Party of the Century review - 'a feisty political farce about the possible death of Conservatism in Scotland'

In Ross McKay’s Party of the Century, a disillusioned Tory voter is visited by a series of ghosts who seem convinced that it is his destiny to save Conservatism in Scotland. Review by Joyce McMillan

Party Of The Century, Oran Mor, Glasgow ****

Tide 1: Adrift, Traverse, Edinburgh ***

Tide 2: It's Not the End of the World, Traverse, Edinburgh ***

Party of the Century PIC: Play, Pie and Pint

Edmund is in his pyjamas and dressing gown, sitting at his kitchen table somewhere in middle Scotland; and he is not a happy man. In front of him is a pile of party manifestos, which are not helping him to decide how to vote; his wife Fiona wants him to get some sleep, his son Steffan says he’s voting Green, and that’s that.

Edmund’s problem, you see, is that he is a lifelong Conservative – a true Brit, and a huge admirer of great Tory leaders from Churchill to Margaret Thatcher; but after recent shenanigans and policy disasters, he feels he can no longer support the party he once loved.

The ghosts of Conservatism will not leave him alone, though; and during the night, he is haunted in true Dickensian style by three spirits – Jacob Rees-Mogg (not dead, but still ghastly), Winston Churchill, and a terrifying duo of milk-snatching Margaret Thatchers.

The ghosts seem strangely convinced that it is Edmund’s destiny to save Conservatism in Scotland, a prediction which eventually comes true in a deeply unsettling and disturbing way, in Party of the Century, Ross Mackay’s long-planned but extraordinarily well-timed final play of the spring Play, Pie Pint season.

Adrift PIC: Andy Catlin

Along the way to that dark conclusion, though, Joe Douglas’s brilliant cast of Paul McCole as Edmund, Helen McAlpine and Tyler Collins deliver a feisty political farce about the possible death of Conservatism in Scotland, packed with laughs and domestic absurdities; and thoroughly earn the right to the play’s sobering final sequence, as Brecht’s great verse about the return of fascism, even after the defeat of Hitler, rings out in warning. “This was the thing that nearly had us mastered; / Don't yet rejoice in his defeat, you men! / Although the world stood up and stopped the bastard, / The bitch that bore him is in heat again.”

At the Traverse Theatre, meanwhile, Edinburgh’s fine young people’s theatre company Strangetown celebrates the end of term with a sequence of three plays under the title Tide, all set on Portobello beach, and all focussed on themes to do with the many anxieties that stalk young people today, and also with their experience of loss, and how they struggle to deal with it both as individuals, and in relationships with others.

Created with three professional writers, the Tide plays are performed mainly by Strangetown’s 14-18 year old companies; and they focus on a group of fifth years facing their last full year at school. In the first play, Rachel O’Regan’s It’s Not The End Of The World, they come to the beach to watch a February meteor shower, and after an evening of banter, rows, and intense teenage cultural references, witness some kind of defining tragedy.

And in Tide 2, Isla Cowan’s lucid and insightful Adrift, they return at midsummer, still divided and troubled by what happened in February, and unsure whether to put it behind them, to rebel against the very possibility of death, or to try to come to terms with it through collective ritual and remembrance.

It's Not the End of the World PIC: Andy Catlin

In the big space of Traverse 1, the show’s main problems lie in the varying vocal performance of the young actors; some connect fully with the audience and project their voices both subtly and strongly, others seem more shy and introverted.

So far, though, these plays offer a deeply moving insight into where young people are today – all right and not all right, struggling for real-world connection, and facing challenges previous generations could barely imagine; and this weekend, James Beagon’s play My Kind Of Weird brings their year to an end, with a Portobello beach romcom, set on a dark November night.

Party of the Century at Oran Mor, Glasgow, and the Strangetown Tide season at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, both run until 22 June