Images: Peter Dibdin & Paul Davies.

“Distinct, succinct, and valuable”

Editorial Rating:  4 Stars: Nae Bad

Take two names of the same man, move him from Dingwall to Colombo, via Kandahar, Omdurman, and Bloemfontein, and you have an extraordinary life. It should be a history in an imperial sense – proud and impressive, monumentally worthy of respect – and in Scotland it surely is; but add sleazy allegations, the New York Herald, and a hotel bedroom in Paris and it’s all demeaned.

Born Eachann Gilleasbaig MacDhòmhnaill in Mulbuie on the Black Isle, Major General Sir Hector Archibald MacDonald shot himself in the head in the Hotel Regina on 25 March 1903. He was 50 years old. This distinct, succinct, and valuable play by David Gooderson, directed by Kate Nelson, would show how, in all likelihood, this came about.

There is a parade ground moment of wounding significance, there is a battle-field manoeuvre of astonishing derring-do, but actually it’s all set up in the mincing and treacherous line, ‘None of us would be called a fairy’, viciously twisted from ‘Three Little Maids from School Are We’. ‘Fighting Mac’, the crofter’s son from Ross-shire, had no defence against tittle-tattle and class prejudice. His face may have been on cigarette cards but the Governor’s wife cares only for (English) officers who can waltz.

Look at Hector MacDonald, courtesy of ebay, and see Steven Duffy – broad, ramrod straight, level gaze – but without sword, sash and medals. Actually, keeping uniform to plain khaki and the odd puttee is quietly effective, as is the Highland lilt to Hector’s voice. Fancy jackets, drawled vowels, a certain moneyed ease and a torpid morality are the property of the colonial administrators and the plantation owners. Valentine Hanson is especially conspicuous as the scheming Hugh Phipps and an excellent Kevin Lenon is the chaplain, possessed of a conscience certainly, but with not quite enough of it to do any good. The Governor (Stevie Hannon) and his frightful Lady (Gowan Calder) would curl their upper lips in disdain if they knew that Hector’s London home is in middle-class Dulwich. And Hector has another, much more precious secret that comes as a smart surprise early in the second half.

Ali MacLaurin’s serviceable set is out of a military transport: an unfussy assembly of crates, a desert-blown tarp across the back, boarding steps, and a larger, rectangular box that doubles as wardrobe and coffin. (Listen up for the time of Hector’s funeral. It’s both sad and scandalous.) There is a tantalising snatch of the pipes and drums, just possibly of  ‘The Black Bear’, but the fuller, evocative sound is of strathspey and reel and of gaelic song, beautifully gathered at the close.

My one gripe is with Lord Roberts, supposedly Hector’s army mentor and ally. He bellows a final order that in fact does for Hector. I would have thought it would have been a kinder encounter along the lines of, “Now see here, Archie, this wretched business has to be faced down ….” However, what do I know? David Gooderson has had to work on what is known of MacDonald’s last years when it is clear that relevant letters and papers were ‘lost’ or destroyed. Fortunately, Raj Ghatak, who plays Roberts, also has the much more sympathetic part of the local bank manager, Vikram.

Poppy Day,  introduced in 1919, came too late for Hector MacDonald, but for him (and for the Gordon Highlanders) here are the concluding sentences to the Government Commission’s report on his death:
‘…. We find that the late Sir Hector MacDonald has been cruelly assassinated by vile and slanderous tongues … we cannot but deplore the sad circumstances of the case that have fallen so disastrously on one whom we have found innocent of any crime attributed to him.’

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 11 November)

Go to ‘Hector’ at Ed Littlewood Productions.

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Karen Sutherland and John Edgar.
Photo: Douglas Jones & Emma Quinn.

“Go Bob, go!”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars: Nae Bad

A Lung Ha Theatre Company production in association with Luminate, Scotland’s creative ageing festival.

Go looking for ‘Thingummy’ in a dictionary and you’ll find ‘Thing + a meaningless suffix, colloquial [since] 1751′. Well, there is nothing sketchy, meaningless or dated about this prize piece from writer Linda McLean and Lung Ha Theatre. It is plain, touching, and enjoyable; which is totally unsurprising when you learn that its title song is The Young Ones by Cliff Richard and The Shadows, 1962 (and counting). It is a bit mean of me to draw your attention to line 6, ‘For we won’t be the young ones very long’, but that’s the inescapable bit.

