Maybe Tomorrow (A Play, a Pie and a Pint), Traverse

 A  musical with a well worn theme.  Ageing entertainer Sian Silver (Liz Ewing) never quite made the big time, and now she;s reduced to a dingy theatre, creepy fans and a struggle to get by.  Once upon a time she saw herself as Annie, starring as the little orphan girl, but that ship sailed long ago.  Indeed long before she could have boarded.  Now she's harassed by the stage crew, exploited by the promoters and... imagining conversations with her younger, more hopeful, self.  So can the old hope be revived?  Playing all the other parts is Julia Murray, as fan, stage manager, entrepreneur, young Sian and more.  

There are some laughs, the songs aren't bad (although £250 goes on a bit...), but it all feels a bit shabby.  We've seen this story so many times before, and there's nothing new this script has to offer.  I expect better from the PPP series.

The bright spot is Murray's impressive performance, with a great singing voice, real stage presence, and deliniation of multiple characters.  Including a section where she was having a conversation with herself behind the set, whilst also changing back into the outfit of a third character.  Seamless.

I hope the final offering of this season is going to be a big imporvement - not a high bar to cross over!

Cheapo (A Play, a Pie and a Pint), Traverse

 

The PPP series provides 50 minute shows with fairly limited production budgets.  Before I get into reviewing the drama, it feels important to comment on the set.  This provided a really strong visual impact before we'd even begun, with a nod to the chess based theme of the play, and a hint at how impactful the story would be.

Jamie (Testimony Adegbite) turns up in KFC, fast food in hand, portable chess set in his bag, and still in his school blazer.  He's there to play his regular game with his pal.  But, confounding his expectations, the opponent today is Kyla (Yolanda Mitchell), who doesn't even play chess.  She is, though, the girl he has reported to the police as a victim.  Surely that's a good thing?  Kyla doesn't think so, because it's losing her her friends, and social status matters more than truth.

And so the game begins, but with higher stakes and no rules.  Jamie wants to do the right thing, Kyla wants to be popular, both want the other to change their mind.  For such a short play this script offers a lot to think about, concerning the pressures on teenagers today.  Misogyny, racism, sexual objectification and social conformity, with some uncomfortable themes exposed.  

Strong performances from both actors, with some complex choreography to deliver too.  The script has also been given a few Edinburgh references, to make it more identifiable to a local crowd, a nice touch.  Cheapo is the best of this PPP series to date, and sits comfortably in the long line of these productions that have tackled tough subject matter and left the audience with much to ponder on.  Excellent.

The Naked Gun

I'm generally wary of remakes of classics, whihc can rarely reach the standards of the original.  Anyone who saw them has fond memories of the sheer silliness and crazy verbal wordplay of the Leslie Neilsen trilogy.  Fortunately the 2025 version is much more homage than remake, and has several nods of respect to it's predecessors (including a sharp comment on OJ...).

Liam Neeson is excellent as the deadpan detective, there's a constant deluge of absurdity, and loads of throwaway visual gags passing across screen - you need to keep paying attention.  There's not as many bad puns as I'd maybe hoped for, the gags are as hit and miss as they were in the originals, and the plot is as daft as they come.  Which makes this a lot of fun, and a worthy part of the canon.

Feis (A Play, a Pie and a Pint), Traverse

Deirdre (Louise Haggerty) runs an Irish dance school, but it's struggling to make a profit, so she supplements her income giving online 'lessons'.  But her costume sporting nipple tassels is a clue that the site is something similar to OnlyFans.  But she thinks she has a way of making her school a success a way - training the winner of the next world championship.  And she'll go to any lengths to make it happen.  Her mother Maura (Julie Coombe) want to help, but is sceptical of Deirdre's plans.  And daughter Aoife (Leah Balmforth), once their star dancer, has left and won't come home.  Or will she?  

With onstage musical accompaniment from Brian James O'Sullivan, this is a black comedy with a thin and farcical plot, and jokes that come complete with big signposts. Subtle it's not, at times reminiscent of a '70s sitcom.  And Balmforth's more naturalistic performance sits uneasily with the OTT delivery of the other women.  O'Sullivan is good though, with perfect timing of music and sound effects, and some hilarious announcements.

