Yer Granny is a riotous new comedy about a diabolical 100-year-old granny who’s literally eating her family out of house and home. She’s already eaten their fish and chip shop into bankruptcy and now she’s working her way through their kitchen cupboards, pushing the Russo family to desperate measures just to survive beyond 1977.
As proud head of the family, Cammy is determined that The Minerva Fish Bar will rise again and that family honour will be restored – and all in time for the Queen’s upcoming Jubilee visit. But before Cammy’s dream can come true and before Her Maj can pop in for a chat, a single sausage and a royal seal of approval, the family members must ask themselves how far they will go to solve a problem like Yer Granny.
Adapted from the smash-hit Argentinian comedy classic La Nona, the cast of Yer Granny features some of Scotland’s best-loved performers, including Gregor Fisher in the title role, alongside Paul Riley (Still Game), Jonathan Watson (Only An Excuse?), Maureen Beattie (Casualty), Barbara Rafferty (Rab C Nesbitt), Brian Pettifer (The Musketeers) and Louise McCarthy (Mamma Mia!, West End).
It’s one thing to strive for heights but not quite make it; it is another thing to lumber through something lazily and expect points simply because the deck is stacked with great people, all of whom have done far superior work than what’s on display here.
Undeniably watchable, laugh-out-loud funny in parts, but the descent into easy stereotypes and Mrs. Brown’s Boys territory, render it a two, rather than three dimensional production.
A piece of serious fun that looks at extreme reactions in the face of all encroaching greed.
It is generally a fine cast. Sadly, the direction by Graham McLaren means that the often tangy script is rendered lacklustre, only finding its chops in a fizzing finale.
The show’s lack of a definitive political punch hardly matters, as the plot careers off into ever more surreal and hilarious byways.
A shame.
Douglas Maxwell relocates Robert Cossa’s comedy about a voracious granny to 1970s Scotland with very funny results.
There’s a certain predictability to Yer Granny, a sense that prevails and minimises the efforts of an exceptional comedic cast and award-winning creative team.
Humour is, of course, supposed to be universal, and there’s a great deal to be enjoyed here, but as the audience trooped out into the chill of a June evening in Edinburgh, one couldn’t help wishing one was in Argentina.
Despite not hanging together too well, it certainly provides a large amount of fun. Yet the overall feeling must be that it could have hit much harder.
Like its South American progenitor, Yer Granny is a no-holds-barred, tasteless, darkly comic play. As it asks just how low human beings can sink, we discover, as with much great comedy, that we are laughing at ourselves.
The cast make it all worthwhile though. They do occasionally ham it up with some panto style mugging, but this edgy little black comedy should very well appeal to anyone with a sense of humour, thanks to their zany performances.
Gregor Fisher is the picture of conspicuous consumption in Douglas Maxwell’s hilarious reworking of Roberto Cossa’s play.
Yer Granny: classic Argentinian comedy adapted by National Theatre of Scotland
Preview: Yer Granny
On Tour, from Tuesday May 19, 2015, until Saturday July 4, 2015.
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