ORAN MOR, GLASGOW
THIS new play in the Play, Pie and Pint lunchtime season by rising star writer and actress Alexis Zegerman begins with one of the clichés of modern screen drama. There's a man of 40 or so with a midlife crisis and a childless ma
rriage. There's his wife, frenetically focused on the fertility treatment they're planning to undergo. And there's the teenage hooker he meets on a Camden street one night, fragile-looking and irresistibly attractive.
What gives Zegerman's play its edge, though, is the cold eye she casts on the pathology of the relationship between Daniel and Niamh, the hooker. From the outset, it's clear Niamh is unable to tell the truth, and leads a weird inner life in which she compulsively pictures herself as the heroine of her favourite films; in particular, she gets a sinister erotic thrill out of the relationship between nine-year-old orphan Annie and her middle-aged male guardian. Meanwhile, Daniel's obsession with her seems partly driven by a quest for the daughter he never had. After a while, their affair begins to develop odd echoes of his relationship with his wife, though with an added dimension of physical abuse.
Killing Brando is not always easy to watch. But at the back of this play, there is a brave attempt to analyse the psychological sickness on which much of Britain's sex industry seems to thrive, with its overtones of paedophilia and of catering to the needs of men who simply can't handle the emotional and psychological demands of adult life. Jemima Levick's beautifully pitched production does this sombre modern tragedy full justice; and Stuart Bowman, Molly Innes and Angela Hardie all turn in fine performances, with Hardie in particularly disturbing form as Niamh, a girl apparently damaged beyond hope.
MUSIC
FRIGHTENED RABBIT
THE ARCHES, GLASGOW
WHEN a singer's opening comment to his audience, right after his first song has died down, is a quivering "there are quite a lot of you here – oh shit", the average member of that audience might be forgiven for wondering if said singer is quite cut out for the position in which he finds himself. This wasn't the only time during the set that Scott Hutchison expressed trepidation at the near sell-out crowd which confronted him in the Arches, doubtless causing more than a few mental associations between his demeanour and his band's name.
Fortunately, though, one of his tentative jokes about being a professional and just getting on with it set the tone for the evening. Besides, Hutchison can't really be blamed for his sense of shock and awe in the face of his band's (fellow guitarists Billy Kennedy and Andy Monaghan, Hutchison's drumming brother Grant) rise to local fame. The level of national airplay and coverage the Glasgow-based quartet enjoy has been modest in comparison to the hype lavished upon compadres such as Glasvegas and Franz Ferdinand in recent years, but this gig was surely the point at which they passed from being a likeable local indie concern to potential stars.
Musically, comparisons to Snow Patrol don't hurt their case. Hutchison's voice is somehow more chiselled and worldly than Gary Lightbody's, but songs like The Twist and Poker still revel in a particular sense of anthemic earnestness. A home win, then, which will surely see Hutchison having to get used to even larger stages soon.
MUSIC
DREVER, MCCUSKER, WOOMBLE
STIRLING TOLBOOTH
FOLLOWING the release of their new trio album Before the Ruin, this was the first night on tour for singer-guitarist Kris Drever, multi-instrumentalist John McCusker and Idlewild vocalist Roddy Woomble. Having become friends via other projects, the three have described their collaboration as a "let's see what happens" exercise. Much the same, in various ways, was true of their performance here, which at times seemed to fall between rather too many stools, while elsewhere achieving moments of memorable synthesis.
The capacity audience must have been a hard one to gauge in advance, packing in Idlewild fans alongside dedicated folkies. The musicians' seated arrangement onstage – including guests Heidi Talbot and Boo Hewerdine on backing vocals and additional guitar – also proved somewhat awkward. Woomble, more accustomed to big rock arenas, was clearly disconcerted by singing from a chair, with the front row right in his face, and delivered most of his lead vocals hunched over his lap, while McCusker had to keep getting up and down as he switched between fiddle and cittern. With Before the Ruin tracks interspersed by examples of each participant's solo work, the personnel on stage varied from two to six, entailing lots of to-ing and fro-ing between songs, and while this added to the proceedings' informality, it also prevented the show ever really settling in. These elements, though, will surely smooth out now the first gig is done, enabling the depth of musicianship to emerge more fully.
The full article contains 822 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
