Theatre

King Keich

Oran Mor, Glasgow

Mary Brennan

****

YOU don’t need to know chapter, verse or even a single scatological line of the original Ubu Roi (1896) to get the mordantly twisted joke here. Already familiar with Alfred Jarry’s absurdist satire? Then you’ll admire the clever parallels and updated context that Louise Welsh brings into play with King Keich.

You glimpse the comedic mayhem ahead when Keich - Grant O’Rourke in flashy gold jacket, shorts and golden slip-ons - gets in on the act while the pre-show announcements are in full flow. Little nods, winning smiles - O’Rourke is already warming us up for his TV game-show Open the Box. Gosh, his beaming bonhomie soon has us on-side: we’d even vote for this guy if he ran for high-powered political office. Guess what? Americans did just that.

Welsh has fun with her occasional allusions to the world views of Trump, but she doesn’t over-egg them: there’s no need - Jarry has already put the guignol excesses of ruthless ambition, absolute power and insatiable greed at her disposal. What she doesn’t have, however, is a cast of dozens to cover Jarry’s roster of nobles, peasants, conspirators and the whole Russian and Polish armies.

She, and director Paul Brotherston,thrust such strictures aside because, luckily, they have Meghan Tyler as a scheming status-hungry Mrs Keich, babying and ego-boosting her bully-boy husband while Alasdair Hankinson shape-shifts hilariously across various characters ranging from a weedy King to an endangered Bear who have one thing in common ... they all end up dead at Keich’s hands.

Ahhh, Keich. Garrulous, potty-mouthed, a messy eater demanding pies and pints, a feckless child with no conscience only an over-weening sense of ‘I want, and I want it NOW!’ Grant O’Rourke encompasses all this and more, with a gusto that makes Keich’s increasingly scary-manic behaviour so laughable we forget the hidden truth: such despotic jokes are at our expense.