Funny Cow

Funny Cow (Maxine Peake) is the stage name of a seventies stand up comedian finding success on the club circuit in the north of England in the 1970s.  The action flits between her childhood, life as a young woman when she first decides she wants to go into comedy, the successful stage presence, and a rather strange piece to camera, telling tales of her past life.  Shaped by domestic violence, both parental and marital (and later from a middle class boyfriend), she learns to stand up for herself verbally, a skill she'll later put to good use with hecklers.  And that's the central appeal of the stage for her - she's in control, answerable to nobody and nothing but her own wits.

Contrary to the title, there are few laughs on offer (least of all from the snapshots of stale 70s comedy routines).  It's a bleak, drab world, where FC stands out for her bright reds - lips, dress, car - but remains as damaged and alienating as the rest.  At least she shows a bit of warmth towards her rapidly declining alcoholic mother, but it's more from duty than empathy.

This would be fine if there was a point to it all.  But I was left wondering what this story was actually for?  The artifice of breaking the film into sections, the disjointed timelines and the bitterness of the characters pushed me outside, looking in on a world it was hard to have much sympathy for.  Peake is excellent, within those limitations, Alun Armstrong as her comedic mentor is a sad and saddening cynic, while Kevin Eldon stands out as the pushy agent.

If Funny Cow achieves anything it's to remind us just how necessary alternative comedy was in sweeping away the tired, predictable bigotry that passed for humour at the time.

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

The coffin is in place, we've been handed the order of service, and the minister was on hand to welcome us in.  It's the funeral of Sandy Munro and it falls to said minister, who also happens to be Sandy's big brother Andy, to deliver the eulogy.  He paints a warts and all portrait of the deceased, who he frequently had to help out, to his own cost.  It's very funny throughout, and Benny Young brings a hint of Rikki Fulton's wonderful I M Jolly to the role.

Proceedings are disrupted by the loud entrance of Anne, Sandy's embittered ex-wife, who corrects some of Andy's more fanciful notions about his brother and adds more fuel to the fire of haplessness that was Sandy's life.  So far, so funny, and there are comic songs for the audience to join in with.  This ephemeral piece is given some substance by a surprise twist tells us more about all three of them than the two speakers had felt prepared to give away, and serves as a reminder that we tell the stories of our lives in the ways that serve us best, and our truth is not the same as the other persons.

Perhaps not the best of this season PP&P offerings, but always enjoyable well worth the time.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) is frustrated by the lack of police progress in tracking down the man who raped and killed her daughter.  Her idea of chivying them up is to rent three billboards outside of town, plastering them with a very simple question aimed at Police Chief Willoughby (Woody Harrelson).  They're on a quiet road, but the idea is unusual enough to interest the local TV station, meaning the town, and police, can't ignore the message.

Willoughby tries to talk her out of her action, explaining the difficulties of the case.  One of his subordinates, Officer Dixon (Sam Rockwell), want to take more direct action, with consequences that can only make the situation worse.  Meanwhile Mildred's son Robbie (Lucas Hedges) finds his mum's actions getting some unwelcome attention in school, but can't divert his mother from her chosen path.

What looks like being a battle of wills between Mildred and Willoughby becomes something more complex when a surprise development changes the dynamic of the plot.  From all this emerges a gripping portrait of ordinary lives with all their contradictions and confusions.  It's about change and the ripples it sends through lives, and how grief and anger and fear can drive people to actions that may appear illogical to outsiders, but have their own internal logic.  That the source of our problems isn't always as obvious as it seems, and that if we can't have the ending we wanted then maybe we need to create our own.

There are a couple of far fetched coincidences, and one unlikely epiphany, but most of the time the story and characters feel very real, like people we know, and a reflection of our own inadequacies.  And, reassuringly, it ends with thought provoking ambiguity.

In an excellent cast McDormand is a solid and ambivalent centrepiece, sometimes doing the wrong things for the right reasons and keeping the cap on a geyser of emotion.  It's a film that makes you ponder how you would react in the circumstances, and what more can you ask for?  Well worth seeing.

Margaret Saves Scotland (A Play, a Pie and a Pint), Traverse

False expectations are a curse, but when I saw that Val McDermid had written one of this seasons PP&Ps I couldn't help but look forward to it as a likely highlight.  So perhaps my disappointment with the reality should be viewed in this light.

Apparently based on a true story from the fiFties, Margaret is a nine year old Yorkshire girl taken on holiday to Scotland.  She falls in love with her surroundings, and with a romantic notion of the country, that is further fed by the only books about the subject she can lay her hands on at home.  Fuelled by her perceived sense of injustice, she runs back over the border to lead the people in rebellion against their English masters....

The couple she stays with humour her notions until she can be safely returned home.  Interspersed with songs of the shortbread tin variety, Margaret revels in her picture of a Scotland that never was.

McDermid was a powerful voice of sense in Indyref, and her commitment to Scottish Independence cannot be doubted.  So it's impossible to view her work without that light being shone on it, and it raises the question as to what she is trying to achieve.  Is it just a lighthearted comedy, based on a childhood memory, or another plank in the construction of the case to vote Yes next time around?  Sadly it works as neither.  There are a few reasonable jokes, but too much heavy handed scene setting and clunky dialogue makes it feel hard work - it's not often I find myself checking my watch in a 50 minute play.  All the cast do a decent job with what they've got, especially Clare Waugh as Margaret's mother and the woman she lives with in Scotland, but can never fully overcome the script's limitations.

