Perth Theatre’s artistic director Lu Kemp and playwright Kieran Hurley have created A Six Inch Layer of Topsoil and The Fact it Rains, a lively piece of ceilidh theatre based on conversations with Perthshire land dwellers and owners. It will be starting its rural tour in a few days, & The Mumble was lucky enough to catch a wee blether with Lu & Keiran

Hello Kieran, so what for you makes a good piece of theatre?

KIERAN: Wowzers, I dunno, I feel if I could answer that in one neat answer in a piece of preview press there wouldn’t be much mileage in the artform and I probably wouldn’t be giving my life to it. Theatre’s an incredibly varied thing. I’d say in general I like work that genuinely tries to speak to people, work that values its audience. I don’t like theatre is self-important or self-involved. Theatre’s real advantage over other forms is it’s liveness, and I like to see shows that make a virtue of that – the fact that we’re all here together in the same room.

Hello Lu, so when did you first find yourself getting into the dramatic arts?
LU: By accident largely, but I was interested enough in them to find work at The Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, as one of my three student jobs. I worked on box office with a young bloke – now the playwright Robert Alan Evans – and to kill time we started sending bits of writing back and forward between us. And then we decided to make a play together, which was a terrible idea and complete hell, but somehow it did well and we ended up taking it to the National Student Drama Festival, and then someone offered me a job, and I didn’t have a better offer at the time, and so it goes on!

Keiran, are a relative newcomer to the Scottish theatre scene, but have arrived with a bang. How did you find the success of your Fringe First-winning HEADS UP, played at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2016 and 2017, which also won the Best New Play at the Critics’ Awards 2017 for Theatre in Scotland?
KIERAN: Am I newcomer? Cool. I feel I learn something new about myself every time I answer one of these things. I’ve been doing this professionally for about ten years now, and was just beginning to feel like I couldn’t trade on “newness” any more so I suppose it’s nice to have faith in my relative newness restored. Heads Up was a great experience, though a bit of a whirlwind. We made the show very quickly, and on very little resources. At the time a lot of my work was tied up in commissions or screen work and I really wanted to re-capture the sort of DIY spirit of some of my earlier work and make something that would immediately meet its audience. So we got together the bare minimum of what we needed and just did it, We called it “three chord punk” which was really just a fancy way of saying we’ve got no cash, and to be honest when we opened I had no idea how it was going to be received. I was delighted with the audience and critical response, of course.

You’ve also toured HEADS UP a couple of times, how do you find the experience?
KIERAN: I love touring because I love the chance to take the work to people. As a writer or theatre-maker you really just want the work to be seen widely. When you’re performing you’re own work it can be tricky though. I love performing, but unlike other shows Heads Up toured with just me on the road and that can be a bit of a slog. And I’ve got a family now and that limits how long I can take it out for. So it was very different from any other tour I’ve done in that sense, but no less valuable.

What does Lu Kemp like to do when she’s not being theatrical?
LU: Cycle around.

Lu, you are just about to launch your creation with playwright Kieran Hurley, A Six Inch Layer of Topsoil and The Fact it Rains, can you tell us about the play?
LU: We wanted to make a piece that felt relevant to Perthshire now. Last year, before the theatre opened, we drove around Perthshire meeting lots of people and talking to them about what’s changed in Perthshire over the past 20 years and how they feel about Brexit and what they think is going to happen next. Kieran and I had worked on a similar project about the state of education for the Royal Shakespeare Company the year before. We thought it would be dry as a biscuit and were really surprised by how bloody and funny it was.

Can you tell us something of the research process behind A Six Inch Layer of Topsoil and The Fact it Rains?
KIERAN: The idea for the show started with Lu wanting to make a piece for and about rural Perthshire. The idea of doing a verbatim play came about because we’d worked together on another verbatim piece, still in development, for a theatre down south and we’d both gotten a lot out of it. Verbatim theatre basically just means a play based on real life materials, usually interviews. So we made this piece about the farming industry, basically by driving around rural Perthshire, following leads and speaking to people. Farmers, mostly. But also food campaigners, journalists, seasonal workers, storytellers… It might sound quite narrow, talking about farming but the amazing thing is becomes a jumping off point for such a broad range of issues. Talking about the food industry means talking about climate change, about Brexit, about how we use and share this land that we all have to live off, how we produce enough food for us all to be able to eat. Really big, fundamental stuff. And because it’s a verbatim play it’s full of this distinctive voices and witty and unique perspectives.

