Theatre reviews: A Toast Fae The Lassies | Sunshine On Leith
Pitlochry Festival Theatre proves its commitment to Scottish work with two fine shows, writes Joyce McMillan
A Toast Fae The Lassies, Pitlochry Festival Theatre ★★★★
Sunshine On Leith, Pitlochry Festival Theatre ★★★★
There was a time, perhaps a generation ago, when Pitlochry Festival Theatre was often seen, despite its gorgeous Highland setting, as operating mainly like a northern outpost of the English rep system, with only the occasional nod to a very traditional Scottish repertoire - something by James Bridie, perhaps or a Scots Molière like Robert Kemp’s Let Wives Tak Tent.
In recent decades, though, all that began to change, as the theatre began to work with Scottish writers from John Byrne and David Greig and Peter Arnott, and to cast more actors from Scotland; and this September, Pitlochry is welcoming packed audiences not only to a completely sold out revival of Elizabeth Newman’s 2022 production of Stephen Greenhorn’s great Proclaimers tribute musical Sunshine On Leith, but to two new Scottish plays in its Studio Theatre - Kolbrun Bjort Sigfusdottir’s beautiful Leith monologue This Is A Gift, which opened in June, and writer-director John Binnie’s new show A Toast Fae The Lassies, which returns to the familiar Scottish cultural territory of the life of Robert Burns.
There are already many books and plays, of course, which look at Burns’s life from the perspective of the women he loved and left; and Binnie’s play adds to that list with a brief 55 minute meditation set at Burns’s grave on his birthday, the first after his early death at the age of 37, in 1796.
His mother Agnes arrives first, to mourn her boy, followed in short order by his wife Jean, carrying her last baby son by Burns, born on the day of his funeral; and then by Nancy Maclehose, his genteel and wealthy Edinburgh love. In a blunt script full of deliberate anachronisms (“At least ye got a name-check, Jean,” says Agnes), they talk about Burns - Agnes seeing him as flawed but exceptional, Jean raging bitterly against his infidelity and occasional cruelty, Nancy simply worshipping his poetic gift, and his deep human insight.
READ MORE: Night Waking: Mull Theatre's 'darkly funny' new drama based on the Hebrides-set novel by Sarah Moss
It’s possible to quibble with the detail of this show - someone in the cast singing the linguistically nonsensical “auld lang zyne” instead of “auld lang syne”, six month old baby Maxwell portrayed as a stiffly-swaddled newborn, or the suggestion that Burns returned to Mauchline to die, when the whole drama of his death and burial famously took place in Dumfries.
Crucially, though, Binnie’s play grasps the truth that what finally matters about Burns is the remarkable passion and spirit expressed in his work, including his love for both Jean and Nancy. And together, Alyson Orr as Agnes, Stephanie Cremona as Jean and Eden Barrie as Nancy sing Burns’s greatest songs so beautifully - to the live sound of Chris Coxon’s guitar, and in arrangements by Alyson Orr herself - that the audience simply explodes with love, empathy and appreciation, cheering every song, and leaping to their feet as the show ends.
The latest staging of Sunshine On Leith, meanwhile, brilliantly celebrates the raw, handmade quality of a show made for 14 actor-musicians working with instruments in hand, not only to play a terrific score of Proclaimers’ songs at full belt, but also to sing and act their way through a working-class story about true love and its difficulties - set in Leith 20 years ago - that perfectly captures the spirit of the songs, and integrates them almost magically into the action.
In this latest staging, Alyson Orr and Keith Macpherson reprise their moving earlier performances as middle aged couple Rab and Jean, while Alexander Service and April Nerissa Hudson are strikingly touching and persuasive as their son Davy and his love Yvonne. And once again, the audience cries, sings and cheers their way through a show they adore; springing to their feet at the end in the kind of joyful ovation that sweeps away any criticism, in a moment of pure celebration.
A Toast Fae The Lassies has further performances at Pitlochry Festival Theatre on 4, 10, 18 and 24 September. Sunshine On Leith is in repertoire until 27 September.
The Scotsman’s arts newsletter is now sent twice a week - subscribe today
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.