What people are saying
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“Joyous and educational - such an untold Scottish story. This deserves a wider audience!”
— Audience Member
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“A wonderful, thought-provoking show. It should be performed for every primary school in Scotland.”
– Audience Member
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“It was like watching something deliberately buried being brought back to life before our eyes’
– Audience Member
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“Easily the best of this sort of thing that I've ever seen; makes me so glad that I now live in Scotland. Even I'm not Scottish this show makes me feel part of the community of Scots tradition.”
– Audience Member
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“That was an absolute joy just hugely inspiring, really moving, and just helped us to see but in such a beautiful way just all that was lost but all that we’re getting back”
— Audience Member
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“The show was unexpectedly poignant and welled up at the depiction of the clearances. Wonderful reminder of lost traditions so thank you for keeping those traditions alive.”
— Liz fae Stonehaven
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“Please tour, go into dance schools as well as schools and please teach step dance!”
– Audience Member
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“Just makes you want to get up and move straight away!”
– Audience Member
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“I hope you get to tour it more widely. It is a story that needs to be told again and again.”
– Audience Member
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"I was enthralled! This was an important and epic story of almost-lost tradition and community, told in virtuoso and gorgeous traditional dance & fiddle playing, song and simple spoken word. I loved the soundscapes - rich, complex and moving (in all senses!). The show needs to be experienced all over Scotland and beyond."
– Audience Member
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“What a brilliant show. Great team telling a good story – some sad bits, some happy bits, told at just the right pace. Excellent dancing and fiddling with complete rapport between them. Clever and witty stage business. Outstanding displays of virtuoso transitions from one style of dance or fiddling to another style, to show how the traditions changed from when the Clearances destroyed step-dance traditions in Scotland to now, and how the traditions are being brought back, illustrated by well-chosen historical readings and recordings. Easily the best of this sort of thing that I've ever seen; makes me so glad that I now live in Scotland. Even I'm not Scottish this show makes me feel part of the community of Scots tradition. At the end the audience stood to applaud and cheer.”
– Audience Member
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“I really really REALLY enjoyed this show. I already knew about step dance and the miraculous story of its migration and reconnection. And the tender care it received when away in Canada. I love step dancing, the very idea of percussive dance. I know Alison is an incredible dancer, and Amy a wonderfully matched musician. What I didn't expect was to be taken on such a moving journey, to learn and feel so much. The theatricality was so finely judged, poignant, spare, joyous and heartfelt. I couldn't recommend this show highly enough.”
– Audience Member
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"A tour de force. Mastery of the art of dance and fiddle . Step dancing is Alive! A celebration of a tradition reborn. Beyond brilliant."
– Audience Member
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"It was uplifting, beautiful and so well put together. Utterly genuine. Talent, joy, respect for the past and present. Everyone in Scotland and beyond should see it."
– Audience Member
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"This is exhilarating. The fringe at its very moving, emotional and heartening [best]. The music and the dance in the safe feet and hands of artists . It’s a long time sine I wanted to stretch out every second."
– Audience Member
WHAT THE PRESS ARE SAYING
★★★★★
Susan Mansfield, THE SCOTSMAN
“Deiseil is more about showing than telling, and it feels like the warm, playful collaboration of Carlyle and Geddes embodies the spirit of stepdance. This is the most joyful show I’ve seen so far this Fringe. It tells an important story with the lightest of touches and doesn’t put a foot wrong.”
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★★★★
Broadway World
“generosity of perspective makes the work feel both rooted and outward-looking—a celebration that honours the past while affirming its place in today’s world.”
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★★★★★
Julia Amour, All Edinburgh Theatre
“Dance, dance, it’s work to be dancing’ is the joyful conclusion. The triumphant truth of his credo can be seen in this unique and inspiring piece.”
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★★★★
Catherine Coutts, The Quintessential Review
“It is a love letter to step dancing, tracing its decline – then subsequent resurgence in Scotland from the 1990s onwards, thanks to the Scottish diaspora in Cape Breton. Deiseil is full of energy and humour, swinging effortlessly between music, dance, song and spoken word, both Gaelic and English.”
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Donald Stewart, Fringe Review
EXCITING WORK
“Vibrant, expressive and filled with joy....This is a brilliant piece of creative art that deserves to go to the far corners of Scotland.”