Jonathan Watson

Someone’s Knockin’ on the Door

04/03/36

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Jack (Jonathan Watson) and Kathy (Maureen Carr) are recording an online chat with their granddaughter, Molly, providing her with some recollections she might be able to use in a school project that’s looking for ‘untold Scottish stories.’ Their separate reminiscences take them both back to the long hot summer of 1976, when they set off on their first ever holiday – two years after a rushed marriage, when Kathy fell unexpectedly pregnant.

In the van that Jack borrows from work, they drive to Campbeltown near the Mull of Kintyre. Jack has a hidden agenda. He’s been a rabid Beatles fan ever since he first heard the strains of Love Me Do, and now he’s nurturing a powerful compulsion to visit the secluded cottage where he knows his hero, Paul McCartney, has been spending much of his time since the world’s most famous band went their separate ways…

This first production in the new season of A Play, A Pie and a Pint, written by Milly Sweeney, is apparently based on a true story. It’s a lighthearted, whimsical piece, deriving much of its humour from the ways in which the memories of the two contributors differ in so many important aspects. The constant cross-cutting between them is the basis of the drama but the couple’s banter is not always as precise as it be and I’m left with the feeling that this piece could have benefitted from a little more rehearsal time.

There’s an attempt to draw comparisons between the break up of the Fab Four and the disintegration of Jack and Kathy’s relationship, a central premise that occasionally feels a little too forced for comfort – but I do like the fact that the play readily accepts that not every marriage is destined to last forever, a touch of realism so often lacking in drama.

Both Watson and Carr are familiar performers at PPP and both are appealing in their respective roles. Sally Reid directs the piece with a light touch and Heather Grace Currie’s simple set design successfully evokes the era. The image of a postcard – which is an important element in this supposedly true recollection – is occasionally illuminated in the background.

Someone’s Knockin’ on the Door provides a charming, if innocuous, opening to the new season – I do however occasionally find myself wishing for a little more grit in the telling.

3.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Fibres

29/10/19

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Fibres is Frances Poet’s ‘heath and safety’ play, an emotive response to her discovery that an acquaintance had lost both parents, six months apart, due to asbestos poisoning. Poet’s perception of asbestos as ‘something dangerous from the past’ was exposed as a fallacy; subsequently, she learned that more people die of asbestos-related illnesses each year than die in traffic accidents, that the NHS will be footing the bill for corporate greed/negligence until 2040. Mesothelioma takes between twenty and fifty years to develop, and even brief exposure is enough to kill.

Indeed, the brevity of exposure is a key feature of this play. Jack (Jonathan Watson) only works as a shipbuilder for a few days; he’s nervous about the asbestos dust he’s been warned about, so takes a pay cut and becomes an electrician. He thinks he’s dodged a bullet. His wife, Beanie (Maureen Carr), washes his overalls, a simple domestic act fraught with symbolism, as the fibres enter her lungs too.

As you might expect from Poet, there are many layers to be unravelled here; it’s not a simple polemic. There are parallels drawn between the asbestos fibres and the impact of traditional gender roles on a relationship: a slow, invisible poisoning.

Despite the subject matter, it’s not all doom and gloom. Jack and Beanie are a believable couple, muddling through as best they can. They’re facing the horror with fortitude and humour: Jack loves a bit of comedy, and has a catalogue of cringey jokes. Their daughter, Lucy (Suzanne Magowan), is struggling, but her breakdown is shown through a series of bleakly humorous, hide-your-eyes-behind-your-hands-while-your-toes-curl moments.

Breaches in health and safety protocol are given a human face, in the form of Lucy’s boss, Pete (Ali Craig). They work for a fibre optics company, and he’s up against it, trying to meet the demands of a contract while allowing his workers their requisite study days and sick leave. He’s fed up with the union rep’s ‘unreasonable’ demands, preventing him from getting the job done. We’re shown how it happens, how decent people can be pressured into repeating old mistakes. But Pete is given a chance to learn: his fondness for Lucy redeems him.

If this all sounds a bit po-faced, don’t be misled. This plays as a cleverly written domestic tragedy, with a window onto larger political issues. The actors switch between narration and performance; the set (by Jen McGinley) is a fluid, symbolic space, where the characters flit between life and death, the past and the present, dark humour and even darker anger. Jemima Levick’s assured direction ensures that there is no confusion: we always know where and when events are taking place, the pace allowing us time to digest what’s happening.

Fibres is a vital, heartbreaking play with an important message at its core.

4.1 stars

Susan Singfield