Theatre review: Double Nugget, Tron Theatre, Glasgow

THE art of the well-made play is not in fashion at the moment; and despite its sold-out run, and obvious popular appeal, this latest double-bill from the Glasgow duo Random Accomplice appears only in the little Changing House at the Tron, before a 12-date tour that will take the show from Paisley to Banchory.

It’s hard, though, to fault the quality of these two one-hour plays. In the first and most recent, Mary Massacre, we hear from Leyla and Jenny, two thirtysomething Ayrshire women with man trouble. Leyla is single and looking for love on the internet. Jenny is married to net-head Gavin, but the relationship is in trouble; and it’s not difficult to imagine the accidental connection that brings these two together.

Along the way, though, Johnny McKnight’s script fizzes with the kind of local comic detail audiences love. And if he occasionally over-eggs that pudding, he makes no mistake with the baroque, tatty vividness of the Ayrshire seaside setting in which he places the play’s climax; or with the sharp pathos of the true story of a dying marriage, beautifully revealed by Mary Gapinski as Jenny.

The second play is a reprise of the company’s sharp 2009 hit Seven Year Itch, a clever triple-layered meta-drama about the shocking murder of a woman by an office colleague in Chicago a decade ago. And the two shows combine to create an evening of powerful narrative and gleeful theatrical energy; with a feeling for the backbeat of popular culture that is as sharply analytical as it is enjoyable.

Rating: ****