Scottish Youth Theatre, Glasgow
Four stars
It’s time to sink or swim for Cammy, the young woman at the centre
of Catriona McNicoll’s new play, performed by an eighteen-strong crew from the
Citizens Theatre Young Company. Cammy is in a coma in a hospital bed after
trying to kill herself. Her mum may be at her bedside along with assorted
doctors and nurses, but Cammy’s fevered imagination has got the better of her
and left her all at sea, where she embarks on a trip to some far off horizon
she’s never visited before.
With her bed transformed into a sailing ship, whether her maiden
voyage is a one-way ticket to oblivion or not depends on whether she lets the
not so brave Captain beside her take the steering wheel. Far better at navigating
is the ship’s engineer, while assorted stowaways bob in and out of view along
with a Busby Berkeley style chorus that takes Cammy’s fantasia into far
stranger waters.
Running just over an hour long, McNicoll’s play dives head-first
into Cammy’s all too lucid dream. Director Neil Packham leads his bright young
cast through all manner of uncharted territory on Neil Haynes’
constantly-in-motion set. Here, teenage mental health issues are seen from the
inside in a not always comfortable theatrical fusion of fantasy and reality.
As a former Young Company member, McNicoll knows exactly who she’s
writing for in terms of both performers and audience. The hallucinatory rabbit
hole she has Cammy jump down sees Kari Hall bring her to life as a troubled but
vibrant presence, channelling both the trauma and the absurdity of her
character’s situation before she tries to find her way again. There are
fine turns too from Ellie Jack as Captain and Kai Ross as Engineer, who lead
the rest of the ensemble gamely through the storm until the clouds lift and
Cammy can go home once more in an emotional voyage fired by the wayward power
of the imagination.
The Herald, January 30th 2020
ends
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