SHINING SOULS

REVIEWS

"Chris Hannan's Shining Souls is a joy. The plot sounds like a recipe for terminal depression but Hannan has a marvellous gift for comedy, and endows his large incisively-drawn cast of characters with often blissfully funny demotic dialogue." Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph (on Ian Brown's 1996 Traverse production)

"All ten actors are alive to the comedy and the sublimity of the play. Thanks to them and to Hannan, Shining Souls leaves a lasting light in the mind unlike that cast by any other play I can recall seeing."
Alastair Macaulay, Financial Times (on Chris Hannan's 1997 Old Vic
production)

"Imagine soap opera transposed to the streets of Glasgow and written by a modern, Buddhist Shakespeare." Mark Brown, The Guardian (on Alison Peebles' 2003 Tron production)

"This is a sad, beautiful and profound piece of work." Neil Cooper,
The Herald (on Alison Peebles' 2003 production)

"Its heroic central character (played by Kathryn Howden) is a kind of Mother Courage cum Marilyn Monroe of the post-industrial wastelands who has seen her twin teenage sons hang themselves one after the other. Nevertheless, her lifeforce and libido remain so strong that she finds herself, on the morning of her wedding day, not only uncertain of which of her two lovers to marry, but increasingly interested in picking up a third, a wild-eyed poetic chancer called Charlie (Paul Blair). As the play follows Ann through the next 24 hours it adopts a bold, episodic structure, like a kind of Bartholomew Fair for our times, criss-crossing the neighbourhood, and introducing a small galaxy of a dozen characters - all driven by their own unique stories - whose lives nevertheless connect with Ann's. And the piece of theatre that emerges is a funny and serious postmodern masterpiece, full of magnificent one-liners."
Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman (on Alison Peebles' 2003 production)