Play, Pie, Pint

Oran Mor, Glasgow

29th May – 3rd June

Stagecraft:    Book:    Performance:

The initial setting for this musical play by Dave Anderson is a fairground strung with coloured light bulbs. An un-named jaikie, played by the author is woken from a melancholy dream to tell his tale. Two ersatz carnival organs provide backing in a mini-musical that carousels from the Great Depression of the 1930s to the aftermath of World War II. A lyric refers to once upon a time – anywhere but here and maybe that is why things move around perplexingly from the Palais in Glasgow (ur yi dancin) to moonlit Copenhagen with an impassioned tango in between. Or maybe the lack of clarity reflects the disjointed memories of the jaikie? 

Christine Bovill plays the chanteuse with vocal authority ably accompanied by an energetic Stasi Schaeffer and Kevin Lennon as the young couple falling in love while the world prepares for war. The play is sung throughout and the songs tackle big, significant themes, social injustice, parental expectations, Nazi atrocities, world peace and women’s rights. Mr Anderson has chosen to work on an enormous canvas, attempting to draw parallels between now and the past in what is a brave, ambitious but ultimately confusing endevour.

Reviewer : David G Moffat