Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow, 24 September 2008, and touring

Danielle Stewart and Nick J Field in Offshore (photo - Eamonn McGoldrick)

MORE THAN a few readers of Northings will recognise the scenario. There is Kath (Linda McLaughlin) scratching a living selling beer to the tourists when they land on her jetty in the summer months. Skippering the boat that brings them there is her daughter Kerry (Danielle Stewart) who shares her mother’s lackadaisical approach to commerce.

They know their livelihood depends on the brief three-month summer trade, yet somehow they can’t summon up the will power to increase the rate for their services. The beauty of their surroundings compensates for a hand-to-mouth existence, but only just. It won’t take much for Kerry to seek work elsewhere and for Kath to leave the countryside for good.

So when playwright Alan Wilkins introduces a pair of money-minded city-types into this rural idyll, the scene is set for a dramatic battle of values. Are Jock and Frida (Billy Mack and Karina Jones) right to imagine they can turn around the local economy by doubling the mark-up on beer and turning a cheap ferry into a classy cruiser, or do their avaricious attitudes sit uncomfortably in a place where community, friendship and hospitality counts for more than financial wealth?

Disappointingly, it’s a question that’s left hanging because of a crime thriller plot that’s more concerned with springing surprises on the audience than squaring up to a genuinely interesting conundrum. Jock and Frida turn out to be opportunistic crooks with a couple of schemes to rip off more than just the tourists. It means the locals have to decide about the morality of an escape from poverty that requires not simply profiteering but outright criminality.

The more they go along with the illegal plans, the less convincing the story although, like a creaky Agatha Christie, there’s a pleasure in the twists and turns, however silly. It means Morvern Gregor’s production for Birds of Paradise is breezily watchable for its brisk 70 minutes – it’s just a shame it doesn’t deliver on its initial promise.

(Offshore can be seen at Lonach Hall, Strathdon, 7 October; The Warehouse, Lossiemouth, 8 October; Lochinver Village Hall, 22 October; Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, 23 October; MacPhail Centre, Ullapool, 24 October; Ballachulish Village Hall, 28 October; Taynuilt Village Hall, 1 November)

© Mark Fisher, 2008

Links

• Birds of Paradise
• Mark Fisher’s Scottish Theatre Blog