Paisley Arts Centre, on tour until April 2004

IN HIS baggy red T-shirt, with its socialist slogan emblazoned across the back, actor Frank Gallagher looks like no one so much as left-wing comedian Mark Thomas. This is disorientating. That’s because Reasons to be Cheerful is an adaptation of a book by that other left-wing comedian, Mark Steel.

It’s getting like you can’t tell the difference. All the more so in these politically timid times. So few people are prepared to stand up and profess their socialist beliefs that it’s easy to lump the few that do together.

And it’s easy for the few that do to fall out with each other. Thus it is, in Martin McCardie’s play, that three old friends meet for a party and end up at each other’s throats arguing about the political path each has taken.

Gallagher plays Bobby, a hard-core activist who puts political action above everything, denying himself a private life in the process. Maureen Carr plays Kate, a Labour councillor with her eye on the Scottish parliament, who is prepared to keep quiet if it means grabbing hold of power. And Neil McKinven plays Michael, a stand-up comedian whose radical routines sit uneasily with his new-found wealth.

In a play based on the spirit rather than the letter of Steel’s political memoir of the same name, McCardie doesn’t offer a right answer, but suggests that the way forward might be somewhere between the life-destroying absolutism of Bobby and the soul-destroying compromises of Kate. If that sounds too tub-thumping a premise for a play, rest assured it’s all done with a good deal of wit and pace, thanks to good gags from McCardie and Steel and forthright acting from all three performers in Stuart Davids’s lively production for 7:84.

Yes, it can feel like a play from another era with its dense detailing of competing left-wing ideologies, but its Scottish setting and up-to-date references work against the anachronism. Above all, like the book, it is an affirmative piece of entertainment that tells a story – of rallies, protests, strikes and sit-ins – that has been experienced by many, but all too rarely celebrated in public.

Reasons to Be Cheerful can be seen at the following venues:
New Hall, Lossiemouth High School, Thursday 11 March 2004
Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, Tuesday 23 March
Village Hall Ballachullish, Wednesday 24 March
Plockton Hall, Plockton, Isle of Skye, Thursday 25 March
Sir E Scott School Hall, Tarbert, Harris, Saturday 27 March
Bowmore Hall, Bowmore, Islay, Tuesday 30 March

© Mark Fisher, 2004

Related Link:

7:84 Theatre Company