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| Edinburgh : A&E : Theatre: Reviews |
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Theatre listings > THE DERRY BOAT
- tour For those of Irish descent with family memories and family tales of grandparents who took the Derry Boat from Donegal to Scotland looking for work, this one man play offers recognition, the security of, at times an easy nostalgia. "Cows first, people after" Liitle John Nee says in his very funny re-enactment of that sea passage where a piece of rope is a ship's rail and then a cow's tail. Memories reside in detail. Becoming his grandfather arriving in Glasgow to work in the coal mines he speaks of the "Clyde, green at the cuffs." Trips home to Donegal savour arriving in countryside where the only sound is that of a bee. The play gives us what is not always seen in theatre buildings. The brio of the street performer! For until Liitle John Nee wrote The Derry Boat, the first part of a Donegal trilogy it was as a street performer that he was known in Dublin and then Galway. In the play he's Shugie O'Donnell, the native returned. Believing himself to be prosperous, he waits at the ramshackle shack of his forefathers for his girlfriend. She never comes. He finds out he isn't rich. But failure & catastrope are familiar shades to a descendant of cultural confusion:Shugie's father was a wife beater; Shugie's grandmother went mad. Moving between past and present, the often painful material of emigration and exile is best handled by an acting style in touch with clowning, funny walks & improvisation, well aperciated by the packed audience in Kirkcaldy on the night I saw it. It's edgy theatre, taking the audience soemtimes to the dangerous edge of boredom as routines are taken to their limit. Yet robust gag-making, wild and crazy songs "You and me and a tank full of petrol" and a willingness to change hats and be someone else suits the terrain of psychological damage he delves into. Worth seeing for its insights, the Derry Boat accomplishes fascinating
changes of scene and mood. This is achieved with the assistance of a musician
playing drum keyboard and guitar and also through the engaging versatility
of Little John Nee's performance reminicent of Norman Wisdom. Theatre listings >>
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