Tron Theatre, Glasgow
2 stars
Once upon a time, a woman called Katherine sits locked up in a big house with her ageing mother Dorothy, hammy old step-father Fergus and her mother’s carer Delilah. Katherine’s handsome prince Tom has traded her in for a younger model, and now there’s just the divorce settlement and the houses sale to sort out. Except, Tom and Katherine aren’t actually married, and must make a pilgrimage to get hitched before the decree absolute can be put through.
Such unlikely machinations give backbone to the first two scenes in Ionna Anderson’s play, directed by Andy Arnold for The Tron Theatre Company in a bright, wide-open but seriously out of time production. Because the life and death journey we’re taken on with Katherine aims for the elegiac, but ends up part Irish Aga saga, part Sunday night comfort TV with a 1970s feminist epiphany thrown in.
There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but, given the baggage which experience has gifted Katherine, her belated wake-up call once the formerly caring, sharing Delilah returns as a potty-mouthed temptress straight out of Sugar Rush leaves you wondering what all the fuss is about. Especially as Katy Perry’s hit song of the moment, I Kissed A Girl, gets to the heart of the matter in considerably less time than the extended exposition scenes allow for here. In less liberal times Anderson’s play, performed sensitively enough by Barbara Wilshere leading a cast of five as Katherine, might have been a revelation. Here, though, it’s hard to tell whether Katherine’s found her happy ever after or just a mid life crisis to call her own.
The Herald, October 2nd 2008
ends
2 stars
Once upon a time, a woman called Katherine sits locked up in a big house with her ageing mother Dorothy, hammy old step-father Fergus and her mother’s carer Delilah. Katherine’s handsome prince Tom has traded her in for a younger model, and now there’s just the divorce settlement and the houses sale to sort out. Except, Tom and Katherine aren’t actually married, and must make a pilgrimage to get hitched before the decree absolute can be put through.
Such unlikely machinations give backbone to the first two scenes in Ionna Anderson’s play, directed by Andy Arnold for The Tron Theatre Company in a bright, wide-open but seriously out of time production. Because the life and death journey we’re taken on with Katherine aims for the elegiac, but ends up part Irish Aga saga, part Sunday night comfort TV with a 1970s feminist epiphany thrown in.
There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but, given the baggage which experience has gifted Katherine, her belated wake-up call once the formerly caring, sharing Delilah returns as a potty-mouthed temptress straight out of Sugar Rush leaves you wondering what all the fuss is about. Especially as Katy Perry’s hit song of the moment, I Kissed A Girl, gets to the heart of the matter in considerably less time than the extended exposition scenes allow for here. In less liberal times Anderson’s play, performed sensitively enough by Barbara Wilshere leading a cast of five as Katherine, might have been a revelation. Here, though, it’s hard to tell whether Katherine’s found her happy ever after or just a mid life crisis to call her own.
The Herald, October 2nd 2008
ends
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