Review: Mish Gorecki Goes Missing, Tron Theatre, Glasgow

Published on Sunday 18 April 2010 22:36

THERE are a 101 things wrong with the Tron's new children's show.

In just 45 minutes, it tries to tell the complicated tale of little Mish Gorecki, a talented dancer who wins a wonderful opportunity to go on a trip to the Bolshoi Ballet in Russia.

Her problem is that her family is so dysfunctional that she can't find anyone to sign the consent form for the trip, never mind help her with the shoes and clothes she needs.

Throw in a few other strands of narrative – an eccentric dance teacher, two playground bullies – and you begin to catch the outlines of a story that would be tough to tell with only three actors, even if writer Skye Loneragan and director Leann O'Kasi were the most lucid storytellers around.

The show adopts an over-clever, show-then-explain structure that obscures the impact of many of its theatrical gestures and makes our understanding of the story overdependent on complex explanations after the fact.

So why is Mish Gorecki still worth seeing? First, because the show has a solid-gold cast. And second, because the story itself is so well worth telling, and full of promise. Child neglect takes many forms, and it's salutary to be reminded that some of them are both subtle and cruel, as parents crack under the strain of trying to raise a family in an unforgiving world.