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John 'Hoppy' Hopkins - Taking Liberties

Among many remarkable pictures in this essential retrospective of London’s 1960s counter-culture’s snapper-in-residence, there’s a wonderful study of the editorial team behind International Times, the era’s alternative bible. In it, eleven people huddle together behind a cluttered desk. Among them are poet Jeff Nuttall, the Traverse Theatre’s spiritual guru Jim Haynes, the era’s chronicler Barry Miles and, unrecognisable, the late Glasgow-born playwright Tom McGrath, then IT editor. Here were people who, judging by the brim-full-of-confidence, touchy-feely grins, genuinely felt like they were changing the world. This spirit spills over everywhere throughout the inaugural show in Street Level’s new home on the ground floor of the Trongate 103 complex. All the usual suspects are here; a scowly William Burroughs, an uncharacteristically chipper Alexander Trocchi in front of a ‘Fuck Communism!’ poster; a euphoric Allen Ginsberg outside the Royal Albert Hall prior to the seminal 1965 poet

A Number

Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh Four stars There are rooms within rooms through the doorway of designer Fred Meller's cube-like construction for Zinnie Harris' production of Caryl Churchill's 2002 play. It may be smoke and mirrors that gives the illusion of infinity, but it's a telling pointer to what follows in a play born out of the scientific breakthrough in cloning by way of Dolly the Sheep. Churchill's play opens just after a middle-aged man called Salter has revealed to his son Bernard that he is one of a number of clones. These were created by scientists seemingly without Salter's knowledge after he attempted to replace the apparent loss of his actual son. Both Bernards react in different ways, as one might expect of one child who was loved and another who was effectively dumped in a way one might do with an unruly pet. How the other nineteen versions of Bernard are getting on remains to be seen. Revived by the Lyceum as part of Edinburgh Int

Girl in the Machine

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Four stars The metal shipping container that fills the stage at the opening of Stef Smith's new play is a monumental reminder of how the world still moves through physical endeavour. This exterior of Neil Warmington's set may also be a nod to The Aftermath Dislocation Principle, ex K Foundation provocateur Jimmy Cauty's own container-clad installation containing a model of a post-riot world. Once the sides slide away here, however, an almost too orderly futuristic des-res is revealed. Within its minimalist interior, high-flying lawyer Polly and nurse Owen live together in hectic disharmony in a future where citizens are required to wear implants that chart their every waking hour. When Owen gives Polly a present of a mental pacifier called a Black Box that he stole from the hospital, for Polly, at least, things change for the better. The couple even receive a complaint on Polly's iPad from a neighbour complaining about their 'exc

Dr Stirlingshire's Discovery

RZSS Edinburgh Zoo, Edinburgh Three stars It's a jungle sometimes in Morna Pearson's new play, performed in front of an audience who appear to be on safari within the grounds of Edinburgh Zoo as part of Edinburgh International Science Festival. Noted cryptozoologist Dr Vivienne Stirlingshire is in the building, and some of her fans on the staff are very excited indeed. The good, if somewhat demanding, doctor has returned from her latest adventure with a brand new mammal to show off to the world. Dr Stirlingshire's brother Henry is sceptical. The fact that he runs the zoo doesn't help, but neither does the pair's sibling rivalry that's rooted in a damaged childhood which has left them estranged. With what is described as the something-or-other Vivienne brought back with her seemingly missing, she is forced to chase her way around a very human looking zoo in an attempt to rid herself of her personal demons. This co-production between site-specific spe

Cosmonaut

Summerhall, Edinburgh Three stars Once upon a cold war, the space race was everything to America and Russia. In a world dictated by firsts, it was America who made it to the moon and back. It was Russia, however, that set the bar, firing the first man into space as well as the collective imagination of a world who saw possibilities beyond the Soviet experiment. Beyond the heroics, there were other, less sung stories, as Francis Gallop makes clear in his new play that forms part of the theatre programme of Edinburgh International Science Festival, who co-commissioned it. Here, Gallop zones in on the hidden genius of Sergei Korolev, the engineer who pretty much invented the Soviet space programme, albeit in a near samizdat fashion following his imprisonment in a gulag. Meanwhile, in an Italian high-rise, Lucia and her brother build a home-made space-tracking system, which records what they believe to be a generation of prototype cosmonauts, whose doomed missions have been seeming

David Leddy - Coriolanus Vanishes

Linking Bridget Jones to Theresa May takes quite a leap, but somehow David Leddy has just done it. The Glasgow-based writer and director has been talking about Coriolanus Vanishes, his new solo show presented by Leddy's own Fire Exit company in co-production with the Tron Theatre, Glasgow. In particular he's been talking about people in powerful jobs who are able to present an unflappable public image even through they might be falling apart inside. “I remember when the first Bridget Jones came out,” says Leddy, “and thinking it was really funny that all these high-functioning people were crying in the toilets. I was twenty-one years old, and presumed that sort of thing didn't happen when you were an adult in jobs like that. All these years later I know that's not true, and I know these things don't just stop, even for someone like Theresa May. I might disagree with what she stands for, but of course Theresa May cries in toilets.” Whether anyone cries in the to

Offside

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Three stars For too long now, football has been perceived to be just a boy's game. This wasn't always the case, as this dynamic little play co-written by Sabrina Mahfouz and Hollie McNish makes clear. It opens in the boot room, where wannabe women's team players Mickey and Keeley are preparing to try out for the national squad. Both are determined to make the grade for very different but equally personal reasons. Both too have their distractions, but they also have their heroines guiding them on. These come in the form of Carrie Boustead and Lily Parr. Back in 1881, Boustead was a Scottish woman of colour who kept goal for several teams. Flash forward to 1921, and Parr is a star player scoring goals in front of thousands. Both were pioneers, but with the outlawing of female football, they've been airbrushed out of history. As Caroline Bryant's production for the women-centred Futures Theatre flips between time-zones, Mickey and Ke