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Theatre
REVIEW NEW PLAY
THE DUCKY
Tron Theatre. Glasgow, Tue 19—Sat 23 May; Macrobert, Stirling,
Thu 28 May. Seen at Eastwood Park Theatre. Glasgow. Wed 6 May 0...
Douglas Maxwell better .vatc‘h out Until last year the playwright had cornered the market in .vhirnsical comedies about A/fSlllfb‘ teenagers. Then along came DC JacksOn ‘Hlill The Wa// — lll which a gang of Stewarton youngsters crossed the threshold from childhood innocence to adult self-awareness and challenged him at his own game Now Jackson is back wrth the Borderline ensemble and The Ducky, a second helping of small—town coirrrngcf-age larks that proves rust as loveably funny.
It's the summer holidays again, but two years have passed and the kids who were finding their feet in The Wa// are trying to carve a place in the adult world. For Michelle and Rab. the Independence of univerSIty h; s not proved all it's cracked up to be, while 16-year-old Norma is contemplating the consequences of losing her Vlfgllllly,
There's nothing new about this landscape but Jackson invests rt wrth such sharp observation, empathy and wrt that it's rrnpossble not to be charmed. This is esrmcmlly the case in Jemima Levrck's well-paced production, her actors investing these teenage dramas wrth the kind of life- and-death urgency only adolescence can summon up. Whether it’s Hannah Donaldson learning about mortality; Finn den Hertog coming to terms With failure; Sally Reid choosmg what's best for her; Alan Trrpney getting hrs girl; or Jonathan Holt discovering the limitations of brawn, the performances are as tenderly drawn as they are hilarious. (Mark Fisher)
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PREVIEW NE‘W WORK LOVE’S TIME’S BEGGAR Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Wed 20—Fri 22 May
If you were about to die, and could select one abiding memory to keep with you in the hereafter, what would it be? Hirokazu Koreeda’s film Afterlife dreamed up this intriguing premise about a decade back, and it stayed in director, writer and actor Cora Bissett’s memory long enough to make it a starting point for Ankur’s new show.
Her production, Love’s Time’s Beggar, devised with Ankur’s ethnic minority community company, focuses on a group of people as they arrive at heaven’s gate to tell their stories and select their memory. ‘Five characters arrive completely disorientated, they haven‘t a clue where they are, and proceed to tell their stories before they go into the afterlife,’ Bissett says. ‘There are two characters greeting them — one is a kind of cabaret host who kind of taunts and mocks the people arriving, the other is a kind of philosopher figure.’
The characters’ stories range from tales with an element of political awareness to stories of personal adversity; two of them illustrate this. ‘There’s a story
REVIEW NEW PLAY HOORS
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat 23 May; Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Tue 26 May-Sat 6 Jun 0.
It's ineVItable that Gregory Burke's new comedy Will he considered in the light of multi award-Winning international smash B/ack Watch. but. by any standards Hoors is a major disappomtment. The main problem is one of tone. When grieving almost-widow Vicky (Lisa Gardner) disdainfiilly whrsks the cover off her trance Andy's coffin our expectations are primed for a wrcked black comedy And Burke's; is a promising premrse: Big Andy died of a heart attack on the plane home from his now legendary stag weekend. but the bnde-to-be is more f(3l|(?‘.“t3(l than upset - in fact she's already transferred her affections to Stevie (Michael Morelandr. Rather than delivering the hoped-for black farce. however. the piece descends into dreary sexual politics as Vicky and Sister Nikki (Catherine Murray) embark on a coke- and alcohol-fuelled night wrth Steve and hrs Lotharro pal. Toni, iAnd; Clarkr Their discussons are banal. the characters cold and self-serving. the performances generally listless (although Clark does make a convincmg fist of the self-loathing Tony). and the garish, rotating set is a pointless distraction. Bnrrke makes a few trite pornts about the characters' pathetic slavery to fashion and there's the odd amusing observation in among the puerrle humour. but a fer. half- decent punchlines don't make for good drama. Hopefully. Hoors wrll come to represent a blip in Burke‘s otherwrse impressive body of work. iAllan Radcliffe
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about a mineworker in Zimbabwe who points out to his bosses that the mines are very dangerous — he goes down the mine to prove this and gets trapped.’ explains Bissett. ‘But there's something affirming about the idea of this sacrifice for the sake of other people. There’s also a woman who has been sexually abused, who in her dying days learns to find things to like about herself.‘
Bissett’s process seems to have uncovered much in the human psyche about what we choose to remember. ‘We started with the significant moments in the casts‘ lives. Wierdly enough everyone came back with quite sad memories. Is there something about a feeling like that — say losing someone, or some other tragedy that affects you and changes you more profoundly than the happier parts of your life? We ended up with a mixed bag, which started with personal stories, but moved on to fictional stories, with people all contributing writing to the piece.’
She continues: ‘Although the stories have a tragic turn, I‘m aiming for it not to be an angst ridden piece of horribleness — each character finds something to take into the afterlife that is quite affirming.’ (Steve Cramer)
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