It’s an eternal balance with any form of review that the humble critic must decide how much of themselves to insert into the piece. It’s something that as a rule, I personally have always shied away from, letting my opinions stand for themselves without feeling the need to insert too much of myself into things. With Nicole Taylor’s Wild Rose, I find that a little bit difficult, as back in the summer of 2017 I was briefly employed on the original film version as a part of the technical crew, spending one of those stuffy summer days in Glasgow’s Fruit Market, repeatedly listening to Jessie Buckley’s healthy lungs belt out the BAFTA-winning earworm of an original song "Glasgow (No Place Like Home)" for most of the long, hot day. A song which, had you asked me at the time, I’d have told you I never wanted to hear again.
Luckily, time heals most minor workplace woes, and when I saw the film on its release, I rather enjoyed it. So it was with curiosity rather than trepidation that I attended the press night for Taylor’s brand new musical adaptation of her story at the Edinburgh Lyceum. A theatrical production that, I’m happy to say straight off the bat, is a far better vehicle for this story and a lot more fun than watching the film.
Wild Rose is the musical tale of Rose-Lynn Harlan (Dawn Sievewright), a fiercely Glaswegian single mother, who has just completed a year-long stint in ‘the jail’ for a drunken, drug-related, first-time offence. The moniker of ‘Wild Rose’ is an apt one, as Rose-Lynn is a dervish of wild abandon and desperate ambition, with the single goal in life being her dream of heading to Nashville and becoming a country singer. But being from the lowest rungs of working-class Glasgow, she hasn't got the contacts, the gumption nor the discipline to follow her dream as a career path, and her relationships with her long-suffering mother Marion (Blythe Duff) and her two children have been stretched to breaking point.
It’s at this point when a chance job working as a cleaner for a wealthy local artist, Susannah (Janet Kumah), who becomes besotted with Rose-Lynn’s carefree attitude and her singing prowess, sets her sights on making the Nashville dream come true. The trouble being that Rose-Lynn hasn’t told her new employer about her kids, or her criminal record, and pretty soon, her past and future both threaten to shake every aspect of her life apart.
It’s a simple enough tale, and Nicole Taylor’s script has been nicely rounded out and sanded down, not only to slightly better fit the more tech-savvy world of the 2020s, but to work the musical numbers into the plot in a mixture of diegetic and non-diegetic ways. It’s certainly not a hindrance to factors that John Tiffany is sitting in the director’s chair here, bringing his wealth of top-drawer experience pulling together the various aspects of the piece. From the stomping line-dance-inspired movement of Vicki Manderson and Steve Hoggett’s choreography, to the smoothly changing backdrops of Chloe Lamford’s sets, it’s clear that there’s a coherence to wrangling the disparate chaotic elements into the raw and easygoing simplicity of this production.
The music itself is obviously key to the piece, and it’s a solid choice to keep the full band on a raised dais upstage throughout, constantly playing, and even giving each of them a full credited introduction as a believable part of the play. Similarly, the music that is threaded through the piece manages to thematically underscore many of the scenes. It also gives the all-singing cast a chance to shine, with not only Sievewright taking centre-stage, but giving Kumah and Duff each a chance to belt out a solo piece. It’s a brilliantly rounded selection of country hits, without ever feeling like it’s straying into cliché.
If a grumble can be levelled at Wild Rose, it could be fairly said that it’s actually a surprisingly gentle, meandering and at times overly-cosy story considering its focus on the oft maudlin and grim world that is country music. It’s also completely lacking in romance, heartbreak and tragedy. Resolutely, this is an empowering story of women and their inter-relations as much as about Rose-Lynn maturing as a responsible adult, which absolutely has a place in the country canon but doesn’t really fit the music present.
Similarly, most of the story’s heartache and real strife occurs completely offstage, with a harder focus on the gigglesome fun rather than the reality of the situations. Despite her constant protestations of things being so hard for a working-class Glaswegian woman, everyone in the play bends over backwards to give Rose-Lynn time, money, support and opportunity, and her failure to recognise this is part of the point. But as the focus is so keenly held on Rose-Lynn and her emotionally striven but somewhat easy redemption, it hammers home that this isn’t a tragedy but a slightly unearned triumph of maturity over frivolity, as, despite the trail of trauma she perpetrates on her mother, friends and perpetually abandoned progeny, Rose-Lynn still wins out overall.
While this is essentially the story of a woman coming to terms with growing up and discovering responsibility, there’s a sense that the overall message is a little confused. Which certainly fits the musical version of this far better than the cinematic original. The slight magical realism that the musical form lends the piece solves myriad problems, letting the audience slide into comfortable enjoyment rather than picking faults.
So, despite these concerns, and with the overwhelming weight of the brilliance on display, it’s not surprising that the entire audience soared to their feet in applause as the final notes trailed out. It's plain to see that this is a show which is likely to go far beyond simply the Lyceum's hallowed walls. I can say for myself that hearing "Glasgow (No Place Like Home)" did put a smile on my face again. Like so many things in this story, with enough distance and the right mindset, it becomes clear that the things you thought you didn’t want can actually be the surest comforts of home.