Peter and Lily have a secret. They love Sonny & Cher, their favourite celebrity couple of all time.
With a string of hits in the 1960s and a successful American variety TV show in the 70s, Sonny and Cher were mismatched, they were camp, they were good honest fun. Decades later Peter and Lily are still listening to their records, still lip-syncing to their songs and practicing their comedy routines every evening. But beneath their obsession with sparkle and showmanship is a tragedy. And as dark truths start to pop their bubblegum act, it becomes clear not everything is quite as it seems.... Read more …
A fine study of warped suburban misery, with many acerbic one-liners.
Don’t be fooled by the high camp publicity posters, “a little darkness didn’t do anyone any harm”, Lily declares, indeed, in the case of And The Beat Goes On, a little darkness goes a hell of a long way to restoring your faith in new writing in Scotland.
While the performances are solid, there is a slight lack of conviction in places and the pace meanders at times.
Brown and McKnight, best known for comic performances, are excellent in the lower-key dramatic passages. But in the end they can’t come to the aid of a play that is suffering from a serious identity crisis.
When the full story is finally revealed, it seems too improbable to take seriously.
It’s never clear, however, whether the play wants to be seen as a comedy or a tragedy and in the end it falls rather short of being either.
This may seem like a sketch for an interesting play, but, unfortunately, that is all that Smith has written, a sketch. The acting is fine, as is director Kenny Miller’s design (which includes, of course, fabulous costumes), but the writing disappoints in its resort to short cuts, clichés (such as Peter’s “double life”) and thickly spread pathos.
Talk About...Pop Music
Stef Smith--And The Beat Goes On
On Tour, from Tuesday March 24, 2015, until Friday April 24, 2015.
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