Published in the Guardian.
Good Things
Pitlochry Festival Theatre
4 out of 5
"The good things some folk throw away," says Alan Steele's Frazer, eyeing up a bin bag of castoffs in Liz Lochhead's midlife crisis comedy. Like clothes in a charity shop, he and Carol Ann Crawford's Susan are good things that have been discarded – he bereaved by his mother, she dumped by her husband for a younger woman. Be it Christmas or Valentine's Day, they are the unwrapped presents nobody wants.
In a wish-fulfilment fantasy for the fortysomething generation, Susan is Cinderella, wishing she could get away with wearing a pair of red high heels again, and Frazer is her Buttons, destined to win our hearts and remain on the shelf. Prince Charming is Dougal Lee's David, a neighbour from over the road, while Isabelle Joss gamely plays the dame, darting in and out of the changing room and emerging freshly attired as a different character every time.
Five years after its debut, Lochhead's play is improving with age. There's still a bit too much of it and the pace can seem constrained by the naturalistic setting, but in Ken Alexander's sturdy production, it is proving to be a touching, warm-hearted and very funny expression of the lives of a lost generation.
That it works so well is partly because it finds an audience in Pitlochry that, being older than average, understands the characters' experiences dealing with elderly and dying relatives, and perhaps also wayward partners and defiant children. But it's also because of four splendid performances, chief among them Crawford, who plays Susan with assurance, grace and empathy. Not only does she understand the comedic rhythms of Lochhead's Glasgow speech patterns, but she delivers them with razor-sharp accuracy. It's a virtuoso performance, but played with such modesty that you only admire the character more, and hope against hope that the second-hand shoes will fit.
© Mark Fisher, 2009
Good Things
Pitlochry Festival Theatre
4 out of 5
"The good things some folk throw away," says Alan Steele's Frazer, eyeing up a bin bag of castoffs in Liz Lochhead's midlife crisis comedy. Like clothes in a charity shop, he and Carol Ann Crawford's Susan are good things that have been discarded – he bereaved by his mother, she dumped by her husband for a younger woman. Be it Christmas or Valentine's Day, they are the unwrapped presents nobody wants.
In a wish-fulfilment fantasy for the fortysomething generation, Susan is Cinderella, wishing she could get away with wearing a pair of red high heels again, and Frazer is her Buttons, destined to win our hearts and remain on the shelf. Prince Charming is Dougal Lee's David, a neighbour from over the road, while Isabelle Joss gamely plays the dame, darting in and out of the changing room and emerging freshly attired as a different character every time.
Five years after its debut, Lochhead's play is improving with age. There's still a bit too much of it and the pace can seem constrained by the naturalistic setting, but in Ken Alexander's sturdy production, it is proving to be a touching, warm-hearted and very funny expression of the lives of a lost generation.
That it works so well is partly because it finds an audience in Pitlochry that, being older than average, understands the characters' experiences dealing with elderly and dying relatives, and perhaps also wayward partners and defiant children. But it's also because of four splendid performances, chief among them Crawford, who plays Susan with assurance, grace and empathy. Not only does she understand the comedic rhythms of Lochhead's Glasgow speech patterns, but she delivers them with razor-sharp accuracy. It's a virtuoso performance, but played with such modesty that you only admire the character more, and hope against hope that the second-hand shoes will fit.
© Mark Fisher, 2009
