Theatre review: Tartuffe, Oran Mor, Glasgow
Tartuffe, Oran Mor, Glasgow ****
Lochhead’s Tartuffe – in a 55-minute four-handed version first created for a Play, Pie And Pint Classic Cuts season, and directed by superb Lochhead veteran Tony Cownie – therefore makes an ideal opening show for this spring’s celebratory Play, Pie And Pint lunchtime season, marking 15 years and 500 plays since the late and much-loved David MacLennan launched the idea of a new lunchtime play every week, at the then newly-opened Oran Mor on Great Western Road. And with the brilliant Gabriel Quigley as Dorine, and Nicola Roy as lady of the house Elmire, making common cause against the equally hilarious Grant O’Rourke as Orgon and Andy Clark as Tartuffe, Moliere’s timeless comedy never misses a beat, in a version that dispenses with several of Moliere’s key characters, but somehow survives to tell its tale in an instantly recognisable form, and one that Moliere himself might well have relished, for its pace, its flair, and its pure earthy hilarity.
JOYCE MCMILLAN