The Happiest Day Of Brendan Smillie's Life
The Happiest Day Of Brendan Smillie's Life
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
LOVE, so the old song goes, is a many-splendored thing. Brendan is in love and life is beyond splendid; he's found a soulmate and, ssshh, they're getting married. Brendan has thought it through. Work extra-hard, get a promotion, save a deposit, find a semi-detached with a garden. The last bit is crucial. Camilla, the bride-to-be, needs a garden - she's a llama...
Yes, folks, we are being led by writer Catherine Grosvenor into the realms of the far-fetched, where extremes of silliness are deployed as a decoy en route to an obvious conclusion. On-stage are three lonely people trying to cope with their day-in-day-out unhappiness. The llama is just how Grosvenor sets the wheels of change in motion.
Brendan, as played by Ross Allan, is not just convincing but hugely touching. His "special needs" are never specified, but Allan's finely judged focus on minutiae suggests Brendan has a degree of autism. Actually, Brendan is adorable, with a capacity for wonderment that brother Liam (Steven Duffy) has sublimated after their parents' death.
If Liam is the rigid killjoy-cum-control freak, Jenny the ditsy wedding planner (Cat Grozier) is his polar opposite. Liam's outrage (a llama??!!) and Jenny's eccentricities (okay, a llama...) become the overly laboured mainstay of comedy that is soon painted into a corner because, unlike Brendan, these characters are cut-out caricatures. Love can make so many things seem possible - making this play funny isn't one of them.
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