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Plays Performed

YEARPLAYAUTHORDIRECTOR
1979The CrucibleArthur MillerMarshal Herrick
1980Major BarbaraBernard ShawLomax
1980BallboysDavid EdgarOne-Eye
1980The PhysicistsFriedrich DurrenmattSir Isaac Newton
1980Beyond The FridgeLate Night Review
1980The Rogue and Peasant’s SlaveNicky Campbell
1981As You Like ItWilliam ShakespeareAmiens+First Lord
1981The MagusCalderon De La BarcaThe Devil
1981BentMartin ShermanMaximilian Berber

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 1980:

The Physicists

by Friedrich Durrenmatt

  • Reviews
  • Credits

  • Reviews

    The play was written by Swiss-German Friedrich Durrenmatt after the wholesale destruction of World War 11 and following the explosions of the first and only atomic bombs. The question of scientific responsibility is raised (or avoided) by three physicists… all inmates of an expensive Swiss asylum run by an eccentric sinister psychiatrist. They choose to hide themselves away rather than reveal their discoveries to a world that has yet to demonstrate sufficient moral responsibility. Aberdeen University Theatre entertaining production reveals a play that is a perfectly structured piece of classical theatre and very funny too, with its serious undertones seldom far beneath the surface.

    Glasgow Herald, Peter Staffel

    Iain Glen is brilliant as ‘Newton’. Behind his unruffled civility lurked, without the least trace of overacting, the cynical mendacity of a power politician. His acting threw considerable light on what the head of the asylum meant when she declared: “It is I who decide who my patients think they are.”

    The Scotsman, Mario Relich

  • Credits

    Alistair Hunter
    Inspector Richard Voss
    Nicky Campbell
    Fraulein Doktor Mathilac Von Zand
    Nina Sbresni
    Sister Marta Boll
    Iain Glen
    Newton
    James Reid Baxter
    Einstein
    Simon Donald
    Blocher
    Kim Fenton
    Johann Wilheim Mobius
    Jennifer Turner
    Frau Rose
    Alan Campbell
    Herr Rose
    Kate Symington
    Nurse Monika Stettler
    Paul Spero
    Uwe Sievers
    Leslie Kacznarek
    McArthur
    Robert Harley
    Murillo
    Alan Campbell
    Police Doctor
    Alan Campbell
    Directer
    Graham Johnston
    Designer

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 1981:

Bent

by Martin Sherman

  • Reviews
  • Credits

  • Reviews

    Fringing” the Festival poses an inevitable challenge – how to winnow wheat from chaff. But when one discovers among the bumper harvest of drama anything as fine as Aberdeen University Theatre’s interpretation of Martin Sherman’s Bent, one feels the search has been worth the effort. The cast is in character – and in difficult roles indeed. This play, ranging from extremes of love to extremes of brutality, makes a plea for understanding tolerance of homosexual love. Act two shows the suffering and degradation which twp homosexuals are made to endure in a Nazi concentration camp. The two men, brilliantly played by Iain Glen and Simon Donald, hold fast to their humanity as long as they can still share a felling of love. Aberdeen shows rare power and maturity here.

    The Times Educational Supplement, Christopher Rathbone

    The performances of Iain Glen as Mac and Simon Donald as Horst have a quiet authority, and intelligent direction by Nick Peters conveys the horrifying circumstances against which the gradually acknowledged love between the two men develops.

    The Glasgow Herald, Helen Murdoch

  • Credits

    Iain Glen
    Max
    Nicky Campbell
    Rudy
    Allan Graham
    Wolf
    Nick Peters
    Lieutenant
    Allan Robb
    2nd Lieutenant
    Kim Fenton
    Greta
    Allan Robb
    Victor
    Alistair Hunter
    Freddie
    Simon Donald
    Horst
    Michael Duke
    Guard on train
    Guy Peploe
    Officer
    Allan Robb
    Kapo
    Tony Campbell
    Corporal
    Guy Peploe
    Captain
    Nick Peters
    Director
    Caroline Newton
    Production Assistant
    Nicky Campbell / Kim Fenton
    Music

The Megus

Reviews

Nicholas Campbell was impressive as Cyprian, a bespectacled and Faust-like seeker after truth, and Iain Glen gave a powerful performance as the sneering Lucifer who seeks to destroy him.

The Scotland, John Clifford

This production has the virtues as well as the faults of student drama. Among the former is the willingness to disinter a classic version of the Faust scene – there being a suavely effective Devil played by Iain Glen. There is also an enthusiasm which proves sporadically infectious when applied to the contemporary setting of Europe. The defects are the usual ones of faulty diction and stagecraft, and a lack of resources to help create the necessary illusion.

The Glasgow herald, Keith Gibbs

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