Oran Mor, Glasgow
4 stars
The late-season liaison between A Play, A Pie and A Pint and the equally alliterative Paines Plough company has produced some of the strongest lunchtime fare to date. This third venture, written by Sean Buckley and directed by Roxanna Silbert, is a harrowing chronicle of a death foretold, as the body of frustrated father John is brought back from the brink by the spirit of his teenage runaway daughter Kate. To find out how on earth he got himself in such a self-destructive state, Kate leads John on a backwards journey through happier times, before he found himself adrift in the city in search of someone he’ll never touch again.
Buckley sets John up on a near Scrooge-like trawl through the ghosts of times past, as an edgy, increasingly ferocious Neil McKinven roars his haunted way through an all too familiar matter of life and death. Wife, job and a life seen shakily through the bottom of a glass are all put under the microscope. As a foil for what looks initially like some workaday existential crisis, Cath Whitefield’s Kate slips into a disarming but equally troubling multitude of city voices, all of whom seem to John to be hiding something sinister.
Silbert pursues Buckley’s objective with a rough and ready vigour which never quite gives the game away, preferring to first hint, then cajole, then finally explode its truth apart. Watching McKinven’s John chase himself round in circles, seeing Kate’s image reflected in everything and everyone, one begins to understand how, having seemingly killed the thing he loves most, the final push into the abyss must come from him alone.
The Herald, November 7th 2007
ends
4 stars
The late-season liaison between A Play, A Pie and A Pint and the equally alliterative Paines Plough company has produced some of the strongest lunchtime fare to date. This third venture, written by Sean Buckley and directed by Roxanna Silbert, is a harrowing chronicle of a death foretold, as the body of frustrated father John is brought back from the brink by the spirit of his teenage runaway daughter Kate. To find out how on earth he got himself in such a self-destructive state, Kate leads John on a backwards journey through happier times, before he found himself adrift in the city in search of someone he’ll never touch again.
Buckley sets John up on a near Scrooge-like trawl through the ghosts of times past, as an edgy, increasingly ferocious Neil McKinven roars his haunted way through an all too familiar matter of life and death. Wife, job and a life seen shakily through the bottom of a glass are all put under the microscope. As a foil for what looks initially like some workaday existential crisis, Cath Whitefield’s Kate slips into a disarming but equally troubling multitude of city voices, all of whom seem to John to be hiding something sinister.
Silbert pursues Buckley’s objective with a rough and ready vigour which never quite gives the game away, preferring to first hint, then cajole, then finally explode its truth apart. Watching McKinven’s John chase himself round in circles, seeing Kate’s image reflected in everything and everyone, one begins to understand how, having seemingly killed the thing he loves most, the final push into the abyss must come from him alone.
The Herald, November 7th 2007
ends
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