Theatre Review: Ane City, Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh

Tay arrives back in Dundee, home from university to her mum’s council house, her gran’s mince and tatties (she’s vegetarian) and her hostile younger sister.
When you leave home, can you ever really return?When you leave home, can you ever really return?
When you leave home, can you ever really return?

Ane City, Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh * * *

On a night out with her Dundee pals, she discovers that distance has grown between them and she ends up on the steps of the McManus Galleries, drunk, alone and feeling lost. Adrift in Dundee - motto: “Ane City, Many discoveries” - she needs to find herself.

The recipient of this year’s Assembly Festival ART Award, which supports emerging Scottish artists, Ane City is the work of newly formed Elfie Picket Theatre - writer and performer Taylor Dyson and director/dramaturg Calum Kelly. While this has many of the hallmarks of a first show, it also shows plenty of energy and promise.

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Though Dyson gives it her all, Ane City is uneven in texture. While the cliches of a drunken night out are all present and correct, as are the well-trodden views of Dundee itself, these are interspersed with skilled poems and set pieces, some of them in Scots, and a fascinating subtext about the challenges facing a working-class woman who wants to break away from her background.

Until 26 August

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