Oran Mor, Glasgow
Three stars
Life is one great big musical for Charlie, the young woman at the heart of Taylor Dyson and Calum Kelly’s lo-fi musical, the latest lunchtime treat as part of Oran Mor’s current A Play, a Pie and a Pint season of bite-size theatre. For Charlie, alas, where once all she had to think about was the job she loved in the Inverness bowling alley that gives the play its title, a run of everyday tragedies suggests any kind of happy ending is a long way off yet.
Having lost her job, her home and all of her family except her brother Ross overnight, Charlie’s solution is to head for Dundee, where her granddad’s long lost brother may or may not be hiding behind sunglasses and a Stetson. Missing presumed lost by Ross, Charlie’s penchant for attracting disaster causes him to fear the worst. Charlie, however, is merely changing lanes as she finds a new song to sing.
There is charm aplenty in Dyson and Kelly’s quirky tale of an innocent abroad whose world is turned upside down before she finds her feet again. The fact that the world Charlie inhabits is coloured with the fantastical largesse of cheap pleasure palaces and country and western bars gives Beth Morton’s production a sense of low rent surrealism. This is heightened by Fraser Lappin’s set that looks like it could be a backdrop for an out of season end of the pier cabaret night. If this were a film, it would come in vivid Eastman colour pastels with a cast sporting vintage apparel.
As it is, Dyson’s turn as a kooky Charlie takes her on an off-kilter rites of passage, while Ewan Somers’ doubling up as Ross and assorted grandparents and workmates lends to the show’s overriding oddness. Co-presented with Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival, and with Dyson and Kelly’s creative partnership as the Dundee based Elfie Picket Theatre joining forces here, the result is an archly realised getting of wisdom containing more substance than its surface slightness suggests.
The Herald, May 15th 2025
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