Skip to main content

My Left/Right Foot

Assembly Roxy
Four stars

It’s all happening down at the Kirktoon Amateur Dramatics Society. The company need a new show, and Louise McCarthy’s wannabe director Amy thinks she has just the thing if Gail Watson’s queen bee Sheena will give her the chance. With inclusivity policies meaning extra brownie points in the district am-dram competition, they hit on the idea of staging My Left Foot, the Oscar-winning film about Christy Brown, the working class Irish kid born with cerebral palsy, but who went on to become a writer and artist. As with the film, which saw Daniel Day-Lewis ‘crip up’ as Brown, KADS cast John McLarnon’s ex west end luv Grant in the lead. Dawn Sievewright’s love-struck Gillian, however, has other plans, particularly where Matthew Duckett’s Chris is concerned.

Softley Gale’s show is designed to mark inclusive company Birds of Paradise’s twenty-fifth anniversary, and is co-produced here with the National Theatre of Scotland. What follows is a potty-mouthed exercise in liberal-baiting bad taste that could easily be a Ryan Murphy TV show transplanted to a small Scottish town. As with Glee, what begins as parody uses irreverence as a weapon to make some serious points.

 Apart from anything else, the singing by the cast of eight is an overwrought wonder, with Scott Gilmour and Claire McKenzie’s compositions similarly too good to be pastiche. A couple of numbers by Jerry Springer The Opera’s Richard Thomas push things even further. Some of the show’s cleverest moments come from integrating Natalie MacDonald’s Nat as a signer for the hearing impaired, with musical director Gavin Whitworth giving visual descriptions.

All of this makes for a scurrilous but schmaltzy affair that kicks received notions of disability well into touch. In keeping with the tone of the piece, this makes for something utterly fan spastic.

The Herald, August 9th 2018


ends

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ron Butlin - The Sound of My Voice

When Ron Butlin saw a man who’d just asked him the time throw himself under a train on the Paris Metro, it was a turning point in how his 1987 novel, The Sound Of My Voice, would turn out. Twenty years on, Butlin’s tale of suburban family man Morris Magellan’s existential crisis and his subsequent slide into alcoholism is regarded as a lost classic. Prime material, then, for the very intimate stage adaptation which opens in the Citizens Theatre’s tiny Stalls Studio tonight. “I had this friend in London who was an alcoholic,” Butlin recalls. “He would go off to work in the civil service in the morning looking absolutely immaculate. Then at night we’d meet, and he’s get mega-blootered, then go home and continue drinking and end up in a really bad state. I remember staying over one night, and he’d emerge from his room looking immaculate again. There was this huge contrast between what was going on outside and what was going on inside.” We’re sitting in a café on Edinburgh’s south sid

Losing Touch With My Mind - Psychedelia in Britain 1986-1990

DISC 1 1. THE STONE ROSES   -  Don’t Stop 2. SPACEMEN 3   -  Losing Touch With My Mind (Demo) 3. THE MODERN ART   -  Mind Train 4. 14 ICED BEARS   -  Mother Sleep 5. RED CHAIR FADEAWAY  -  Myra 6. BIFF BANG POW!   -  Five Minutes In The Life Of Greenwood Goulding 7. THE STAIRS  -  I Remember A Day 8. THE PRISONERS  -  In From The Cold 9. THE TELESCOPES   -  Everso 10. THE SEERS   -  Psych Out 11. MAGIC MUSHROOM BAND  -  You Can Be My L-S-D 12. THE HONEY SMUGGLERS  - Smokey Ice-Cream 13. THE MOONFLOWERS  -  We Dig Your Earth 14. THE SUGAR BATTLE   -  Colliding Minds 15. GOL GAPPAS   -  Albert Parker 16. PAUL ROLAND  -  In The Opium Den 17. THE THANES  -  Days Go Slowly By 18. THEE HYPNOTICS   -  Justice In Freedom (12" Version) 1. THE STONE ROSES    Don’t Stop ( Silvertone   ORE   1989) The trip didn’t quite start here for what sounds like Waterfall played backwards on The Stone Roses’ era-defining eponymous debut album, but it sounds

Big Gold Dreams – A Story of Scottish Independent Music 1977-1989

Disc 1 1. THE REZILLOS (My Baby Does) Good Sculptures (12/77)  2. THE EXILE Hooked On You (8/77) 3. DRIVE Jerkin’ (8/77) 4. VALVES Robot Love (9/77) 5. P.V.C. 2 Put You In The Picture (10/77) 6. JOHNNY & THE SELF ABUSERS Dead Vandals (11/77) 7. BEE BEE CEE You Gotta Know Girl (11/77) 8. SUBS Gimme Your Heart (2/78) 9. SKIDS Reasons (No Bad NB 1, 4/78) 10. FINGERPRINTZ Dancing With Myself (1/79)  11. THE ZIPS Take Me Down (4/79) 12. ANOTHER PRETTY FACE All The Boys Love Carrie (5/79)  13. VISITORS Electric Heat (5/79) 14. JOLT See Saw (6/79) 15. SIMPLE MINDS Chelsea Girl (6/79) 16. SHAKE Culture Shock (7/79) 17. HEADBOYS The Shape Of Things To Come (7/79) 18. FIRE EXIT Time Wall (8/79) 19. FREEZE Paranoia (9/79) 20. FAKES Sylvia Clarke (9/79) 21. TPI She’s Too Clever For Me (10/79) 22. FUN 4 Singing In The Showers (11/79) 23. FLOWERS Confessions (12/79) 24. TV21 Playing With Fire (4/80) 25. ALEX FERGUSSON Stay With Me Tonight (1980) 1. THE REZILL