Theatre reviews: Joy | Scots: A Musical Celebration of a Nation
Joy is a a pleasingly surreal tale about loneliness and loss, writes Joyce McMillan
Joy, Oran Mor, Glasgow ★★★★
Scots: A Musical Celebration of a Nation, Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow ★★★★
In a Scottish spring season full of musicals large and small, Morna Young’s new Play, Pie and Pint drama Joy comes as a welcome reminder of the sheer power of a smart, funny and insightful 55 minute monologue, in the hands of a gifted solo performer.
Joy tells the tale of a young woman in contemporary Scotland struggling to live up to the name her parents hopefully bestowed upon her. Joy is a librarian, and freely admits she has never been a cheery type; but after three shocking bereavements in a few years - first her fiancé, then both parents - her struggle against depression, or more accurately deep sadness, has become all-consuming.
What’s beguiling about this show, though, is how deftly it combines a deep understanding of Joy’s plight with a powerful streak of absurdist comedy, as she sets out on a desperate quest to recover her sense of humour. In an effort to win a second date with a horrible man called Steven, Joy tries everything from knock-knock jokes to mindless laughter at a colleague who slips on a banana skin. Meanwhile her no-holds-barred female boss at the library thinks she’s losing her marbles, and Joy mistakes a replacement librarian dressed up as Clark Kent for World Book Day for her imaginary friend, Frank.
It’s a pleasingly surreal tale about loneliness and loss, in other words, in a society where apps like Tinder seem to offer 30-year-olds like Joy their only hope of ever not being alone. And it is brilliantly performed by an inspired Naomi Stirrat, who navigates the complex, ever-shifting voices of Young’s script with tremendous skill, while also building Joy into a coherent, complete and quietly lovely character; one who gradually finds her way towards some self-acceptance, and towards a new openness to the grief and sorrow of others, which she understands so well.
If you feel the need for a musical, though, then Raw Material and the Beacon’s new touring version of Scots: A Musical Celebration of a Nation, now at the Pavilion in Glasgow, should offer you an evening to remember, in some downright startling ways.
First seen at A Play, A Pie And A Pint in 2022 - and since celebrated by audiences from the Edinburgh Fringe to New York - Scots is written by the brilliant musical team of Scott Gilmour and Claire McKenzie, aka Noisemaker; and it takes the bold step of imagining Scotland’s entire national history from the perspective of a toilet, embodied on stage by lanky six-and-a-half-foot Alaskan Scot Tyler Collins.
The Toilet claims that it was dug for Scotland’s first king Kenneth McAlpine, in 843 AD; and with a twirly poo on its head, and the help of a storming eight-strong cast-cum-chorus - including Richard Conlon, Star Penders and Katie Barnett, among others - it leads us through a distinctly (or stinkily) radical account of Scotland’s story, majoring on the period since 1707, and undermining many of our favourite myths about ourselves - notably a self-congratulatory list of bearded male inventors - with strong queer and feminist critiques.
If the idea of national identity and myth-making is often sent up and deconstructed, though, Jemima Levick’s gloriously energetic production is genuinely celebratory when it sings of the real improvements in social conditions fought for and won in the 20th century, and of the long walk to freedom of both women and gay people. It’s loud, it’s rude, and it challenges both those who find it too outrageously Scottish, and those who find it not respectful enough of the idea of Scottish identity.
Yet the songs are passionate, clever and sometimes beautiful; and if this expanded version of Scots becomes slightly repetitive towards the end, it’s still a show with a rare capacity to make Scottish audiences laugh, cry, argue and think, as it travels on to Inverness and Aberdeen.
Joy is at Oran Mor, Glasgow, until 21 March. Scots: A Musical Celebration of a Nation is at the Pavilion, Glasgow until 21 March; Eden Court, Inverness, 31 March-1 April; and His Majesty’s, Aberdeen, 3-4 April.
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