Could you describe your working relationship with Lu in one word?
KIERAN: Nope.

Could you describe your working relationship with Kieran in one word?
LU: Good.

Have you grown as a person after the experience of meeting with & talking to so many members of the agricultural community?
LU: I’ve certainly learnt a lot. And it’s made me think about things in a way I didn’t have reason to before. Mostly about milk. I’ve thought a lot about milk recently.

You have quite an interesting itinerary coming up; Perth, Aberfeldy, Birnam, Crieff, Blair Atholl, Alyth , Blairgowrie & Kinross Who is the brains behind the tour, & will they be managing the affair?
LU: We want to be touring in Perthshire as a theatre. Perth Theatre isn’t, and shouldn’t be, just about the venue in the centre of Perth. And we had a ball last year going to all the different venues with And Then Come The Nightjars by Bea Roberts (also about farming). People behave differently in their local venue to the way they do if they come to a theatre, it feels like a community night out.

What would you say to encourage people to buy a ticket?
KIERAN: It’ll be a really good night out. It’s going to be full of thought-provoking stuff that’ll sure to leave you with lots to discuss and think about afterwards, and all entirely relevant to rural Perthshire. But more than that, it’ll be a braw evening’s entertainment. We’ve two of the finest performers in the country in Melody Grove and Aly Macrae, both incredible musicians as well as being beautiful actors. Spending an hour or so in their company in this intimate setting will be a joy for any audience.

What do you hope the audience will take away from the production?
LU: I hope it will entertain them, and that there are enough contradictory ideas in the piece that it will make people go to the pub and debate over a drink! Hopefully they’ll go home humming the tunes as well.

These rural tours are a great theatrical asset to this part of Scotland. How well do you think they are received?
KIERAN: Every time I’ve toured rurally in Scotland before it’s just been a joy and a privilege, and I wish I had the opportunity to do it more. The last time I did a proper rural tour was with a show called Rantin for the National Theatre of Scotland in 2014. We went all over the place, and audiences were just so appreciative and warm. It’s long been a part of the fabric of Scottish theatre, rural touring, and really needs people committed to making it happen if it’s going to continue to survive and thrive – which is one of the reasons it’s so brilliant that Lu has committed to touring rurally in Perthshire with Perth Theatre.

What does the rest of 2018 hold in store for Lu Kemp?
LU: Sleep. I hope.

For tickets and info for A Six Inch Layer of Topsoil and The Fact it Rains in Perth Theatre visit www.horsecross.co.uk or call Box Office on 01738 621031. Tickets are also available from the venues.

Wed 9 May: 7.30pm
Aberfeldy Town Hall

Thu 10 May: 7.30pm
Birnam Arts Centre

Fri 11 May: 7.30pm
Strathearn Artspace, Crieff

Wed 16 May: 7.30pm
Blair Atholl Village Hall

Thu 17 May: 7.30pm
Alyth Town Hall

Fri 18 May: 7.30pm
Blairgowrie Town Hall

Sat 19 May: 7.30pm
Loch Leven Community Campus, Kinross

A Play, a Pie and a Pint
Oran Mor, Glasgow
30th May-5th April

Script:   Stagecraft:   Performance:

For people of a certain age it’s hard to forget Britain’s early entries to the Eurovision Song Contest (‘Sing Little Birdie’ by Pearl Carr & Teddy Johnson, from 1959, anyone?) but we should try. The nascent competition favoured a particular type of perky, bouncy melody with simplistic lyrics and not a lot had changed by 1969, when a troubled Lulu faces singing ‘Boom Bang A Bang’ in Franco’s Spain. Has her voice gone or is it all psychosomatic?

