The Last Picture Show Oran Mor, Glasgow JJJ

Of all the aspects of First World War history currently being explored, as the centenary of the 1918 armistice approaches, the impact of the conflict on the entertainment industries in Clyde coastal resorts is probably one of the least obvious. For Play, Pie And Pint artist director Morag Fullarton, though, there’s nothing like a show about showbiz for building a warm, positive connection with an audience, on any subject; and so it proves in Fullarton’s new short musical play, timed to appear in the run-up to Armistice Day. Based on a true story, The Last Picture Show tells the story of an ex-soldier called Bob, blinded in a gas attack, who returns to his granny’s home near Dunoon to convalesce. Once he gets talking to an initially suspicious local lad called Willy, though, it soon becomes known that Bob was once a gifted accompanist to

silent films, in a cinema in Glasgow; and in no time, he and Willy form a partnership which once again enables Bob to play the music to fit the early Charlie Chaplin movies that were all the rage around 1918. In a sense, Fullarton’s take on the problems of veterans returning from the Great War is a light-hearted one, with a slightly improbable happy ending. Yet it touches firmly enough both on Bob’s memories of war, and on some of the serious issues facing the war-wounded, as they returned to civvy street; and with Matthew Tomlinson offering a powerfully stoic central performance as Bob, and Helen Mcalpine and Matthew Campbell moving briskly through several other roles each, The Last Picture Show emerges as a delightful short variation on the profound impact of the war, and the huge resilience many individuals had to show, in reclaiming their lives after the conflict was over.

JOYCE MCMILLAN At the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, from tomorrow until Saturday, and at the Lemon Tree, Aberdeen, next week.