Theatre reviews: Backbeat | The Government Inspector | Company Policy

Published on Wednesday 17 February 2010 20:00

BACKBEAT **** CITIZENS' THEATRE, GLASGOW THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR **** TRON THEATRE, GLASGOW COMPANY POLICY **** ORAN MOR, GLASGOW

• Backbeat brings to life the early days of The Beatles in Hamburg

THE government, the company, the whole rotten lot. If ever there was a suitable moment for rebellion against those who hold power in society, then this is it; and although we live in compliant times, Scottish theatre this week is full of reminders of the uproarious satirical spirit of past generations, and of how much we need it again now.

"This noise will travel round the world, and people will see, and hear, and breathe differently," says the young John Lennon, in the world premiere production of Iain Softley and Stephen Jeffreys' Backbeat, playing to packed houses at the Citizens Theatre; and anyone who watches this play-with-songs based on Softley's 1994 film about The Beatles' early days in Hamburg is bound to be reminded of just how true that was.

In the days before Lennon and Paul McCartney formed their songwriting partnership, the five-strong group – including the doomed hero of Backbeat, Lennon's friend and hero Stuart Sutcliffe – were already scooping up the thrilling sounds of American rock'n'roll, from Roll Over Beethoven to Twist And Shout, and giving them a raw, revolutionary British guitar-pop edge that drove a generation wild with excitement. It was rough, it was liberating, it pumped an explosive blast of homegrown energy through the convention-bound world of post-war Britain and nothing was ever quite the same again.

As a stage show, Backbeat sometimes seems to be trying to achieve too much in its brief two-and-a-half-hours. It's part doomed romance, as the stylish Sutcliffe – who was to die of a brain haemorrhage in Germany in 1962 – woos and wins the gorgeous Hamburg photographer Astrid Kirchherr. It's partly a serious and interesting play about the dynamics of the formation of the most successful band in history. "What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal," says Sutcliffe, quoting Nietzsche like any self-respecting 1960s art student; and this story is full of "bridges", as the musically untalented Sutcliffe plays a decisive role in shaping The Beatles' world-changing style. And the show is partly a straightforward tribute musical, too, with high-clapping girl groupies encouraging the audience to get on their feet for a final, celebratory Twist And Shout.

Whatever we make of this slightly messy collision of genres, though, Backbeat emerges as a hugely entertaining show, featuring fine performances from Isabella Calthorpe as Astrid, Alex Robertson as an eerily lookalike Sutcliffe, Andrew Knott as Lennon, and Jamie Blackley and Daniel Healy as Harrison and McCartney. There's a superbly effective set by Christopher Oram, beautifully lit by Howard Harrison, that perfectly captures the early-1960s atmosphere of post-industrial grunge combined with an emerging, clean-lined modernism, and Sutcliffe's wild, red rush of abstract expressionism. And the music is grand, the cast-turned-band finally achieving a really luxurious yet still edgy guitar-pop sound. Knott looks disturbingly like the troubled and brilliant Lennon as he strums and sings those final numbers; and if he never quite sounds like him – well, in the end, who ever did?

At the Tron Theatre, meanwhile – and then on tour across Scotland – Gerry Mulgrew's Communicado Company, in a co-production with the Tron, seizes hold of Nikolai Gogol's brilliant 19th-century satire on small-town political paranoia and corruption, and almost solves all its structural problems at a stroke. The difficulty with The Government Inspector – staged here in Adrian Mitchell's brilliant 1970s version – is that for any modern audience's taste it tends to go on slightly too long, particularly after the second-act departure of the young chancer whom the town's bigwigs mistake for an inspector from St Petersburg; and even Mulgrew's inspired team of nine actors begin to look, after two and half hours, as if they are running out of extreme facial expressions to deploy.

But for most of its length, this is an exuberantly funny and inventive show, with John Bett in particular – as the shifty town governor – bringing a lifetime's experience of Scottish public life at its least salubrious into play, in his every knowing vocal intonation. Mulgrew remains a genius of the visual set-piece achieved by a brilliantly choreographed team of actors, complemented by Sergey Jakovsky's superbly witty lighting and some hilariously powerful and raucous live music, directed by cast member Alasdair Macrae, delivered by the cast on a creaky range of instruments. The whole show radiates that inspired collision of Scottish and European surrealism, tinged with furious satire, that made Mulgrew famous 25 years ago, and now seems reborn, for new times.

DC Jackson's latest play, Company Policy, this week's lunchtime offering in the Play, Pie and Pint season, represents a huge leap forward from the sharp Ayrshire coming-of-age comedies Jackson has lately been writing into a world of modern city comedy that – for sheer wit and structural cunning – seems to have been inspired by the great Restoration comedies of the 17th century.

Set in the unisex toilet in the offices of a company called Jiffy Co – one of those modern workplaces where sex is frowned upon, but opportunities for sexual harassment are rife – the play charts the hectic and duplicitous competition between nasty Randy Burley, and his nice friend Dex Sexington, over the affections of new-girl accountant Sally Mallow.

The structure is dazzling, the one-liners are hilarious, former Citz design chief Kenny Miller designs and directs like the style god he is; and Johnny Austin, Richard Conlon and Lisa Gardner act like thespians inspired, in a show bursting with the kind of physical energy, verbal brilliance and shared, rebellious fun that only live theatre can deliver at full blast, making the heart sing as it goes.

• Backbeat is at the Citizens Theatre until 6 March. The Government Inspector is at the Tron until 27 February, the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh from 9-11 March, and on tour. Company Policy is at Oran Mor until 20 February.

CRITIC'S CHOICE

Wall of Death – A Way of Life Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh, 20-28 February

ROLL up to Ingliston for the Edinburgh run of the National Theatre of Scotland's controversial Wall of Death… and your chance to join the debate about whether this kind of boundary-pushing, unconventional work is what we want from our national theatre company. Sculptor Stephen Skrynka joins the legendary Ken Fox Troupe in a sometimes poignant, sometimes thrilling show-cum-installation built round his attempt to learn their dangerous art. Vicky Featherstone directs.

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