Theatre Uncut 2014

Oran Mor, Glasgow

Mary Brennan

Something's lacking here, though it's in no way connected to the performances. The cast of four - Faith Alabi, Ruairi Conaghan, Ruth Gibson and Conor MacNeill - seize on the four short plays served up by Theatre Uncut as if there is real meat on the bone, and issues of great social/political pith and moment to be chewed over in these brief, 15-minute scripts. For sure, when Theatre Uncut first took to the stage in 2010, the format of bite-sized dramatic provocations had a raw, spontaneous energy that made less (in terms of length and production resources) offer more by way of opening up brisk debate.

Here in Scotland, under the incentive of the referendum vote, we've already had - and continue to have - our debates on iniquities within state systems, and on the policy changes that might resolve them. Perhaps that's why these four sketches, by London-based writers, are such damp squibs. A prevailing slide towards the bizarre or fantastical - avoid the bedroom tax by blowing up the bedroom (Inua Ellams) or increase Lottery revenues by giving sensation-seeking viewers a gore-fest where winners are mutilated (Anders Lustgarten) - means the writing side-steps the shocking reality of what lengths the despairing poor are already having to go. The florid, scatter-gun word-association of Clara Brennan's Pachamama froths with eco-awareness, but its poetic pile-up of images isn't really a wake-up call to respect the rights of the planet. Vivienne Franzmann's The Most Horrific comes closest to touching a raw nerve by using Facebook "likes/dislikes" responses to comic material and news bulletins - only to reveal what we knew already: sex sells, especially when celebrity and abuse are in the same headline.

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