The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Oor Wullie! Your Wullie! A’body’s Wullie!
Dundee Rep, November 23-January 5
He relished going solo earlier this year, now Scotland’s favourite comic-strip prankster is hitting the road with his best pals.
Forever young Oor Wullie took up residency across the nation’s cities in August, when 200 decorative casts of the cheeky DC Thomson favourite popped up as part of his BIG Bucket Trail to raise money for Ninewells Hospital kids charity The ARCHIE Foundation and Edinburgh and Glasgow’s children’s hospitals.
Now, the spiky-haired urchin will play it for laughs over the next three months in his own musical extravaganza.
The new production has its muchanticipated world premiere at Dundee Rep tomorrow, and following a six-week stint in Wullie’s birth city, the familyfriendly adventure moves on to such prestigious venues as Glasgow Theatre Royal and Edinburgh’s Kings, as well as six other major Scottish theatres including the Adam Smith in Kirkcaldy from March 9-11.
Being brought to the stage by Dundee Rep Ensemble in collaboration with international theatre production company Selladoor and award-winning Noisemaker musical writing team Scott Gilmour and Claire McKenzie, the quirky work stars Paisley-born Martin Quinn – who appeared at Dundee Rep in cult horror Let The Right One In and Stephen Greenhorn’s Passing Places – in the lead role.
A strong cast also includes Ensemble founding members Ann Louise Ross and Irene Macdougall, Dundee Rep graduate actors Bailey Newsome and Leah Byrne as Wullie’s loyal sidekick Soapy Soutar and posh girl Primrose Paterson respectively; and another Tay Square alumni in the shape of Leanne Traynor, who portrays a reimagined version of town bully Basher Mackenzie.
Of course, tenement-dwelling Wullie’s gang wouldn’t be complete without his lifelong pals Fat Boab and Wee Eck, and it’s Dan Buckley and Grant McIntyre who’re bringing the not-so dynamic duo to the stage.
An earlier launch event held at the Theatre Royal provided a sneak preview of a couple of the original numbers penned for the show by Gilmour and McKenzie.
Dundee Rep’s Fife-born artistic director Andrew Panton is promising a modern slant on the iconic Sunday Post creation, first published in March 1936. The comic strip’s original cartoonist Dudley D Watkins continued to give life to dungaree-clad Wullie and friends right up to his own passing in 1969.
The new production’s visuals have been put together by acclaimed Glasgow-based set and costume designer Kenneth McLeod, who has given Oor Wullie’s timeless artistic blueprint an added contemporary feel.