Perth Theatre, and touring 2007

Fergus Lamont presented by Communicado (Photo - Richard Campbell Photography).

WE SHOULD be grateful to Gerry Mulgrew and Communicado for drawing our attention to Robin Jenkins’ 1979 novel, ‘Fergus Lamont’. It’s the second of the author’s works Mulgrew has tackled (for the last one, ‘The Cone Gatherers’ in 1991, he built a life-size wood in Glasgow’s Tramway), and you can see the attraction.

Fergus Lamont is a curious, picaresque novel about a boy from the fictional Gantock (a thinly disguised Greenock) whose discovery that he is the illegitimate son of an earl compels him to make a gentleman of himself.

Never seen without a kilt, Fergus sets about climbing the social ladder, rewriting his past, suppressing his true self and befriending all the right people. After feats of battlefront bravery that could only be performed by someone with impossible self-belief, he marries a wealthy romantic novelist who has secrets of her own.

It’s all too good to be true and his cynical plan is doomed to failure. Once his marriage falls apart and he is brought low, he comes to realise how much humanity he has denied himself.

Around the archetypal rags-to-riches-and-back storyline, Jenkins paints a bruising picture of the indignity of poverty and the callousness of the upper classes. His analysis of the social upheavals of the Great War has lost little of its political bite.

It’s important, however, that by telling the story from Fergus’s point of view, he gives the book a dream-like sense of uncertainty. This is an aspect I miss in Mulgrew’s adaptation which, for good theatrical reasons, spreads the narrative load across a number of characters and dissipates the psychological depth.

Sticking rather too faithfully to the novel’s dialogue, Mulgrew also ends up with a number of untidy scenes and he fudges the ending – in which Fergus finally acknowledges his roots – for want of a suitably dramatic moment.

As director, however, Mulgrew invests the production with a rich layer of actor-driven detail, lots of carefully worked out ensemble set pieces which are both entertaining in themselves and a way of emphasising the sense of community that Fergus, played like a blank canvas by Sandy Grierson, would sooner deny.

There are still rough edges, but with David Vernon’s accordion (scored by Karen Wimhurst) setting the pace, it’s a lively piece of storytelling that will send audiences scurrying home to discover the original book.

(Fergus Lamont can be seen at Strathpeffer Pavilion (20 April) and Universal Hall, Findhorn (21 April) – see Communicado website for full tour schedule).

© Mark Fisher, 2007

Links

• Communicado Theatre Company