Theatre reviews: Same Team | Unicorn Christmas Party
Same Team, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh ****
Unicorn Christmas Party, The Studio, Edinburgh ****
In Edinburgh at Christmas, it can be difficult for theatre-lovers to see past the daft delights of the big panto at the Festival Theatre, or the lure of a spectacular blockbuster musical at the Playhouse. This year, though, the city’s smaller theatres offer a couple of brilliant, joyful and celebratory shows that capture everything that matters about the festive spirit, albeit in slightly unexpected ways.
In the Traverse’s superb December show Same Team: A Street Soccer Story – written by Robbie Gordon and Jack Nurse, along with the community around Dundee Change Centre – there’s not a Christmas tree or twist of tinsel in sight, as a brilliant cast of five women arrive on Alisa Kalyanova’s floodlit football-pitch set to run through some pre-show training exercises.
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Hide AdThe story they are about to tell, based on the real-life experiences of those working with the Change Centre and the charity Street Soccer Scotland, is of five women with a history of poverty, homelessness and crisis, as they gradually bond into a team that will represent Scotland at the Homeless World Cup final in Milan. The play’s formula is familiar, and similar to other recent sport-based shows around Scotland, including the Tron Theatre smash hit Moorcroft, the National Theatre of Scotland’s Thrown, and This Is My Story’s Sweet FA; the five women must bond across differences of age, culture and class, and each has an inner life, or a hidden wound, that must be revealed through a moment of monologue or intimate dialogue.
If there is nothing revolutionary about the shape of what Gordon and Nurse are doing, though the way that they do it – with the help of top director Bryony Shanahan, and a superb team of actors – is breathtakingly skilful, fast-moving and creative, featuring a quick-fire script that can flick in an instant from laugh-out-loud comedy to devastating sadness. The characters are slightly stereotyped yet beautifully fleshed out, ranging from Louise Ludgate’s middle-class divorcee to Hiftu Quasem’s troubled but gifted teenage striker, with Kim Allan stepping up at the last minute to play struggling single mother Sammy, and rising stars Chloe-Ann Tylor and Hannah Jarrett-Scott, playing hard-faced captain Jo, and The B, an ex-con with a violent past whose hilarious inability to speak anything but the brutal Dundonian truth, and fierce loyalty to her chums and team-mates, all but steals the show. And the audience, too, eventually becomes a vital part of the event; singing our hearts out to cheer the team on, as they test themselves on the international stage.
Things are much more obviously Christmassy in Unicorn Christmas Party in The Studio, with a stage covered in Christmas trees and sparkling candy sticks. Yet from its all-female cast to its emphasis on audience participation and the sheer physicality of theatre, it has some surprising qualities in common with Same Team, as unicorns Melody and Luna – Sarah Rose Graber and Ruxy Cantir, a pair of gorgeous Yankee-style stars – set out to help their friend Santa Claus recover his mysteriously lost Christmas sparkle.
They soon work out, of course – with a little help from the pre-school audience – that nothing generates Christmas sparkle more quickly than a good party; and in no time the stage is decorated up with even more sparkle, and the whole audience is on its feet, dancing, singing and throwing shapes to a series of favourite Christmas tunes. It’s a simple idea quite perfectly executed, and accompanied by a chance to do some drawing and decoration-making before the show. And although the show is designed for young children, and probably best for 3-5 year olds, I’m strongly tempted to recommend it to everyone, of any age, who is feeling a little short of sparkle this Christmas; and needs some generous, joyful and powerful unicorn energy, to help them find it again.
Same Team at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, until 23 December. Unicorn Christmas Party at The Studio, Edinburgh, until 24 December