Lorna Irvine reviews a 'poignant, hilarious and troubling' play.
A pair of siblings from any arse-crack Scottish town run off to a secluded beauty spot. These babes in the rotten wood are Sandra (a phenomenal Lynn Kennedy), a garrulous gauche girl eager to dispose of her virginity, and her taciturn brother Jamie (Daniel Cameron, quietly heartbreaking), a saucer-eyed waif with learning difficulties and a predilection for practising CPR on a medical dummy.
Rob Drummond's warped fairytale is a seedy delight, a perfect fit for Alan McKendrick's discomfiting chuckles. For this is a comedy, and a maggoty one at that.
A dead rabbit, some cheap cider, a pregnancy testing kit and spliffs become symbolic of an adult world the kids teeter above, ever closer to this or the abyss.
This most unsavoury picnic is interrupted by gimlet-eyed interloper Brian (Ross Mann), almost certainly the kind of older boy Mother warned girls about but who naturally proves irresistible.
For these two have an alcoholic Mummy, and Daddy is dead. There's no compass here. Cartoonish adolescent fumblings collide with horror tropes, film clips and Jaws in 3D.
Poignant, hilarious and troubling, the breathless dialogue is played out on Astroturf with toadstools. All the kids can do now is sit and wait for a happy ending. And wait. And wait. And wait some more.
Lifesaving is on at Oran Mor until March 7 as part of A Play, a Pie and a Pint’s spring season.
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