.

***(*)(*)Amy Taylor, The Skinny, 01/07/2011


Features about Knives in Hens

'Just let it wash over you'

Jack McKeown, The Courier, 25/06/2011

Knives in Hens

Where and when?

Lemon Tree, Aberdeen from Saturday July 2, 2011. More info: www.boxofficeaberdeen.com

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh from Saturday June 4, 2011, until Saturday June 11, 2011. More info: www.traverse.co.uk

Eden Court Theatre, Inverness from Tuesday June 14, 2011, until Thursday June 16, 2011. More info: www.eden-court.co.uk

Dundee Rep Theatre, Dundee from Tuesday June 28, 2011, until Thursday June 30, 2011. More info: www.dundeereptheatre.co.uk

Tramway, Glasgow from Tuesday July 5, 2011, until Saturday July 9, 2011. More info: www.tramway.org

Byre Theatre, St Andrews from Friday July 15, 2011, until Saturday July 16, 2011. More info: www.byretheatre.com

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