This begins with a title which is misleading. Although we do have a character, Sally, played by Debbie Lea Young, who happens to be the wife who did Fall In Love With A Life-Size Cardboard Cutout Of Ronan Keating, which sits down stage right for us throughout the whole of this evening's production, lest we forget, this is not about really her obsession. Having said that, the premise that she is clearly a little unhinged is confusing, as she is the most rounded character on stage but is not a neighbour many of us would want to invite round for a cup of tea. It would, of course, depend on the colour of the neighbour’s skin as she is certainly racist—at one point using an epithet long since binned.
Sally presents her views in several outpourings of anger, including upset over a potential mosque that may appear at the end of her Christian street—she is as Christian as her grandmother, Pearl played by Brenda McPake, has converted to Sikhism for the sake of her moped—her son, Philippa / Phil, played by Oli Murphy, who wants to be a man but was born a woman and her daughter, deal with her current partner, Clown, played by Stuart Falconer who is literally a Buddhist clown, has to face an estranged former partner and father of her child, Joe, played by Michael Reddington, who has converted to Islam and supports Oli, whilst her own mother and Phil’s grandmother, Doreen, played by Elaine Ramage, seems to be finding common ground by arguing with everyone and switching sides now and again…
It is certainly a claim that Sally typifies the stereotypical view of many white, Anglo-Saxon men and women of a certain age in a working-class neighbourhood, but, with such a large, broad brushstroke, this is the beginnings of multiple problems with this. If you want to treat anything seriously, you have to go at it with a degree of seriousness, or have the absurdity hardwired into the methodology—this never gets beyond caricatures. The script and the storyline don’t give a platform to discuss what is a very serious topic, that of a transgender young man who was born female.
Phil is looking for top surgery, i.e. the removal of breast tissue, to try and come to terms with the gender dysphoria that they suffer from. They face in their home, inhabited by their mother who's in love with a cardboard cutout, her partner, who is dressed as a complete clown and is called Clown, their grandmother, Doreen, who has a tattoo on her face of the David Bowie flash and her great-grandmother, Pearl, who is obsessed with Elvis riding a moped who has converted to Sikhism because she can wear an ill-fitting turban rather than a helmet. Just to add to the whole mêlée, people seem to be in Sally’s house and it is her grannie’s and Ronan Keating’s birthday, so that is why a “bad” Elvis impersonator, played by Eva Lorraine, who happens to be a bin woman from Easterhouse, is there for the entertainment. The clown, by the way, is a Buddhist. Course he is.
And that is the first half.
In the second half, an estranged father, Joe, who was last seen by this motley crew strung out on drugs but has converted to Islam, has bought the church at the end of the street to be converted to a mosque, has returned in traditional stereotypical dress and is now peace-loving and trying to support his son.
What the script lacks is, ironically, drama. Scenes depend upon information being told to the audience because you need a route map to follow this. Told in a format filled with exposition rather than the development of characters, we get lots of information spouted out as theories rather than interaction.
It leaves the actors with a real struggle. There are times when it sparks into life, but these are far too infrequent—notably the arrivals of Phil and Joe gave us an injection of pace that helped the whole thing, but it couldn't rescue it completely. It's such a rich topic, but also one filled with pitfalls, and this is so crassly developed that when you are finding that actors are having to expose the narrative simply by talking it over, and then getting involved in coded theories that are espoused as truths, it fails—and badly. The best example I can give is when the young Phil happens to change from being in one moment, “I want to have top surgery”, to the next moment, being utterly convinced by 14 or 15 words spouted by a father he hasn't seen for years that it is unnecessary, it demonstrates just exactly where the lack of drama exists within the context of the play.
It is adequately directed, insofar as there is a degree of organisation to where people go, and it's never less than coherent in terms of moves and connections, however what seems to be missing is that ability for actors to settle into their characters to allow a real relationship to develop, and what we get ironically is instead a number of cardboard cutouts that don't quite make it.
I don’t think that I was alone. Many of the people who were in the audience were singing along to the Ronan Keating songs and doing so with great gusto. They were probably there because the title of the play had got them through the door, but must have been rather confused by what was served up. Though to be fair to the production, their online feedback is much more positive than my experience.
The sound is crude, and often unclear. The lighting is a simple on and off, with a fade in the end when Sally has her breakdown, and is efficient enough. I wasn't totally convinced by the end of the play using the projection, because it had no connection to what was on stage.
This is a new company of people with drama training. This should have had a far stronger grip on the dramatic communication to make it across the footlights. I therefore left feeling a degree of disappointment over what had been served up and, having worked with a number of transgender young people, many of them would have turned up to see this and not been wholly impressed by the way in which their daily struggle was being portrayed on stage.
That's not to say that there should not be different interpretations within this debate, and a plethora of different opportunities to discuss the issues. Unfortunately, however, this reduced it to a very simplistic series of not very convincing set pieces, and it should be put to one side.
Despite the script, there are glimpses within the company that they are better than this. And with touring theatre in Scotland desperately needing new initiatives, especially within the hinterlands, they are to be commended at least in being brave enough to perform out there, but should find a much better vehicle in order to convince all of us that they have a place within it.