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Cry/Laugh

Òran Mór, Glasgow

Three stars

 

Hear ye this. When a town crier and a court jester gather as one for the pleasure of the king, soothsaying and hilarity will ensue. Or sometimes not. Such is the way in Nay Dhanak’s mini epic, the latest comic extravaganza to grace A Play, a Pie and a Pint’s current lunchtime theatre season. Here we find our ad hoc double act both out of a job, and reduced to telling their respective stories with a little help from some life size puppets and framed as a comedy masterclass. 

 

As they ply their past their sell by date wares with a stream of verbiage and well worn gags, the duo’s slapstick interplay becomes part of a mediaeval quest in search of a second sun to offset the unfortunate eclipse back home. Instead they find themselves thrown into the future, where the news is relayed in a million different hi-tech ways, punchlines are ten a penny, dragons aren’t so easily slain and Siri has an answer for everything. 

 

Dhanak has their dynamic duo take a walk on the madcap side in Brian Logan and Ben Standish’s production, which sees Morven Blackadder as Jester and James Peake as Crier lost in some latter day limbo with no one to listen to their tale. Their plight says much about a world that would rather tune in to assorted gizmos, gadgets and other latter day devil’s handiwork than make the effort required for some good old-fashioned face-to-face time. This is the case even if their surrealist flights of fancy lead them up the garden path and back again somewhat. As Jester and Crier’s strangers in a strange land attempt to find new ways of telling, however, this nevertheless makes for a deliriously absurdist hour. Oyez indeed!

 

The Herald, June 18th 2026   


Ends 


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