Theatre review: Daisies

Published on Tuesday 2 June 2009 19:29

DAISIES *** CCA, GLASGOW

THEATRE is an art form that often tries to be clever, in the sense of inventive, allusive, innovative, challenging; and most of the time it's all the better for it.

There's none of that, though, in Lisa Nicoll's Daisies, this week's play in the Fiendish Plot 30-minute lunchtime series at the CCA. Nicoll's play is a straightforward, heart-on-sleeve double monologue for a young couple who become parents of a much-loved and long-awaited baby daughter, Daisy, only to face the horror of losing her in a sudden cot death; and it's a huge tribute to the quality of the performances – from Laura Harvey and Ian Petrie – that the play achieves a real tear-jerking power without ever sliding into soap-opera sentimentality.

There are moments when it's difficult to see the point of this heartbreaking short essay in human pain; and moments too, in Sacha Kyle's production, when she lets the performance style slip too far, for too long, towards a whispered, introverted small-screen naturalism.

But the quality of Nicoll's writing is striking, simple and emotional without clich, and with moments of unobtrusive poetry.

And as a journey from the self-absorbed bustle of a Sauchiehall Street lunchtime to the heart of the big things that really matter in life, the show makes an indelible mark.

"A lifetime in a lunchtime," said one audience member at the end, as people all around wiped away tears; and reader, he wasn't far wrong.