Danny McCahon’s play is set in the singer’s dressing room before she takes to the stage to represent her country. Lulu (Stephanie McGregor) has concerns that go beyond pleasing the audience; she has seen the future of music and it is not MOR. This isn’t what her manager, Marion (Romana Abercromby) wants to hear. She’s more interested in pleasing the BBC and getting future TV shows commissioned. Lulu’s mother Betty (Sarah McCardie) reminds her daughter she’s been performing and charming people since she was four years old and tonight will be no different. Certainly the marshmallow pink dress that Lulu is compelled to wear, looks like it was designed for a four year old but she is assured it will look splendid on the relatively novel, coloured broadcast.

McGregor’s Lulu bears a remarkable resemblance to the pop star, visually and vocally. The fluttering spider eyelashes, the head tilts and hand gestures are all spot on. When she speaks, the slide from the extended vowels of her adopted English to the guttural consonants of her native Glasgow, are delightfully half and hawf.  McCardie’s Betty has a brash confidence and belief in her daughter that is tinged with just a hint of envy that Marie (as she calls Lulu) got out, and got on. Is her green dress trying to tell us something? Abercromby’s Marion is elegant in patterned culottes, with a beehive that’s a testament to the power of hairspray. Her well spoken tones are a template for Lulu’s acquired, Received Pronunciation.

Complex issues of identity, ambition and coming of age are thoughtfully addressed in this play about a young woman seeking to find her own way in the music business. McGregor’s performance of ‘Boom Bang A Bang’ is something to shout about.

David G Moffat

A Play, a Pie and a Pint
Oran Mor, Glasgow
23rd-28th April

Script:   Stagecraft:   Performance:

What have the Persians ever done for us?

Well they developed the first modern economy, including the introduction of paper money, instigated the first postal service and invented algebra. But surely all these achievements fade into insignificance, when measured against their contribution to problem solving major decisions. Those determining the outcome had to agree when they were drunk and still agree later, when hung over.

In Tory Ian Wellesley’s Westminster office there’s only Earl Grey, muffins and a political hot potato on offer, when fellow parliamentarians, Kirstin Thompson and Mary Rodgers, join him to discuss a petition in favour of the reintroduction of capital punishment. Agreement proves impossible and in an effort to calm the growing turbulence, Ian breaks out the fortified wine, well any port in a storm. Soon the women are shoes-off drunk and dancing to tunes from the office laptop while Ian struts his stuff to the strains of ‘Macho Man’. Wheels oiled, the ideas on how to handle the tricky petition start to flow fast and thick. There may even be time to sort out Mary’s Northern Ireland too! In vino veritas for sure; what could possibly go wrong?

The author of the drama, Meghan Tyler, plays Mary, a fiery young DUP member dressed in a crisp white blouse and royal blue trousers that wouldn’t be out of place behind an Ulster, Lambeg drum. Her language is as strong as her fundamentalist belief that ‘Dinosaurs are lies’. Liam Brennan’s Ian is a grey suited Conservative, very much the professional politician, all for consensus – if it makes problems melt away. His voice has the resounding, practised tones and rhythms of chamber debate, in contrast to his circumspect manner with his colleagues. Irene Allan’s Kirstin is power dressed in black with dark hair scraped back from her forehead. Sensible, practical, conscious of what it means to represent Scotland, she’s a politician with an eye on the future.

There are energetic but nuanced performances from all three cast members in this enjoyable, cautionary tale of parliamentary pitfalls. Exit polls say yes.

David G Moffat

Passing Places is twenty-one years old this year. It says much for the play-writing skill of Stephen Greenhorn that this ‘road movie for the stage’ which first entertained Generation X also had the Millennials laughing out loud at its comic sparkle throughout the opening night at the Dundee Rep.  This wee gem of a play retains not only its wit but the power to engage audiences with issues of Scottish identity, the Scottish experience of class divisions and the clash of the rural and the urban. At heart, though, Passing Places speaks of the divide in each of us between what we have become and what we could be, if we have the courage to take the road less traveled.

Small-town boys Brian and Alex embark on a road trip from Motherwell to Thurso in a broken-down Lada, with a stolen surfboard tied to the roof rack. They encounter on the road an assortment of characters who have tumbled their own way north, among them the beautiful and free-spirited Mirren (Eleanor House), who becomes the catalyst for a series of changes for the two callow youth.  In pursuit is Brian’s boss, the owner of the surfboard, the psychopathic Binks, hot for some revenge to extract on thepair’s kneecaps.

