A tour de force worth the ticket price alone
To the civic grandeur of Kilmarnock's Palace Theatre and the opening of the much anticipated National Theatre of Scotland production Be Near Me.
Based on the Andrew O'Hagan novel of the same time, and set in the rundown fictional west of scotland town of Dalgarnock, it stars Ian McDiarmid as an English priest, out of his depth in a community entrenched in its views of football, politics, religion and life.
McDiarmid is a tour de force, onstage for the whole two and a half hours, and at times it seems that the large cast surrounding him, are an afterthought.
There are fine performances from the supporting cast, particularly Blythe Duff as his housekeeper, Mrs Poole, and Richard Madden and Helen Mallon as the troublesome teenagers Mark and Lisa.
The first act is gripping, MacDiarmid's lonely priest hurtling towards the event which will turn his life upside down.
Director John Tiffany uses the technique of on-stage song and movement to move the scenes along and like Black Watch, it works brilliantly.
There've already been a flurry of complaints about the use of sectarian song in the play -a bundle of flyers were in evidence on the bar at Friday's first night opening - but how on earth do you deal with a tale which references small town sectarianism, if you're going to ban the songs themselves?
I suspect your take on the play will depend what you thought of O'Hagan's 2006 novel in the first place.
It's a slightly far-fetched story and there's a long dinner party scene in the second act which seems only included to allow the writer to put all his characters on a soapbox.
The second act is also overlong, the play's breathy momentum abandoned after the interval.
It will also be interesting to see how the play is received outside of the west of scotland - it's a co-production with the Donmar Warehouse and it's off to London next week before returning for a full Scottish tour.
The belly laugh the beautifully choreographed "slosh" got in the wedding scene, for example.
Or the cringy reference to composer James MacMillan.
But McDiarmid's performance is worth the ticket price alone, even if his first stage adaptation probably requires a little pruning.
Not London’s South Bank, but the south bank of the River Clyde in Glasgow - every bit as lively in cultural terms as its namesake. I’m Pauline McLean, Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Scotland’s arts correspondent, and I’ll be blogging here about arts events and issues happening across the country.
Comment number 1.
At 20th Jan 2009, Alison Bond wrote:I also had the pleasure of watching this, last week at Kilmarnock and found it to be an amazing play! It was very moving, incorporated all the essentials from the original book and was exceptionally written and performed! A cast without a weak link, all very strong, performed it perfectly, led by an incredible performance by Ian McDiarmid.
I agree that the first act is gripping, but not that the second, is overlong. The original book has a great deal packed into it and in the time lengh you have for the play, I believe everything of importance within the book, has been transfered to the stage. I really think, if any "pruning" was made, some of the books feeling and ideas might be lost.
Much of the books background and Father David's thoughts are conveyed by Mr McDiarmid's expressions and movement as appose to an actual scene, that's brilliantly done. All the main scenes necessary, including the dinner party, which is as important as any, to keep as much as the books infromation, are just right.
I too will be interested to see how well things transfer to other regions. Being from the North West of England (Lancs), I still found parts like the "Slosh" amusing. I don't think there would be any major problems with the transfers, people will still get the idea, with how it's been done.
I also found the on-stage song "like Blackwatch" to be fantastic and really thoughtful!
The whole play, to me, was beautifully written and performed, a definate must see - more than once too!
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