Bob (John Edgar) is in a wheelchair in a care home and is on a mission to rescue his LP records and what he can of his memory. He knows that he likes caramel wafers and is none too keen on pill popping. He loves his wife Audrey very much and wants to get back to their house but he cannot find his keys. He is determined, resourceful and witty and when he says “I do so mean it”, he does.

Binox (Karen Sutherland) has the job of keeping her eyes on Bob. She is the speaking voice of the care home’s security system and – binoculars trained – she would follow him wherever he goes. Charge Nurse (Kenneth Ainslie) and auxiliary Cap (Mark Howie) do their caring best and his niece Gemma (Emma McCaffrey) is always reassuring and kind but Bob can be hard to keep track of. The police get in on the act too. Bob’s other niece, Lesley (Karen Sutherland again), sends warm letters and postcards but she’s in Sydney, Aus. so really it’s down to his neighbour, Mrs Johnson (Kenneth Ainslie once more), to put the kettle on for when Bob makes it home.

It’s a fun pursuit that is made all the more engaging by the breadth and space of the set design by Karen Tennent. M C Escher squares and a revolving centre piece might suggest a board game – with rapping moves –  but the projection of photographs from Bob’s family album adds a whole new dimension. Personal really. Music by Philip Pinsky provides a catchy accompaniment, complete with scratches from those treasured 33s.

At one point, when Bob is trying to reach Audrey, Gemma says ‘”This is too sad”. It is and it isn’t, which is the appeal of ‘Thingummy Bob’. McLean’s script is clever, switching from the short and conversational – especially Cap’s serial “Aye’s” – to the longer, more considered and reflective sequencing of Binox and Lesley. Certainly the issues of aging and dementia are well in place but it is Bob’s story and Edgar’s performance that hold the stage as he wheels around it.

Artistic director Maria Oller and Movement Director Janis Claxton find great, sympathetic, cheer from this closing couplet of ‘The Young Ones’, ‘And some day when the years have flown / Darling, this will teach the young ones of our own’. Go Bob, go!

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 30 October)

Go to Lung Ha Theatre Company and Luminate

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Photo: Leslie Black

” … doolally moments get longer and longer”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars: Nae Bad

The fourth in this autumn’s ‘A Play, a Pie, and a Pint’; presented in association with Luminate, Scotland’s creative ageing festival.

Do you play ‘Trivial Pursuit’? Remember the rules? Where do those wee scoring wedges go, the ones that make up the ‘pie’? When did England win the World Cup? Rob is certain he knows the answers but he doesn’t, not at all.

You might go down with a bad cold, but Rob is going down with dementia and he’s probably only in his mid-fifties. That’s ‘Younger Onset Dementia’ then.

Linda Duncan McLaughlin’s play is not comfortable and it is definitely not trivial. It takes 60 minutes of stage time for Rob to go from running his own architectural practice to forgetting how to sit in a chair. His wife, Cathy, does more than her best to care for him but their daughter, Nicola, can see that there comes a point when Dad is too far gone and that Mum cannot continue the struggle to keep him at home, not least for the sake of her own health.

That Rob is an architect is a cruel touch. He has always found pleasure, even beauty, in design and function but here is laid low, kaboshed, by a condition that reduces his brain to formless mush. While he grows frantic because he cannot find his pen we see display models carefully arranged on the wall and neat plans on his drawing board. Rob knuckles his forehead in frustration as his doolally moments get longer and longer but there’s nothing feeble-minded about Barrie Hunter’s performance.

“Everything’s slipping”, says Cathy, and a clock tick-tocks away in the dark scene intervals. Wendy Seager’s calm presence is all the more disquieting in this exacting role. Cathy holds on to Rob as long as she can, which puts her at considerable risk, but their home grows silent, then empty, and finally there is nothing left, just an absence. Nicola (Fiona MacNeil) has, as she puts it, ‘to kick the walls down’.

It is a steep descent, narrowing all the while. McLaughlin and director Allie Butler steady it with a retrospective structure, instances of shared speech and some explicit commentary. The audience, selfishly, is  especially alert when the signs-to-look-out-for are tested at home. Rob, bless him, is appalled – and scared.

NHS Lothian is ‘Making Edinburgh dementia friendly’ at the moment. Look out for a leaflet in the libraries asking whether you are ‘Worried about your memory or someone else’s?’ If you’re not, Descent will make you think again.

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Reviewer: Alan Brown(Seen 20 October)

Go to Descent at the Traverse here

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