Dundee Rep’s revival of this much-loved play evokes the thrill of travelling in a landscape at once strange and yet familiar. Reading from a map the place names of the west coast, Alex enthuses about the magnificence of the Scottish hinterland to an aesthetically illiterate Brian, more intent on the destination than the journey. Actors Ewan Donald and Martin Quinn are physically and comedically effervescent as Brian and Alex. They delightfully riff off each other at points in the dialogue, making for some cracking comedy that hasn’t dated one bit in twenty-one years.

The image of a leather-clad biker rolling into town on a pouffe displayed real comic inventiveness and still makes me laugh to remember

A counterpoint to the sympathetic portrayal of the main characters is provided by Binks, played with real comedic relish by Barrie Hunter. Binks takes the Scottish ‘hard-man’ trope to its absurd (and literally insane) fulfillment, raining down total destruction in his quest for retribution. The image of a leather-clad biker rolling into town on a pouffe displayed real comic inventiveness and still makes me laugh to remember.

How well does a twenty-one year old comedy about nineteen-nineties Scots youth finding their futures on the road speak to the present day? Well, they don’t use Google maps to get to where they want to be. I dare say that’s something Generation X still does better – reading a map. But you don’t need a map or even google maps to know when you’re lost. Passing Places still charms because we all feel lost sometimes and there’s no map for that journey. There’s just going further where the road takes you. As a road movie for the stage Passing Places puts a charming Scottish thrill on a well loved genre. Time’s passing hasn’t aged it. There’s not a mobile phone in sight. But hey, who ever gets a decent signal that far out anyway, right?

Mark Mackenzie

A Play, a Pie and a Pint
Oran Mor, Glasgow
16th-21st April

Script:  Stagecraft:   Performance:

This week Oran Mor hosts a service of Remembrance, in loving memory of the dearly departed Sandy Alison Munro (1963-2018). Sandy left explicit instructions as to how the occasion should pass-off; this may explain why the traditional Scottish purvey of flaccid, lukewarm sausage rolls was replaced by Scotch pies. There was a full house of the bereaved which would have surely have pleased the deceased. Sandy’s big brother, the Reverend Andrew Munro, tall, dark, slim, like Guinness in a test tube, emceed the event, leading those gathered, through a list of his wee brother’s dubious achievements, while photographic slides of Sandy in happier times (obvs) appeared on a screen above the coffin.

Rob Drummond’s play is a dark comedy about the life and hard times of Sandy Munroe, a man who found joy difficult to come by in life so is determined to find some in death. He has left detailed plans that involve his brother Andrew (Benny Young) singing a pastiche of Candle in the Wind as part of the Eulogy. Try as the good Reverend may to put a gloss on Sandy’s life, the truth will out (including an obsession with a certain red headed, BBC Scotland, news presenter). Former wife Anne (Joyce Falconer) is vilified as a rank bad-yin for legging it to Cyprus with a sailor but there are two sides to every story and she is adamant hers will be heard. Callum Cuthbertson provides Sandy’s video message from beyond the grave.

There are songs, plenty of belly-laugh moments and more than a few buried truths to keep the audience engaged.

Young’s face is wonderfully immobile and gloomy while delivering hilarious stories about the past but his long, energetic arms and legs eat up the stage, taking him out of I.M. Jolly territory. Falconer gives us a more solid, determined character. A formidable woman, a rock to build on, or crash against, the choice is yours. There are songs, plenty of belly-laugh moments and more than a few buried truths to keep the audience engaged. The pace did seem to slow at the end, where perhaps a bit of judicious dialogue trimming would not have gone amiss. That said, dead good.

David G Moffat

THE MUMBLE TEAM

Has headed to warmer climes with the Migrating Swallows, but we…

WILL BE BACK WITH THE BIRDS IN THE SPRING

MUMBLE OPERA IS NOW OPEN !!

