Oran Mor, Glasgow
Three stars
When Paul McCartney decided to get his head together in the country in the aftermath of the Beatles splitting up, this took him and his then wife Linda to the wilds of his Campbeltown farm. This eventually sired their band Wings’ 1977 Christmas number one, Mull of Kintyre.
Before all that, however, Fab Macca had Kathy and Jack to contend with. As the now seventy-something grandparents to Molly explain to her for an oral history project in Milly Sweeney’s new play, it was Beatles daft Jack’s idea for the couple to go on holiday to Campbeltown. It was the long hot summer of 1976, and Jack had a vague but determined notion of meeting his pop idol. What happens instead is a series of more everyday epiphanies that force the young couple to navigate their often fractious relationship while making a set of memories that will last a lifetime.
Sally Reid’s production for this first show in a new season of lunchtime theatre presented by A Play, a Pie and a Pint sees actors Maureen Carr as Kathy and Jonathan Watson as Jack step in and out of their characters shared past inbetween telling their sometimes conflicting story. Co-presented with Aberdeen Performing Arts, Pitlochry Festival Theatre and the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Sweeney’s charming if slight anecdotal affair is based on true events, and suggests that the everyday merry-go-round of a marriage is not unlike being in a band. This is one excuse for the Beatles splitting up, anyway.
As Kathy and Jack make clear to their unseen granddaughter, however, there is plenty of life to be had regardless. We never get to find out what happened next when they finally find McCartney’s house and knock on his door. Given the current profile of Wings era Paul by way of the recent documentary, book and CD box set documenting his 1970s era, it might be time to tell all.
The Herald, February 26th 2026
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