Theatre
The Origins of Ivor Punch
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
two stars
The origins of this one-act are woven into Colin MacIntyre’s book The Letters of Ivor Punch in which a former police sergeant fires off colourful missives from his island billet to various folk, including Barack Obama. The novel encompasses a complex breadth of characters and events, some past and some present, all overlaid with reflections on island life and the powerful influence the sea has, even on those who adhere, in work and family ties, to the land.
Distilling this collage of overlapping and inter-twining fragments into an hour-long play can’t ever do the book justice, but does MacIntyre’s adaptation of his novel succeed as a standalone piece of theatre? Sadly, despite brisk direction (from Stuart Hepburn) and thoughtful performances from the cast of three, the piece feels like a promissory note: interesting metaphysical ideas are introduced into a fanciful love-cum-ghost story – but they teeter on the side-lines, because there’s no room to explore them. Instead, we get whimsy and hints of inherited traits, albeit not exactly as Darwin would have logged them.
Colin MacIntyre on bringing his novel The Letters of Ivor Punch to the stage
He – yes, Darwin – puts in a fleeting appearance when the action flips back from the present to the 1860’s, and the unconventional romance between Henrietta Bird (sister of the famously far-travelled writer, Isabella) and the local postie, Duncan Punch. Darwin is, in fact, little more than a device for the exposition that bursts in upon the end of the play with details of accidental deaths and illegitimate births alongside gruesome facts that time has morphed into myth and superstition.
Meanwhile back in the present, Sergeant Punch is being haunted by questions he can’t answer... Andrew John Tait (as Duncan and Ivor) has a quiet intensity that suggests hidden depths, with Tom McGovern switching from dour (Darwin) to cheery (Ivor’s chum Randy) and Eva Traynor diffentiating nicely between the Bird sisters. Lots of dots, folks – not really joining up convincingly, however.
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