Theatre reviews: Picture You Dead | You Won't Break My Soul

Plays by Peter James and JD Stewart explore the theme of theft from very different angles, writes Joyce McMillan

Picture You Dead, Theatre Royal, Glasgow ★★★

You Can’t Break My Soul, Oran Mor, Glasgow ★★★

Two very different shows offer some light-touch summer entertainment, yet they feature one strange similarity, in that they both revolve around the theft - or at least the sudden unexpected removal - of things of value.

Picture You Dead | Contributed

In Peter James’s latest stage thriller Picture You Dead - based on his 2022 novel of the same name, and playing its only Scottish date in Glasgow this week - the valuable object is a £20 painting bought by an apparently sweet young couple in a Brighton car boot sale, that turns out to conceal a genuine long-lost old master by Fragonard, painter to France’s ancien regime in the years before the 1789 revolution.

The sweet young things, whose name is Kipling (cue cake jokes), turn for advice to local art forger turned copyist Dave Hegarty, who advises them to hide the real Fragonard in storage, and to commission him to provide a copy for their living room wall, until the original can be verified and sold.

The couple duly agree; and so begins a veritable circus of bluffs, thefts, fakes and counter-fakes, in which ruthless art collector Stuart Piper - and his frighteningly violent female enforcer Bobbie - pursue the original Fragonard to the death, while Hegarty the copyist turns out not to have gone quite as straight as he pretends, and Peter James’s dogged Brighton detective Roy Grace - with stoical sergeant Bella in tow - gradually unravels most of the puzzle.

The play is loosely based on the true story of ex-forger David Henty and his friendly relationship with Graham Bartlett, the ex-cop turned thriller writer who once sent him to jail; and it frolics through its labyrinthine plot in decent style, without ever plumbing any depths, or soaring to any great heights.

George Rainsford’s Inspector Grace seems a shade subdued in the company of such flamboyant criminals, while Mark Oxtoby turns in a charismatic performance as the gifted rogue Hegarty, and 2016 Strictly winner Ore Oduba plays to his many fans with a bravura portrayal of the evil collector Piper; and Jonathan O’Boyle’s production romps its way to a head-nippingly complex conclusion, with a final twist in the tale that elicits a few last gasps from the audience, before they head out into the summer night.

You Won't Break My Soul | Eoin Carey

In JD Stewart’s latest Play, Pie And Pint drama about 21st century gay life You Won’t Break My Soul, meanwhile, Glasgow flatmates and best friends Jordan and Russell have set up a household shrine to their favourite pop diva Beyoncé, and adorned it with their hugely expensive tickets for her upcoming mega-concert in Edinburgh, now just 24 hours away.

The only problem is that Jordan - a drag queen still in recovery from being beaten up after a school reading to which some took exception - has ordered in some casual sex in an effort to cheer himself up; and fails to notice his hook-up partner casually helping himself to the tickets as he leaves the flat. Stewart’s 50-minute play therefore follows Jordan and Russell through a frantic afternoon and evening, as they try to recover their lost tickets, or to acquire some new ones, with the help of waitress and drag king Sooz, from the restaurant across the road.

In the end, sheer desperation - and love for Beyoncé - drives Jordan to rediscover his drag queen mojo, after months in hiding. And the show, vividly directed by Laila Noble and designed by Heather Grace Currie, ends in a celebratory riot of glittery drag performance and raunchy dancing, carried off in heartfelt style by Jamie McKillop as Jordan and James Peake as Russell; with strong support from Kaylah Copeland as the ever-resourceful Sooz, determined to secure a happy ending, for the friends she loves.

Picture You Dead at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, and You Won’t Break My Soul at Oran Mor, Glasgow, both run until 14 June.

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