Theatre
Breaking the Ice
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
three stars
IT IS a very knowing excursion into political farce, this week's offering at A Play, A Pie and A Pint, and astutely framed, too. Lacing serious environmental concerns with some all-out daftness and well-observed comedy is a canny tactic. Audiences who get a good laugh are more inclined to listen to what comes along next.
As soon as we see Steven McNicoll’s genial Frank, it is clear all’s not well: the towelling bathrobe/no trousers look isn’t the usual garb of a career diplomat. Not that Frank has any connections with diplomacy. He’s in Alaska, and out of his depth as the hastily appointed Foreign and Commonwealth Office Chief Scientific Advisor to the Arctic Council. He’s speechless, quite literally, having left his address to the Council on the plane. Hapless Frank knows nothing about maritime expansion in the North West Passage. Or about drilling for oil or minerals in the ancient territories of Alaska’s indigenous peoples. However, in a series of cameo encounters, he meets various individuals who do know, and who represent conflicting sides of the agenda.
Since writer Kieran Lynn and director Tony Cownie didn’t have a cast of thousands on hand, audiences are instead further entertained by two redoubtable characters. Various women are portrayed with aplomb, four different accents and changes of costuming by Nicola Roy, and Various men by Jimmy Chisholm in a tour de force of two-faced (make that six faced) acting-up by Jimmy Chisholm. He morphs from pukka bureaucrat to Yorkshire-accented activist out to save t’walrus, through Sami police chief and more, before becoming the voice of ethical debate, as a Russian professor of philosophy. Like Frank, he has no idea why he’s at the meeting. Lynn’s script is fast-moving and funny but – like Cownie’s direction and the spot-on performances throughout – it never sacrifices thought-provoking themes for another joke about inept or ill-informed decision-makers.
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