As a playwright McDermid makes for a good novelist.....

Rachel's Cousins (A Play, a Pie and a Pint), Traverse

Rachel is a successful young lawyer, in an affair with her married boss, and facing up to life after a double mastectomy.  When she's told her cancer derived from the BRCA gene mutation, and that this is inherited, she feels duty bound to inform the rest of her family - none of whom she's had anything to do with for years.

Enter the cousins, Marion and Josie, from the other side of the tracks.  Rachel would like to keep contact between them to a minimum, but events dictate otherwise, and, beyond the superficial culture clash, starts to find out they have more in common than she'd have liked.

The characters begin as stereotypes, forgivable in a 50 minute drama where they need to be delineated quickly, but acquire lives of their own as backstories emerge.  Often very, very funny, there are also lovely moments of pathos as the relatives find that help and understanding can arise from unpromising roots, and a good ending that reminds us that empathy is perhaps the most underrated human quality.  There are strong performances from all four actors, with Shonagh Price endowing Rachel with real depth as the central character.

Everything a 50 minute play should be.

McGonagall's Chronicles (A Play, a Pie and a Pint), Traverse

Written and starring Gary McNair as himself, the narrator of the piece, and as the infamously terrible poet William Topaz McGonagall, the subject of his story.  Written in consciously bad rhyming verse, in celebration of the poet's reputation, with additional characters performed by Brian James O'Sullivan, who also joined Simon Liddell in providing musical accompaniment.  A one man play for three people.

With leaves of lettuce handed out to the audience prior to commencement, it was clearly going to be something a bit different.  Very funny from the off, this is also a life story as tragedy.  McGonagall's name has remained prominent, as McNair reminds us, for a "very, very long time", and is far better known than many of his more talented contemporaries.  He's held up as an example of just how bad poetry can be, yet, as this story tells, his life also had positive inspirational elements to it as well.

The play takes us through McGonagall's upbringing, and his struggles to provide for his family when his trade becomes redundant.  Despite his only notion of poetry being that it should rhyme, in some fashion or other, it became his chosen career, one he would follow for the rest of his life.  The consequences might be funny to the outside observer, but McNair shows the wannabe poet to be a sympathetic and at times even admirable person, single minded in pursuit of his 'art', and survival, battling on through failure and humiliation.

More than the sum of it's parts, McNair's hilarious comedy is a strong reminder that we should be wary of how we judge those around us.  A Play for Today.

The Jellyman's Daughter, Summerhall

Support came from local singer/songwriter Roseanne Reid.  A pleasant voice, some smart guitar accompaniment and self deprecating intros made for an enjoyable set.  But not a memorable one, with nothing sufficiently striking in the lyrics or melodies to stay in the mind.  As her songwriting improves she should start to make a bigger impact.

Emily Kelly and Graham Coe more usually perform as a duo, but for this special performance celebrating the launch of their (truly excellent) second album they were accompanied by Jamie Francis on banjo and Herbie Loening on double bass and a bit of guitar.  Plus, for a few numbers, a string quartet.  Their aim to recreate, as far as possible, the lushness in the sound of their excellent and adventurous new album, Dead Reckoning.

But at the heart of the performance still lies Coe's extraordinary cello virtuosity, featuring a wide and eclectic range of influences, and Kelly's increasingly confident bluesy voice, allied to some excellent songwriting and instrumentation.  As well as a stronger stage presence, and a greater willingness to share of themselves with the audience (including their mistakes!).  Overall the musical style is hard to pin down, with so many sources being drawn upon, so that they are developing their own unique identity.

An excellent gig from one of the best live acts around.

Winter Solstice, Traverse

It could be a staff room in a warehouse, or a rehearsal space.  A few cheap tables with the debris of a gathering scattered about.  This unpromising setting becomes the home of liberal middle class couple Bettina and Albert, inhabited by five actors providing dialogue, action and narration so it becomes a multi faceted background.

Xmas is coming and Corinna, Bettina's mother, is here to stay for the holidays.  Already a contentious guest, she brings further tension to the household with the unexpected arrival of Rudolph, a man who Corinna had first met on the train just a few hours before.  Later they are joined by Konrad, Albert's oldest friend, who may be a bit friendlier with Corinna than Albert suspects.

Rudolph is old school, full of charm and perfect manners, and he plays the piano beautifully.  When the others squabble he appears to be playing a placatory role.  Everyone warms to him - although Albert has reservations.  And when Rudolph's political views become clearer, a sinister far right extremism, his charm carries him through.  Albert's suspicions seem churlish to the others, and he ends up doubting himself, a doubt cleverly portrayed when one scene is played through twice, with radically different outcomes.  The moral high ground is hard to find.

Although the plot can be confusing at times, the malevolent nature of Rudolph's beliefs is clear to the audience, but far harder to determine for those caught in their midst.  Could someone so cultured, so suave and educated really be so wrong?  We can so easily believe what we want to believe, and if our own views contradict those of the majority how easy it is just to go along with the latter.

It's a powerful reminder of how easily we can be led into evil, via the most innocuous looking of portals.  And that the current wave of neofascist politics in 'the West' is the greatest threat we now face.  The Trumps and Farages of this world no longer wear jackboots,  But they are just as dangerous.