Theatre
A Change in Management
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
***
IF THERE was an Olympic Platinum Medal for jumping to conclusions, then Lydia - part of the management team in an Edinburgh warehouse - would be the outright winner. By rights, Lydia (Nicola Roy) shouldn’t have answered the manager’s phone - or opened his emails. But assistant manager Lydia tends towards self-importance, so she does both and learns that an (unseen) employee is - apparently - a sex offender.
One accusing e-mail is enough to send Lydia into a veritable frenzy of righteous outrage. By the time office manager Billy (an affably bumbling Steven McNicoll) arrives, Lydia has branded the employee a ‘paedo’ and is demanding his immediate dismissal. Billy’s more cautious approach - he phones human resources for procedural advice - sends Lydia’s voice several degrees up the stridency scale. So too does the fair-minded, liberal thinking of the younger, clearly better educated Mary (Helen MacKay) whose online searches discover important facts that contradict Lydia’s claims.
David Gerow’s play - his first-ever fully professional production - certainly catches a very topical tiger by the tail, in terms of laying out almost-unreconcilable issues of moral judgment, social conscience, prejudice and proof (as opposed to accusations and suspicions). Moreover, with director Tony Cownie navigating the cross-currents of ugly realities and farcical extremes, Gerow risks spinning his themes into a comedy of dire consequences. We shouldn’t laugh, but we do.
We laugh at hapless Billy, digging himself into a hole on local radio, as he tries to explain away the distinctly brutal ‘incident’ that resulted from Lydia’s rabble-rousing among the work-force. We even laugh at how silly and shrieking Lydia is, with her blinkered campaign against the ‘paedo’ she is determined to get sacked. By the end, there are sackings. Other people cop the flack and the fall-out from Lydia’s actions and opinions - undeserved outcomes that really are no laughing matter.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here