The final moments of Minetti

Edinburgh – August 2014

Minetti by Thomas Bernhard has enjoyed a short but sweet appearance at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh International Festival’s 2014 program.

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It was delight to return to the festival to help create the final coup along with other subtler moments in the mesmerising play for director and designer Tom Cairns whose set was a detailed, at times witty and perfectly tuned setting for this near one man show starring Peter Eyre.

New collaborators were found in Lighting designer Charles Balfour and sound designers Max and Ben Ringham and the whole came together beautifully.

Here’s what the critics had to say:

*** Financial Times

the play’s poignant end – hauntingly conjured here by Max and Ben Ringham’s sound design and Nina Dunn’s video projections

*** The Scotsman

gorgeous visual effects

**** The Times

The sense of the north Atlantic resort and the hotel as a kind of purgatory is subtly evoked in Cairns’s set design, which allows a tantalising glimpse through the doors to the storm raging outside.

*** The Guardian

There is an eye-catching moment at the end of Tom Cairns’s revival of Thomas Bernhard’s play about the elderly, once-famous actor Minetti.

*** The British Theatre Guide 

an unforgettable final vignette

Michael Coveney

Even last year, at the fag end of Jonathan Mills’s regime, I saw nothing on the Fringe to compare with Peter Eyre in the EIF production of Thomas Bernhard’s Minetti at the Lyceum

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