Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
Four stars
As single mums, ex cons and zero hours contract workers are thrown together with Tory councillors and other posh locals, each with a theme tune they share with the group, a cross-class, cross-gender, pan-generational supergroup finds unexpected harmony through singing together. There is romance, between Ryan Fletcher's twenty-something Donny and Nesha Caplan's unemployed Velia, sexual tension between Jess Murphy's suburban wife Charlotte and Peter Polycarpou's Khalid, and a melting pot of life between. In the end, however, it is tracksuit-clad Scott's political rap that divides the group.
As the first fruits of a partnership between the Citz and commercial producers Ambassadors Theatre Group, Dominic Hill's production navigates his cast towards a feelgood ending care of David Higham's rousing musical arrangements.
Four stars
It's fitting that Paul Higgins and
Ricky Ross' new musical play is set in the shabby, wood-panelled
walls of a Wishaw community hall. For among the chairs that sit as
mismatched as the people who form the choir founded by Iraqi
doctor, Khalid, there are few contemporary plays that nail their
colours to a grassroots mast quite as much as this.
As single mums, ex cons and zero hours contract workers are thrown together with Tory councillors and other posh locals, each with a theme tune they share with the group, a cross-class, cross-gender, pan-generational supergroup finds unexpected harmony through singing together. There is romance, between Ryan Fletcher's twenty-something Donny and Nesha Caplan's unemployed Velia, sexual tension between Jess Murphy's suburban wife Charlotte and Peter Polycarpou's Khalid, and a melting pot of life between. In the end, however, it is tracksuit-clad Scott's political rap that divides the group.
As the first fruits of a partnership between the Citz and commercial producers Ambassadors Theatre Group, Dominic Hill's production navigates his cast towards a feelgood ending care of David Higham's rousing musical arrangements.
While some of the political drive
raised by the rehearsal room fall-outs are so direct as to sound
heavy handed, and while some of the characters remain little more
than sketches, all this is off-set by an ingrained understanding of
the potency of cheap music, while the play's structure is steeped in
ceremony and ritual from the off. And if the melody to the play's
finale bears a nagging resemblance to Johnny Mandel's theme for
Robert Altman's film, M*A*S*H*, it's transformed into something
similarly powerful in this dramatic hymn to the power of song.
The Herald, October 29th 2015
ends
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