Theatre
Local Hero
Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh
Until May 4
Nora: A Doll’s House
Tramway, Glasgow
Until April 6
Gaslight
Perth Theatre
Until April 6
By MARK BROWN
The long-awaited stage musical based upon Bill Forsyth’s much-loved screen comedy Local Hero (with music and lyrics by Mark Knopfler) has finally arrived. Sad to say, however, this staging of the story of a north-west Scottish coastal community in the grip of a promised oil boom is a moderately entertaining disappointment.
A co-production between the Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh and London’s Old Vic, the show boasts a book that is credited to Forsyth and acclaimed playwright (and Lyceum artistic director ) David Greig; although, it must be said, Forsyth has distanced himself from it, claiming to have been sidelined from the creative process. That said, the narrative of director John Crowley’s production sticks fairly assiduously to the script of the movie.
Fans of the film might bemoan the absence of such characters as Oldsen (played by a young Peter Capaldi in the movie) and mermaid Marina (played by Jenny Seagrove). However, there is no question that the musical has strong leadership in the shape of Matthew Pidgeon (tremendously funny as lusty hotelier and deal broker Gordon) and Damian Humbley (suitably forlorn and romantic in the role of Texas oilman MacIntyre).
Perversely, the Achilles heel of the production turns out to be Knopfler’s score. Despite having his own memorable theme tune from the film and a Highland ceilidh to play with, he manages to create a set of overly-sentimental, underpowered and forgettable numbers.
Which is a great shame, as both Luke Hall’s impressive video projections of the night sky over Wester Ross and the no-holds-barred performances of a talented and energetic cast are worthy of the successful show this could, and should, have been.
If (what I suppose we have to call) Greig and Knopfler’s musical disappoints, Nora: A Doll’s House, Stef Smith’s sweeping adaptation of Ibsen’s great play of gender and class in late 19th-century Scandinavia, is catastrophically misconceived. Set, simultaneously, in Britain in 1918, 1968 and 2018, this Citizens Theatre Company production is as clear an example as you will see of the careful structure of a classical drama collapsing under the weight of an adapter’s political intent.
The three periods of Smith’s self-described “radical new version” enable her to alight upon such issues as women’s suffrage (partly achieved in 1918), the introduction of the contraceptive pill (1961), the first achievement of abortion rights (1967) and the continued struggle against misogyny and gender inequality today. Confusingly, this requires three versions of Nora Helmer (the middle-class wife and mother who breaks out of her gilded cage) and three incarnations of her old friend Kristine Linde (Anglicised here as Christine); both are played alternately and, sometimes, simultaneously (when, excruciatingly, the trio speak all at once) by Anna Russell-Martin, Maryam Hamidi and Molly Vevers.
It also requires Tim Barrow to perform three versions of Nora’s husband Thomas (Smith’s unholy trinity based upon Ibsen’s banker patriarch Torvald Helmer). This he does, as per the script, with a one-dimensional representation of oppressive sexism, ranging from the infantilising language of the 1918 Thomas to the brutal physical assault by the current day husband.
The problem with all of this is that, politically well-intentioned and urgent though it is, it forces its point making upon Ibsen’s play with such a lack of subtlety that it destroys the near perfect calibration of the original drama. Consequently, neither director Elizabeth Freestone nor her variably accomplished cast are able to imbue Smith’s overloaded and increasingly polemical script with the power its subject matter deserves.
Where the Citizens’ show vulgarises a carefully constructed classic, Perth Theatre’s production of Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play Gaslight makes an excellent evening’s theatre of what is, in truth, a pretty decent, if conventional, detective thriller. The drama is set in Victorian London in the well-to-do home of the menacing sculptor Jack Manningham (Robin Laing on impressively obnoxious form) and his oppressed, self-doubting wife Bella (a fine, sympathetic performance by Esme Bayley).
As the play unfolds, one is disturbed and intrigued (but not gripped) by Manningham’s patronising and bullying of his wife (who, he insists, is losing her mind). However, the drama moves into thriller mode with the arrival of Rough, a retired detective who has never quite been able to let go of an unsolved murder that occurred in this very house.
It is in the cross-casting of Rough, who remains male, but is played by Meg Fraser (for my money, one of the finest Scottish stage actors of the last quarter century), that the production is elevated above the ordinary. Playing the role with the natural lyricism of her native north-east of Scotland, Fraser gives the hard-bitten detective an emotional depth, wit and, often, laugh-out-loud humour that goes well beyond Hamilton’s characterisation.
Fraser mesmerises, keeping us entirely and compellingly in the moment. Which is the greatest gift an actor can give the audience, and, indeed, the director of any stage thriller.
Ruby Richardson offers a strong performance as the underhanded, flirtatious servant Nancy, while director and designer Kai Fischer carries out both roles with an equal deftness of touch.
These reviews were originally published in The Herald on Sunday on March 31, 2019
© Mark Brown
Scottish Stage 