Imaginative adaptation brilliantly portrays an inner world

THEATRE

Wee Free! The Musical

Oran Mor, Glasgow

Although church attendance in Scotland has plummeted since the 1960s, and the country is now almost as thoroughly secular as England, the nation somehow still seems to enjoy its traditional self-image as a place full of troublesome ministers with stern views; and so it is in this latest Play, Pie And Pint lunchtime minimusical, written by Hilary Brooks and Clive King.

Admittedly, the story is set in the early 1980s, a full generation ago; so it’s perhaps not surprising that when Morna, a Glasgow music teacher with purple-streaked hair and lime-green leggings, arrives on the small Hebridean island of Munst, her style and appearance cause a stir, as does her burgeoning romance with Angus Headteacher, the brother of the local man of God, Angus Minister.

And although Angus Minister, played with relish by George Drennan, insists on denouncing her from the pulpit, just for a moment it looks

as if love will conquer fear, bigotry and ancient patriarchy, as Angus and Morna get married, and set up home.

Things go pear-shaped in the end, of course, thanks to Angus’s inner struggle between his wish to become a modern man, and old island traditions and expectations. But along the way, Neshla Caplan and Chris Forbes deliver two delightful performances as the young lovers, belting out their fine songs of love and disappointment with a will; while Pauline Knowles, as the minister’s stern wife, wears a knitted beret and tweed suit with rare distinction, and also reveals a taste for alcohol that has the audience rolling in the aisles, almost – but not quite – until the final curtain.

JOYCE MCMILLAN

Final performance today

MUSIC

Liam Gallagher

Barrowland, Glasgow

With an Oasis reunion looking like a remote prospect as long as the Gallagher brothers remain at loggerheads and, more pointedly, Noel Gallaghvious

er enjoys success as a solo artist, this show by “our kid” was about as close as most fans will get to an Oasis greatest hits set.

The younger Gallagher has floundered without his brother’s songwriting skills, habitually bolstering the inferior sounds of his post-oasis outfit Beady Eye with selections from the Oasis back catalogue. He launched his own solo show in typically defiant mode, cranking out Britpop standards Rock’n’roll Star and Morning Glory on a war footing before instructing the fans to make like they cared about the unfamiliar material from his forthcoming solo debut, As You Were.

What followed was a charmless offensive of forceful bruisers such as new single Wall of Glass and Greedy Soul, with its Gallagher rhyming dictionary couplet “kiss and tell/ go to hell”, interspersed with the lumbering likes of D’you Know What I Mean?

Subtlety be damned – the soaring melody of Slide Away didn’t stand a chance in this ritual bludgeoning, with Gallagher happy to surrender to the football terrace singalong – as well as offering his own post-match analysis of the pre-

day’s Scotland-england fixture.

He was joined by “brother Bonehead” for a partial Oasis reunion on Be Here Now but by then it was all over bar the ringing ears. He encored briefly with an a capella rendition of Live Forever, grabbing the song by the throat but leaving the high hookline to the crowd.

FIONA SHEPHERD

THEATRE

Dirty Dancing

Playhouse, Edinburgh

What a strange tale is Dirty Dancing, the smash-hit 1987 film now – 30 years on – touring the UK in this stage version directed by Federico Bellone. Set in a mountain resort in the Catskills in the summer of 1963, it’s a tale about class, set against the backdrop of the Kennedy presidency and the rising civil rights movement; if you want a brief fore warning of the trump revolution ,50 years ahead, listen to the speech given by our gorgeous working class hero johnny when he first hears that baby, the liberal doctor’ s daughter he’s fallen in love with, plans to march for black civil rights. “I don’t see anyone marching for my rights,” he says. “My brother’s unemployed, what about his rights?”

For the most part, though, Dirty Dancing is a story about the liberating power of dance, and of young love across social boundaries. Johnny is an inspired dance teacher, Baby – really called Frances – wants to learn. And if this touring version of the story, starring Lewis Griffiths as Johnny is often slightly shambolic in its efforts to translate the film to the stage – with the set whirling around at warp speed, and constant fades to black between short scenes – there’s an intense sexual sweetness in the central love story, and a passion and joy in the dance sequences, that more than compensates. The ladies in the audience whoop with delight at the odd glimpse of Johnny’s rippling muscles; and whether we’re feeling

nostalgic for 1987, or for 1963, when all things briefly seemed possible, we head out into the night feeling strangely uplifted, and perhaps even happy.

JOYCE MCMILLAN

Playhouse, Edinburgh, today, and King’s Theatre, Glasgow, 19-24 June.

THEATRE

Room

Dundee Rep

It has echoes of real-life stories, of course; young women taken from the street, held in basements or garden sheds, and systematically raped and abused over a period of years, stretching towards decades. Yet the most striking thing about emma donoghue’ s stage version of her award-winning novel, Room, is its intense imaginative quality, as she and director Cora Bissett – with an outstanding creative team – draws us into the inner world of five-year-old Jack, who lives imprisoned in a cell-like garden shed with his mother, and of his older alter ego, Big Jack, who watches and waits, and carries some of the narrative.

For in their five years alone together – apart from nighttime visits from Old Nick, Ma’s dungaree-wearing captor – Jack and his Ma have created a whole imaginative world together, with its own

creation myths and legends, and moral structures; Jack came from heaven to make his mother happy, the bath, rug, chair and wardrobe are Jack’s friends, while Old Nick most definitely is not.

In Lily Arnold’s superb set with lighting by David Plater and video images by Andrzej Goulding – the room whirls and swirls on a dark stage, its walls sometimes close and confining, sometimes made transparent by the sheer power of imagination.

And Kathryn Joseph’s songs, co-written with Bissett, burst from the texture of the play like some heightened form of speech, created under the pressure of the situation; not only during the confinement of the show’s first half, but afterwards, when Jack and Ma lose the room-world they have made together, and have, somehow, to find another.

Co-produced by the Theatre Royal Stratford East and the Abbey Theatre Dublin, in association with the National Theatre of Scotland and others, Room is shaped and driv-

DANCE

m¡longa

Edinburgh Festival Theatre

When Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui decided to make a dance about Argentine tango, he knew there was only one place to go: Buenos Aires. Losing himself in the sights, sounds and smells of the city, he set about re-creating

a m¡longa (a tango dance party) on stage – but in his own unique way. This is no Strictly Come Dancing-style extravaganza, nor is it a reincarnation of a late 19th century South American dance hall, where Argentine tango was born. Instead, it’s an exciting, sensuous and tender coming together of styles. Cherkaoui’s brand of contemporary dance, which has always refused to be boxed in, still lives and breathes. But, aside from one beautiful duet performed by two contemporary dancers, most of the show is delivered by ten tango exponents.

None of which would have been possible without the expertise and passion of consultant, Nélida Rodrigu-