Eight

Tron Theatre, Glasgow
3 stars
When Ella Hickson’s debut work appeared at the fag-end of the 
twenty-first century’s first decade, her octet of monologues tapped 
into a similar emotional and spiritual void that had fascinated a new 
wave of playwrights a decade before. Almost half a decade on, the 
student-based NewUpNorth-Scotland company’s revival now looks and 
sounds like a little time capsule of a fragmented society at rest and 
in motion, with each of Hickson’s characters taking pause for thought 
at what they’ve become.

Nowhere is this more evident than with Millie, the jolly-hockeysticks 
hooker who tends to poetry-loving toffs put out to grass by the rise of 
New Labour. With David Cameron’s Westminster government posher than 
ever, one suspects the Millie of today would either be serving her 
constituency with renewed gusto or else find herself side-lined as her 
boys pack some Bullingdon-sired lead in their pencils elsewhere.
While many of the pieces now look similarly of their time, others 
remain ageless. Council-estate skivvy Bobby is a sadly familiar 
portrait of a woman failed by the state, while Astrid’s salvation 
through illicit sexual liaisons and teenage boy abroad Jude’s getting 
of wisdom are both ageless.

While having all eight performers onstage gathered in a circle around a 
large table implies some kind of communal confessional, as the lights 
go up and down on each in Mark Stevenson’s production, it also lends 
things an air of quiz show contestants awaiting their chance to shine. 
Fortunately, there are several finely nuanced performances, 
particularly from Scarlett Mack as Bobby and Maria Teresa Creasey as 
Astrid in a still moving compendium culled from observations of very 
recent history.

The Herald, June 14thth 2012

ends