Theatre review: Raspberry

Published on Monday 5 April 2010 19:02

RASPBERRY *** TRON THEATRE, GLASGOW

FOLLOWING the musical Hit Me! and recent cinematic biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Ian Dury's life and work with the Blockheads have now been appropriated as the basis for this lively parable.

Taking its title from Dury's barbed nickname for himself – "raspberry ripple" being Cockney rhyming slang for "cripple" – Sounds of Progress' Raspberry focuses on Rita (Christine Bruno), a blacksmith's daughter born with physical disabilities, whose father shields her from the world and attempts to bend, break and cure the debilitating condition of her legs.

Comment on this stultifying tableau is provided by Garry Robson as the Duryesque Spasticus and his backing band – including a white, female Ray Charles and a black Albert Einstein on drums, for reasons never dwelt on – playing a medley of tunes by the Blockheads, The Superheroes and Robson and Sally Clay's own ensemble, Blind Gurl and the Crips.

Entertaining throughout, with Robson harnessing Dury's mischievous spirit rather than striving for an impersonation, the play is suffused with a punkish plea for inclusion and the acceptance of difference.

Regrettably, it shifts gear when Rita eventually rebels against her father, the music giving way to po-facedly worthy melodrama, before she appeals straight to the audience in an unnecessary, sledgehammer-subtle summary.

What the songs had framed with wit and bursts of anarchic unpredictability, this direct address makes manifest, undermining much of the tongue-in-cheek charm that went before.