There's an incredible, bittersweet alchemy at work in this piece.
An unforced rollicking charm to the little vignettes that writer Kieran Hurley and his three musician/ composer collaborators – Julia Taudevin, Gav Prentice and Drew Wright – serve up in tellingly crafted words and song.
The pithy, pawky energy might reference the 7:84 (Scotland) Cheviot style of yore but the prevailing sense is of a 21st century multi-faceted Scotland, one that truly exists at the very moment of our being in this venue.
Miriam, long absent from her native Ramallah, could well be trundling past us on a 44 bus to a new cleaning job. Howard, the 67-year-old from the US of A, could be flying overhead on a pilgrimage to find himself. We chuckle at his blithe illusions/delusions of a homeland and a people that are in his ancestral DNA, but like the other characters who come so vividly before us, Howard is in need of a defining identity. He needs to be part of a bigger picture.
Drunken, foul-mouthed unemployed MacPherson's modern Rant (to the traditional air) may be tinged with nostalgic lamenting. The laddie leaving Stornoway to go to Glasgow Uni, or wee Shona in Port Glasgow about to apply Luddite tactics to the automation replacing people in the local supermarket, hint at a melancholy and rage we can all recognise as part of Scotland's psyche.
But this gorgeous piece of ceilidh-theatre, where music swirls engagingly, is taut, nuanced and illuminating, and refuses to be bleak. It ends on Hamish Henderson's Freedom Come All Ye to a fine new tune. The run ends tonight, but more Rantin' has to be on the cards.
HHHH
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