Theatre
A Respectable Widow Takes To Vulgarity
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
****
VULGARITY has breenged back to Oran Mor with the same mischievous swagger that so delighted Play, Pie and Pint audiences when this one-act was first staged in 2013. Fulsome accolades followed the play’s appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe (August 2013) and resulted in a transfer to New York’s 59E59 Theater the following spring. Six years, to the very day of its PPP premiere, Douglas Maxwell’s cleverly-calculated barrage of f-words and c-words returns, sympathetically re-cast and marginally updated - whereupon history simply repeats itself.
From the moment young Jim encounters the widowed Annabelle and blurts out his expletive-laden tribute to her late husband, the audience laughter erupts and doesn’t stop until the final ribald punch-line.
Now, do we really believe that the fragrant Annabelle is so unfamiliar with, and so fascinated by, Jim’s default vocabulary of swear words that she demands he teaches her to be garrulously foul-mouthed? Well, grief can make people do strange things... so we go with it. Not least because Anne Kidd brings a subtle clarity to Maxwell’s little hints of regret - perhaps guilt? - in Annabelle’s memories of her husband’s rough and ready origins.
Origins not unlike Jim’s working-class background, origins her husband rejected when they married and he became upwardly mobile. It’s this cultural/linguistic class divide that interests Maxwell, not solely as a springboard for gleeful comedy but as a commentary on the social mores that pigeon-hole people by their accent and turns of phrase.
Jim the apprentice already knows this: it’s the ‘you’re thick’ label that, once applied, sticks until you come to believe it. Craig McLean, making a terrific professional debut, takes Jim from initial embarrassment and confusion over Annabelle’s bizarre request to a point of friendship and fellow-feeling where his range of facial expressions speak volumes.
See Vulgarity? See hilarity? See real class acting by Kidd and McLean? Just (expletives deleted) go!
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