Play Pieces, The Ironworks, Inverness, 12 November 2011

THIS series of six short lunchtime plays in Inverness opened in June with storyteller Jesse Paul’s Handprints in the Snow, a title which sounded perfectly innocuous but turned out to be a chilling, haunting experience, and closed with Right Lines’ Blood from a Stone, which sounded ominous but rather neatly turned out to be a typically puntastic (“Garry, Fank Commander”, anyone?), likeable work from the originators of Whisky Kisses.

Invernessian humour riffing on pastime-of-the-moment genealogy, there were also little echoes of a much-loved Jack Rosenthal television play, Ready When You Are, Mr McGill, which in its original form starred Jack Shepherd, a past master of subtle comedy.

Garry Collins (courtesy of Play Pieces)

Garry Collins’ as the garrulous Garry Shaw [that’s enough of that – Ed] is a worthy heir, equally at home with knockabout broad brush comedy (his delivery of “scary biscuits” could well become a Play Pieces catchphrase) and underplaying – a transformation in an eyeblink from staggering maudlin drunkard to sorry hungover wreck was perfect. A couple of prompts from the writer, luckily sitting in the audience, were somehow kept entirely in character and didn’t halt the flow at all.

This season has opened up theatre in Inverness to a new audience, encouraged new young theatre companies to set up shop and provided somewhere for local dramatists to cut their teeth. A round of applause for all those who funded, wrote, directed, performed, attended, or helped out, and a very large bouquet for Lindsay Dunbar, the onlie begetter of Play Pieces. More next year, please.

© Jennie Macfie, 2011

Links

• Play Pieces
• Right Lines
• Jennie Macfie