Theatre review: Dead Dad Dog

John McKay's short play Dead Dad Dog was a hit in Edinburgh in 1988, leading to a quick London transfer to the Royal Court. Liz Carruthers' revival at the Finborough was meant to be the opener in a double bill, as McKay has written a present-day sequel, but due to cast illness the latter has had to be cancelled, leaving us with just the original, a slight supernatural comedy in which 22-year-old Alec (Angus Miller) is preparing for a big day: An interview for an apprenticeship as a BBC Scotland producer, followed by a hot date. But his preparations are interrupted by the arrival of his father Willie (Liam Brennan,) who died 12 years earlier. The ghost has been sent back from heaven for a short while to spend time with his son - he didn't request the visit and doesn't know why he was granted it. Alec is saddled with a ghost who to all intents and purposes seems alive - everyone can see him, and he'll need feeding.

Theatre review: Diary of a Madman

A loose adaptation from Gogol, Diary of a Madman does deal with mental illness, but it doesn’t do so explicitly for its first hour, instead setting a detailed scene. Al Smith’s Scottish transposition takes inspiration from the popular metaphor of the Forth Bridge, said to take so long to paint that by the time it’s done the other end needs starting again. Here it becomes the job of a single family who’ve been doing it for generations, Pop Sheeran (Liam Brennan) taking a year to put on each new coat before going back to the start. His son’s unable to help him at the moment so the company that manages the bridge has sent along Matthew (Guy Clark,) an English post-grad at Edinburgh University, whose thesis studies the effectiveness of a new formulation of paint intended to cut down on all this work. In one of those plot-driving coincidences, Matthew then discovers that Pop’s teenage daughter Sophie (Louise McMenemy) is the girl he slept with a few weeks earlier.