Spectrum Centre, Inverness, 18 August 2006

Jackie Goode in Illicit

THE DRAMA DOUBLE BILL presented by Eden Court-in-Exile at the Spectrum Centre employed both auditoriums within the venue, opening with Euan Martin and Dave Smith’s ‘Illicit’ in the drama studio, then moving into the main auditorium for Greg McLaren’s ‘How To Build A Time Machine’.

It was good use of the available space, and raised the speculation that Colin Marr might be tempted to think about ways in which his currently under-construction new auditorium at Eden Court could be combined with the existing one in similar fashion.

The director of Eden Court found himself pressed into service in the first of the two plays. As the audience arrived in the foyer before the show, they were greeted by Culbokie-based actress Jackie Goode, resplendent in pink business suit in her persona as Winnie Grant in ‘Illicit’. She offered samples of her product, a whisky-based perfume, including the world’s first scratch and sniff downloads.

We filed into the drama studio, set up for an audio-visual presentation with a large screen behind a podium. On the podium sat the YEE HA, the Young Enterprising Entrepreneur Highland Award, which Colin duly presented to Winnie, before being peremptorily elbowed aside.

The idea of the play, which was commissioned by Moray HIE, was that the writers should come up with something based around the theme of business start-up. Thus, Winnie was there not only to collect her award, but also to make a funding pitch to the local enterprise company with her audio-visual presentation.

The writers had great fun with the absurdities of Highland marketing clichés, as Winnie took us through her Tartan-bedecked advertising campaign (shot on the banks of Loch Ness), and encouraged us all to chant her slogan for Illicit, “the aroma in the gloamin’”.

The hugely optimistic presentation continued through market research (otherwise known as harrassing the public) outside the Eastgate centre, a bank loan, and the setting up of a huge factory. Things began to take a turn for the worse, though, when a phone call interrupted her as she showed us the rest of the team on screen, her brother (played by Brian Smith) and his hapless sidekick (Greg Geddes).

As she left the stage to take the call, the static images on the screen became animated, and the characters began to talk, firstly with the audience and then with Winnie herself, telling a rather different story of illegal distilling and nefarious dealings.

It all unravelled from there in hilarious fashion as Winnie revealed the realities and domestic disasters behind her operation, introducing a darker note amid the hilarity, and turning her into a more sympathetic and vulnerable character in the process. A sharp, very funny script, imaginative use of technology and committed performances added up to a very entertaining show.

That darker undercurrent was echoed in ‘How To Build A Time Machine’, Greg McLaren’s dazzling one man show which premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe last year. He played a scatty astrophysicist intent on revealing the mysteries of the space-time continuum through a motley collection of props, including blackboard and chalk, cardboard boxes, chicken wire, oven gloves and a cheap fan with fairy lights attached.

This was all hilarious, highly entertaining stuff, but behind the scientist’s slightly scatter-brained enthusiasm for the wonders he confronted, the character was haunted by guilty memories of a family tragedy. Intimations of this darker sub-plot flickered in and out of his diatribe in ominous fashion ahead of the final powerful revelation, and curiously beautiful ending using nothing more than a single beam of light, some chalk dust and a poignant script.

(Illicit can be seen at The Warehouse Theatre, Lossiemouth, on 24 August in a double bill with poetry recitations by Pat Fraser, and will also have afternoon performances for delegates at the Moray Expo Business Conference at the Moray Leisure Centre, Elgin, on 24-25 August).

© George MacKay, 2006