Big Sean, Mikey and Me

Ruaraidh Murray
Gilded Balloon

You may need to be a native of Edinburgh to appreciate this hour-long monologue.

Local actor Ruaraidh Murray tells what might have originated as a true story about his relationships with the two men in the title and a couple of Julies.

Murray met Mikey at school and soon fell under the spell of the oversized criminal, following in his bullying wake and regularly visiting the anti-hero in prison, held for unspecified crimes.

After leaving school, our guide to Stockbridge lowlife became an actor and moved to London, somehow inspired by an inner voice that does a terrible impression of Sir Sean Connery. The shade of the famous star supports Murray through every aspect of an unexciting career, helping with work, love and addictions.

The performance is high volume / high energy but suffers because the stories do not really go anywhere until the final information that Big Mikey is no longer with us, almost certainly the victim of excess.

In order to get anything from the show, you either need to have experienced a similar boyhood or find a kind of anthropological fascination of the kind generated far more ably by Irvine Welsh.

Reviewer: Philip Fisher

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