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| Edinburgh : A&E : Theatre: Reviews |
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Theatre listings > Standing Wave
- World Premiere.
As important to this play as Nicola McCartney's script is the musical direction and composition of Pippa Murphy. Like a reel of tape used in the production of her extraordinary electronica, the play rewinds through Delia Derbyshire's life, its climax coming with a piece of music. The set is round like a tape spool and Abigail Davies and Luisa Prosser play two versions of Derbyshire simultaneously. A real sense of the genius and gentleness, as ever juxtaposed with paranoia and anxiety, come across and both give superb performances, one the playful but collapsing Delia and the other artistic and dedicated. Gary McInnes plays all the male characters, her abusive northern husband, her gay BBC friend and colleague, her boss and a pipe smoking sort of Doctor Who, and does so with effortless aplomb. Taking in world-changing events as it goes (the moon landing, assassination of Kennedy, rock & roll) Standing Wave leaves you feeling that art goes on regardless. Derbyshire life was affected by these events like anyone else's, but they appear in the background, being reported on her "beloved radio" and treated with cynicism by her, while she tirelessly works in her studio, often all night. Derbyshire was a maverick in so many ways, paving the way for the massive
wave of electronic music, and leaving behind extraordinary creations in
the BBC sound effects archive. Influenced by the music of her own nervous
breakdown, Standing Wave is almost an archive of this process in
itself and is as engaging as it is unusual. Theatre listings >
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