Linda McLean

Castle Lennox

31/03/23

Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

The titular Castle Lennox is a hospital, but not as we know it. Places like this – providing long-term residential care for people with learning disabilities, shutting them off from the outside world – no longer exist. Here, playwright Linda McLean explores the pros and the cons: the deep, affecting friendships forged and the toxic regime, rife with bullying.

It’s 1969 and teenager Annis (Emma McCaffrey) is proving too much of a handful for her stepmother (Fletcher Mathers). Annis is lively, independent and full of fun, and she also has a learning disability, which means she’s eligible for enrolment at Castle Lennox. Simultaneously entranced and terrified by its fairytale appearance, Annis enters with hope as well as trepidation. But the staff nurse (Mathers again) takes against her, and – as the years tick inexorably by – Annis’s spirit seems to be quashed. Thankfully, there are also some moments of joy, such as her tentative romance with fellow patient, William (Gavin Yule) – but is she too institutionalised to cope when, twenty years later, Castle Lennox finally closes down?

Castle Lennox, directed by Maria Oller, is a joint production between the Lyceum and Lung Ha, Scotland’s leading theatre company for learning disabled actors. It’s a superb example of how empowering and inclusive drama can be, a cleverly-woven narrative that both supports and enables its fine cast, as well as engaging a sold-out house. McCaffrey shines in the lead role, but fellow actors Yule, Emma Clark (Jo) and Nicola Tuxworth (Marie) also stand out, the latter clearly relishing her devilish character.

But, although the individuals are great, it’s the choral scenes that really make this piece. Movement director Janice Parker creates a bold dynamic, evoking the cheerful chaos of the laundry and Saturday tea parties, and the performers are all absolutely on their game, singing and dancing with gusto and aplomb. BSL interpreter Rachel Amey is nicely integrated into the production, subtly assuming the role of Annis’s dead mother, reassuring her daughter when she’s feeling low.

Karen Tennent’s nifty set places us first in an enchanted forest, where a grand gateway yields to an altogether more prosaic and clinical space, where white curtains segregate the patients from outsiders – and from each other. The costume design (by Alison Brown) also helps to locate us both in time and place, and I like the way Annis’s clothes become drabber as the institution wears her down.

All in all, Castle Lennox is a delight, well-deserving of the standing ovation it receives tonight.

4 stars

Susan Singfield

Glory On Earth

23/05/17

Glory on Earth, written by Linda McLean and directed by David Greig, is a refreshingly unusual piece of historical theatre. It’s the story of Mary Queen of Scots (Rona Morison) and the four meetings she held with protestant reformer, John Knox (Jamie Sives), whilst she was in virtual captivity in Holyrood Palace. To Knox, Mary was an abomination – a staunch Catholic with a genuine claim to the throne of Scotland, a country that had so recently been swept ‘pure’ by the Calvinist reformation.

Karen Tenant’s stage design eschews any conventional attempt at historical accuracy. Mary and her six female attendants (who, frustratingly for any would-be reviewer, are all called ‘Mary’ and each take on several other roles throughout the play) are dressed stylistically, in a mixture of old and new – lace ruffs and painted boots. The sets feature key elements that simply hint at architectural detail – stone arches drift silently down from above; a wooden pulpit resembling a scaffold trundles in from the wings. Moreover, the sound design utilises a mash-up of contemporary music from The Jesus & Mary Chain to the torch songs of Edith Piaf (the latter alluding to Mary’s previous role as Queen Consort of France). To add to the mix, the actors also sing some enchanting reformation psalms and occasionally even play musical instruments.

If I’m making this sound like a bit of a hodge-podge, I certainly don’t mean to. The central tenet of the tale – the clash between two styles of religion – is eloquently told. Jamie Sives’s Knox is a dour and intimidating presence, his grim expression guaranteed to take the fizz off anybody’s pint in an instant, while Morison’s Mary displays all the impatience and affectation of an eighteen year old woman caught in an impossible situation, desperately seeking a husband and trying in vain to kindle some kind of a friendship with her father’s cousin, Elizabeth. Of course, we all know where Mary’s journey ends and, as she progresses steadily towards her inevitable doom, it’s impossible not to feel sympathy for her plight.

A deceptively powerful piece, this, and one that delights in pointing out that, centuries after these events, there still exists the same constant wrangling between Catholic Europe and Protestant Britain. Those with an interest in the history of Scotland will definitely want to catch this, but there’s something here that will resonate with a wider audience than that. This is a tale about humanity, about belief, and about the impact we have on others. And it doesn’t get much more universal than that.

4 stars

Philip Caveney