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Theatre
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A'body's Aberdee
Playwright - Don Paterson
Director - Sandy Neilson
Designer - Paul Ambrose Wright
Lighting Designer - Richard Moffat
Company - Dundee Rep Resident Company
Venue - Dundee Rep Theatre www.dundeerep.co.uk
01382 223530
Tay Square Dundee
Dates - Previews
3 & 6 Nov 7- 24 Nov 2001 Current Dundee Rep listings
Run Time 3 hrs including 15 interval
Reviewer - Thelma Good
Dundee Rep bring us this romp of play
A'body's Aberdee - Dundee Rep Resident Company Alexander West
as Sir Menzies McManus and John Ramage as Provost Les Spankie
© Anthony Brannan 2001
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Back in our hame country after gangin awa tae Russia with Checkov's Seagull,
Dundee Rep bring us this romp of play.We're looking at our own rather
stinky backgreen where the politicians and spin doctors gather tae mak
numpties of us all. Don Paterson's A'body's Aberdee has a Provost Les
Spankie, John Ramage, this small man likes being hung up and tied.
And he's got a council grant to renovate his own facilities so his assistant
in binding Mona McManus, Ann Louise Ross, also on the council,
can use the tortures the inquisition loved. Oh politicians aren't they
the ones.
"Are you going to be squirming on your seat?" asked one Dundonian
of another on the play's first night. The inquiring chum, who probably
tenders for the council, laughs very knowingly when the council official,
Susan Harrison demands details from the Council's potential window
cleaner about disabled access to his ladders. The Dundee Ensemble show
how adept they have become at all styles of theatre, here a Sheridan approach
to characters.
It's a rich seam politics for such a play. Paterson has pillaged it for
japes, so much so he nearly undermines himself stuffing the whole shaft
with cheap but effective firecracker jokes. Director Neilson cleverly
ensures the roof doesn't cave in but a tighter, shorter script would make
his life easier. Nearly all the many schemes and strategies that Aberdee's
Council get into have real life alternatives, so strange are the more
entertaining scandals of recent times. The council get tied in many of
these ploys by publishing magnet Sir Menzies McManus, (that's his Mona
by the way) the local entrepreneur with a thing about left handers and
his embroidered apron to look after. McManus seems to own nearly everything
in sight but Councillor Lyn Lathen, Meg Fraser, Ugly Dave McGovern,
Rodney Matthew, and newcomer PR person Jim Hughes, Keith Fleming,
aren't yet in his grasp.
There are lots of gags, especially from the Aberdee Radio Station where
station personnel Steve Spaver, Andrew Clarke and Jeannie Torrence,
Susan Harrison ,the media nerds lurch from story to story. There
are so many gags, many of them achingly cheap making the whole thing take
on the air of one of McManus's comics. Paterson could have gone for the
jugular a bit more, but by mocking the politicians' scams Paterson makes
it clear he mocks us too for letting it go on. It ain't agit prop theatre,
nor really biting satire and it would be much better for a lopping of
20 minutes or more but as a comic spoof it made me laugh and also squirm
in anger at myself.
© Thelma Good 7 November 2001
Related
reviews
Dundee Rep's astounding Seagull
to tour Glasgow, Aberdeen and Inverness in the Spring
Review Paterson's previous play for the Rep,
The Land of Cakes,
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