Theatre
Battery Park
Tron Theatre, Glasgow
Neil Cooper
Four stars
When a solitary middle-aged drinker called Tommy is distracted from his pint at Greenock Bowling Club by Lucy, a Glasgow University student doing a dissertation on Britpop’s lesser known never-wheres, Tommy is stirred to rewind on his past gone mad. That was when he was songwriter and guitarist with Battery Park, the band he formed with his brother Ed and their drummer mate Biffy.
Confronted by another woman called Angie at their first gig, female singer Robyn is drafted in to pick up the slack. With success in their sights, however, old demons rear their ugly head. Thirty years on, Lucy wants to know where Tommy’s loyalties lie, and she’s not just talking about Oasis v Blur.
Andy McGregor’s new play is the latest in an ever-expanding rock family tree of dramatic evocations of small town bands that never quite make it. This sense of familiarity doesn’t take away any of the potty mouthed charm of McGregor’s drama, which he writes, directs and composes the live indie-rock score for, with lyrics co-written with fellow playwright Isla Cowan.
There is wit and pathos aplenty among the set up of McGregor’s production, played out on designer Kenneth MacLeod’s Bowling Club mock up. As the band, Charlie West makes Biffy a typically dumb drummer, Tommy McGowan depicts Ed’s decline with sensitivity, and Kim Allan’s Robyn is every inch the ambitious diva in waiting. Chloe-Ann Tyler doubles up as Angie and Lucy with energetic zeal, and it’s not hard to see how Stuart Edgar’s wet behind the ears younger Tommy ended up as disillusioned as Chris Alexander’s older version.
What Battery Park and other plays of its ilk are tapping into in this wave of guitar wielding 1980s and 1990s set yarns is recognition that the eras their creators’ came of age in is now historically significant enough to be fictionalised.
The song may remain the same in this co-production between McGregor’s Sleeping Warrior Theatre Company Greenock’s Beacon Arts Centre, but as David Essex, star of two 1970s music biz fictions might put it, rock on.
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel