Despite ScotRail trying their best to spoil my night I thoroughly enjoyed it. Left the house at 18:00 (with the show starting at 19:30) for a 20 minute train journey and 10-15 walk to the Lyceum. Ended up running to the Lyceum and into the lobby to hear the tannoy announce the two minute curtain call! Oh, and the train home was delayed too.
The curtain raised what must’ve been bang on 19:30 as I had just checked my watch running down Lothian Road a moment earlier to reveal a very sparse set. This is pretty typical so I was interested to see how it would evolve and bit by bit pieces were added and taken away by the actors. Between scenes actors would carry on their own props like tables, chairs, fake rabbits (LOL) etc. If you’ve been to the theatre before this will be nothing new but having seen this I can’t imagine it benefitting from a bigger production as Mark has suggested.
Now to the music: A Barrel of Crude is a good opener to the show with the whole ensemble taking part but there were a few numbers that stood, one which was a real highlight: Filthy Dirty Rich. This was started by Gordon after he had the conversation with Mac about buying the village. He put the papers down, gasped then jumped up onto the table and started singing, followed by Stella and then the rest of the cast. It was a strong performance from Matthew Pidgeon.
Another fine showing was by Julian Forsyth in the, what must be coveted, role of Ben the beachcomber. Fulton MacKay truly lives on through Forsyth. He did a nice slow tempo number Cheerio Away You Go which started with a funny line from Stella where she said to Mac: “Cheerio, it’s Gaelic for f*** off!” There’s quite a lot of humour in the show too. The whole cast do a fine job and really bond with the audience but these were the two standout performances for me.
As for the playing of the original Local Hero tunes, well act I ends with a variation of Wild Theme played on a whistle with snare drum - very “Scots Regiment” sounding. This lasts only about 30 seconds as a teaser and the audience obviously love it because you can hear them whispering! Then during the final scene and as the audience are leaving, the band are playing Going Home (minus sax) and after the actors take their bows they open the doors behind the stage to reveal the band playing away. The audience are clapping their hands along with the music at this point. They do a great job but of course there’s only one Mark Knopfler.
Overall I think they did a remarkable job of translating this to the stage. I couldn’t imagine how it could be done but they did it! I’m not a fan of musicals but I tend to think there are some musicals that have a story used an excuse to drive the songs. This has both a great story and great songs. Perhaps an issue it may have is that although I thought the songs were good I never left singing them, much like most Knopfler songs. In the most successful musicals they always have catchy songs. I can certainly recommend this to any Knopfler fan even if they don’t like musicals because there is plenty dialogue and it stays faithful to the well-loved film. If you haven’t already booked and were thinking about it think no more and Get A Move On!
P.S. The song You Can't Eat the Scenery was obviously cut from the ceilidh scene where the Russian said "it's nice here, but you can't eat the scenery."