Greenside @ Infirmary Street
Aug 25-26 (23:10)

Script:  Stagecraft:  Performance: 

Leaf is essentially a patchwork quilt of capers, japes & nonsense under which we audience members may snuggle & giggle warmly for an hour. As we are swept from the ‘infamous moors of Berlin’ to the period drama of Georgian England, we are given the loosest pretensions of a story revolving about the lovequest of chess-loving chemical engineer Mark. The most remarkable thing about watching Leaf, in fact, is how its actors – led by commander-in-chief Helen Potter – can keep a straight face during the show. In a recent interview with The Mumble, Helen described her creation as;

larger than life comedy that is both entirely based on the truth, and an absolute load of fictitious nonsense. As quintessentially British as the queen eating her roast dinner off a Boris bike seat (perish the thought!)… Leaf is a show that combines the emotional rollercoaster of a socially awkward chemical engineer, with the wild chaos of a sketch-show.

A sketchy play in both senses of the word, Leaf is still a fascinating – & funny – watch. A lot of thought has gone into the stagecraft of Leaf; its visually exciting, while the voice-overs work superbly. This play is comedy bombast at its most fluent & foppish best. Some moments are freshly hilarious, while others are just dodgy pun-making, but with the latter being delivered with such overenthusiastic confidence that these turn out to be kinda funny n’all. Leaf also gets a bit taps-aff towards the end, & with a lung-bursting rendition of ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ to finish, this wonderful late-night watch was a perfect way to finish my Fringe for 2017.

Reviewer : Damo

A Play, a Pie and a Pint
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Aug 28-Sept 2

Before a backdrop of a huge page from an adolescent notebook, scribbled with drawings and philosophical ponderings, a man trudges back and forward in a tired dressing gown making a cup of tea. A throbbing soundtrack tells us he’s only human after all. The phone rings and a conversation with an old friend, takes him back to a place he’d rather not be. It’s the 1980’s and Billy, a 5^th year boy with journalistic ambitions, has access to the school’s Gestetner printer. What could possibly go wrong? Well given his publication is called the Cumnock Finger, plenty.

The play by Stuart Hepburn explores the relationship between three school friends over three decades. Billy (Ryan Fletcher) is a wannabe intellectual who knows a good book is for being seen with, not reading. Eddie (James Mackenzie) is cool and knows life is for living, not writing about. Deansy (Gavin Wright) is their sensitive specky pal, not terribly sure about anything. The characters are well rounded and their youthful disregard, for actions having consequences, will be all too familiar with many in the audience. With a capella singing and a strong, what-happened-next narrative, this is a sound start to Oran Mor’s autumn season.

Reviewer : David G Moffat

August 27th
Assembly Rooms

Script:  Stagecraft:  Performance:

For a long time I have been interested in Scientology. I’ve seen the South Park episodes, Phillip Seymour Hoffman in the Master and the documentaries, visited their Museum of Death and Visitors Center in LA and even wrote a song about them. I have yet to be audited, but I’ve always been a bit paranoid about going that far. Maybe they’re smarter than they appear…? Anyway, one thing I have learned is that it’s a very brave thing going up against them and certainly revealing their secrets. Although I think that after the South Park episode half the world knows their big revelation you used to have to pay a hundred odd grand to reveal. All praise Xenu! Anyway, for that fact alone Cathy Schenkelberg, the protagonist of the show, deserves a lot of credit. And while she doesn’t have any major new insights, she does give us a fairly indepth account of how the cult took a great deal out of her, both personally and financially.

The problems with the show however were the often hammy acting and the fact that it assumed a lot of the audience. In particular of the dense brain washing language used by the Scientologists. As it manically flipped between life and auditing I was often lost in the dense vocabulary of the cult. I respect shows that don’t dumb down for an audience but the vocabulary of Scientology is niche knowledge at best. Even for someone as fascinated by it as I am. Never the less the gist was got and the ever increasing sums of money projected behind her were an effective graphic illustration of how Scientology may in reality be nothing but a marketing scam. Another interesting point made was that the aim of Scientology is to make the Able more Able, which may explain why they do so little for actual charities. Truly a cult of the elite. Anyway, if you have an interest in cults and haven’t seen the Master, the South Park episodes and the documentaries there is much to learn here. Although if you haven’t I’ve only got one question – where have you been the past twenty years?

Review by Steven Vickers