Theatre reviews: Moorcroft | Crisis: A Rallying Cry

Two new plays at the Tron and the Traverse manage to channel rage at our broken political system into compelling drama, writes Joyce McMillan
Moorcroft L-R clockwise: Sean Connor as Paul, Ryan Hunter as Tubs, Jatinder Singh Randhawa as Mick, Kyle Gardiner as Sooty, Santino Smith as Noodles and Martin Quinn as Mince PIC: John JohnstonMoorcroft L-R clockwise: Sean Connor as Paul, Ryan Hunter as Tubs, Jatinder Singh Randhawa as Mick, Kyle Gardiner as Sooty, Santino Smith as Noodles and Martin Quinn as Mince PIC: John Johnston
Moorcroft L-R clockwise: Sean Connor as Paul, Ryan Hunter as Tubs, Jatinder Singh Randhawa as Mick, Kyle Gardiner as Sooty, Santino Smith as Noodles and Martin Quinn as Mince PIC: John Johnston

Moorcroft, Tron, Glasgow ****

Crisis: A Rallying Cry, Traverse, Edinbugh ****

Time was when the politics of power was discussed using terms like capital, labour and class, exploitation, poverty, alienation, and even revolution. Today, the language has softened, and become more individualistic; we talk more of poor mental health and low life expectancy, less of the brutal impact on human beings of an economic system, and a society, that places no intrinsic value on them.

Whatever names we give it, though, the experience described in young Lanarkshire writer Eilidh Loan’s debut play Moorcroft – playing to packed houses at the Tron, in a production which she directed herself – is one that generates rage, and a huge, simmering energy; and Moorcroft is one of those rare plays – like Willie Rough or Gagarin Way before it – that brings that energy straight to the Scottish stage, winning a huge and immediate audience response.

Hide Ad

The play is based on the experiences of Eilidh Loan’s father, who as a young man in Lanarkshire 30 years ago, played in many small six-a-side football teams, as a way of keeping fit and having fun. The central character, Garry, tells the story in flashback form, looking back from his recent 50th birthday at the moment in 1989 when he decided to set up a team called Moorcroft, and tried to rope in six of his friends. They are 19 years old; and yet many of them already respond with a kind of weary scepticism, as if their days of youthful energy and fitness were already sliding into the past, under the pressure of hard and demoralising work, or unemployment and despair.

The story of what happens to Garry’s beloved wee team – once he pulls it together and gets it on the park – is a tragic and resonant one, partly a powerful tale of sheer bad luck, partly a written-on-the-body record of why male life expectancy in some parts of ex-industrial Scotland was, and remains, among the lowest in Europe. Eilidh Loan’s seven-strong all-male company features a fine mix of familiar faces, led by Martin Docherty as Garry, and blazing new talent, drawn from the Tron’s 2021 open actor call-out. And in a show with no credited movement director, the physical choreography is as powerful as the acting, as Loan leads her team of men through a story that had to be told; and that brings a whole new richness to Scottish theatre, in the telling.

Young Glasgow-based company Kick The Door also represents a new voice in Scottish theatre and film; and like Moorcroft, their show Crisis: A Rallying Cry, briefly at the Traverse this weekend, is partly driven by pure rage at the failure of the adults supposedly in charge seriously to tackle the climate crisis that puts the whole future of humanity at risk. “They tell us to trust them to drive the car,” says one despairing company member, “and yet they’re driving it over a f***ing cliff…”

Created by director Fraser Scott and an ensemble of ten young theatre-makers, seven of whom appear on stage, Crisis: A Rallying Cry emerges as a funny, poignant and acutely-observed 50-minute glimpse of the lives of today’s teenagers, full of all the normal anxieties surrounding exams and relationships in the age of Covid and instagram, but also conducted against a backbeat of climate despair that they, like most adults, can neither ignore nor fully deal with. “Don’t you dare call us inspirational,” says that same angry young man, towards the end of this powerful and well-shaped cry for help. “We’re only teenagers, just like you were. Now please do something. Somebody help, please.”

Moorcroft at the Tron, Glasgow, until 5 March. Crisis: A Rallying Cry, run completed.

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription at https://www.scotsman.com/subscriptions

Related topics: