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Restless Natives: The Musical

Perth Theatre

Four stars

 

Life’s a joke for Will and Ronnie at the start of this brand new stage version of Ninian Dunnett, Michael Hoffman and Andy Paterson’s 1985 big screen curio, which rode the wave of post Gregory’s Girl Scottish whimsy with an Edinburgh world view that was a gift to tourist board types. 

 

While neglected at the time of the film’s release, forty years on, the whimsy is still intact, but there is a whole lot more going on besides, as the trio reposition their film as a feelgood musical with a higher purpose. Heroes don’t wear capes here, but, as with the film, sport clown and wolfman masks instead, as Will and Ronnie make the move from not so merry pranksters to dandy highwaymen. 

 

On the run from their back street roots to hold up the highland tourist buses, the pair become international legends en route. As Will finds romance in the arms of tourist guide Margot, Ronnie falls in with a bad crowd of comedy gangsters who seem to have stepped out of a Guy Ritchie movie after being possessed by Lionel Bart.  America comes calling, meanwhile, in the face of special agent Bender. This prompts a dance off between a stetson sporting Sarah Galbraith as Bender and a Scottish jig from Kirsty MacLaren’s eternal romantic, Margot.

 

Director Hoffman and choreographer Chris Stuart Wilson navigate their eleven-strong ensemble across Becky Minto’s ingenious set, which manages to double up as joke shop, highland road and tourist bus without missing a beat. 

 

While much of the show’s 1980s tinged pop showtunes are originals with lyrics by Dunnett set to music by Tim Sutton, it begins, as it has to, with a communal chorale of Big Country’s still stirring In a Big Country.  Played by a four piece live band under the musical direction of Hilary Brooks, this sets the tone for an unashamedly sentimental burl through a tale of working class aspiration, the desire to become a somebody and create brand new myths. Coming at a time when Thatcher’s Britain was at its peak, the show’s increasingly widescreen dreams of what Scotland could be is a rabble-rousing counterpoint. 

 

Kyle Gardiner as Ronnie and Finlay McKillop as Will spar like a classic double act. Joined by MacLaren, they become something akin to the trio in Jean Luc Godard’s nouvelle vague crime caper, Bande à part. As a classic from Scotland’s own new wave, this is a call to arms for local heroes everywhere.


The Herald, April 28th 2025

 

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