Maybe I'm being a bit harsh.  It was fun at times, and very much in the light entertainment mould.  But  I've come to expect more from PPP offerings, so it does suffer in comparison.  One of the least memorable in the series.

Our Brother (A Play, a Pie and a Pint), Traverse

Pol Pot, communist dictator of Cambodia, has agreed to meet with a US journalist, and a Scottish academic.  The American only gets a short time granted her, and is frustrated, but not surprised,  by the lack of cooperation.  But the Scot is a different matter.  He’s written about Pot, about the revolution, and supports the policies of returning Cambodia to an agrarian society.  He’s there to learn the truth first hand, to prove to the rest of the world that the Khmer Rouge are not the brutal regime that the outside world sees them as.

The structure gives us snippets of the discussion between the Scot (Bobby Bradley) and the self-styled Our Brother (David Lee-Jones), and the frustration of the journalist (Nicole Cooper) at her companions inability to see through the propaganda version he’s being fed.  She also provides linking and background narration, and there photos from the period displayed..  

Lee-Jones gives an enjoyable performance as the the seemingly reasonable dictator with a sharp edge to his moods.  But his closing speeches feel heavy handed, and no real conclusion is drawn.  We already know that brutal dictators are bad men, and that often the ideologues are the worst of all, but there’s nothing new here.  Or am I asking too much from a 50 minute drama?

Wallace (A Play, a Pie and a Pint), Traverse

Something very different for this PPP series opener, a Scottish hip-hop musical, and a trio of players telling a three sided story.  Using William Wallace as their example, the cast expore what it means to be a national hero, and the myths that surround one.  Was Wallace the patriot and martyr he's largely portrayed as?  A violent thug who got lucky because later writers needed a random figurehead to focus on?  Or pure myth, a fiction built on the scantiest of facts?  Each takes it in turn to put forward their arguments, to build and destroy the stories around the name.  And questions why some (always men of course...) become the memoties of a nation, while others, who may have contributed far more (Andrew de Moray is the chosen example) are ignored by popular history, despite their well documented achievements?  And there's one statement that we can all agree on the Braveheart film was shite!

It's a shame that the lyrics sometimes got drowned out by the soundtrack (especially during the expositions of Patricia Panther), because there was a lot of thought provoiking material.  Why does a nation need myths and heroes to define itself, who gets to choose which ones gain prominence, just how reliable is the history we're given?  

Stong performances, plenty of humour.  Everyman characters - Dave Hook as 'Scotsman', Manasa Tagica as 'Sassenach' (and a fine, swaggering Edward I he made!), and PP as simply 'Wummin', largely ignored by the story.  This was a refreshing and enjoyable take on our (and wider) historical memory, and what it means to be Scottish.

The Roses

He meets she. They fall in love immediately and have sex in the cold store.  Ten years on they are over the pond in California, he is hugely successful, she's bringing up the kids.  A thing happens, roles are reversed, resentment builds, marriage steadily disintegrates.

A simple enough premise.  And a thin plot that can be taken in a number of different directions, depending on how the writer and director see it, depending on the casting and acting.  I've seen some very negative reviews of this film, and that seems to come down to expectations, and sometimes ciritcising something for what it's not, rather than what it actually tries to be.  Based on a novel by Warren Adler, The War of the Roses was a hit film version in 1989.  It was a black comedy, bitter and biting in it's treatment of the fight between the couple.  And if that's what you were expecting this time around then I can understand the disappointment.

But I came to this with no knowledge of the novel or first film version,  I came from seeing a trailer that made it look a lot of fun, and the reputations of the two leads, Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman.  I cam seeing something much lighter and funnier than those other critics came to see.  And I got what I hoped for.

There's not much in the way of drama here. although it has it's moments.  There are no real life lessons to be learned, other than maybe being thankful that you and your partner are relative 'failures' in the rat race side of life.  There are, however, a lot of laughs, a lot of great scenes, a lot of brilliant smaller parts (allison Janney's shark of a divorce lawyer ebing patiruclarly fun).  This is light entertainment, but with great acting and a sharp and witty script.  I loved it.