Dundee Rep
Four stars
Icons don’t come much
bigger in this country than Oor Wullie. The spiky-topped tearaway and his
bucket-wielding antics in small-town Auchenshoogle have made generations of
comic strip readers part of Wullie’s gang ever since he was first created by
Dudley D. Watkins in 1936. That sense of inclusion pervades this bold stage
adaptation by writer and lyricist Scott Gilmour and composer Claire McKenzie,
the internationally successful musical theatre duo behind the Noisemaker
company, who have joined forces with Dundee Rep and Selladoor Productions to
allow Wullie to make the leap from page to stage.
Andrew Panton’s
production enables this by way of a set-up where Eklovey Kashyap’s disaffected
real world schoolboy Wahid, on the run from everyday racism in the classroom,
is loaned an Oor Wullie annual by a mysterious librarian called Dudley. Through
this portal comes Wullie himself, played by Martin Quinn as a gallus Peter
Pan-like sprite in search of his stolen bucket. From this jumping off point,
Wullie and Wahid embark on an awfully big adventure in a construction that
draws from teen movie angst, with all the explorations of belonging, social
cliques and the urge to stay forever young that goes with the genre.
With George Drennan
regaling the audience with rhyming couplets as Dudley, Wullie and co become a
kind of Scooby gang who land in an episode of Glee soundtracked by the sort of
infectiously raucous Caledonian-tinged pop designed to rouse nations. There is
also a scene-stealing gospel routine to treasure care of Ann Louise Ross as PC
Murdoch and Irene Macdougall’s smitten teacher.
Gilmour’s patter-rich
dialogue is shot through with a fruitily baroque swagger that creates a demotic
all its own. As Panton’s cast of ten stride through the sliding doors and
rubbish bins of Kenneth Macleod’s set, the play’s family friendly treatise on
friendship, belonging and strength through unity is as good a festive message
as any in a show that brings knowingness and depth to a classic cartoon hero.
The Herald, December 2nd 2019
Ends
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