Arts:Blog

Theatre Review: Colquhoun & MacBryde (***)

Lorna Irvine reviews a production that's 'a cute doodle'.

'Work,’ Oscar Wilde once quipped in one of his famous bon mots that made him the twat/life and soul of the party (delete where applicable), 'is the curse of the drinking classes.’ Such was the case (crate?) with the duo of Glaswegian painters from the 1940s, Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde, lovers whose aim to break into the art establishment was thwarted by hedonism, alcoholism, sexual jealousy and general idiocy. Banned by pretty much every salubrious drinking hole they fell into, their story predates Gilbert and George by years, but their end was one of tragedy.

So it falls to the redoubtable John Byrne to tell it. Coming on more like a Caledonian Julian and Sandy than G & G, all one-liners and idealism, we follow them from their seedy Glasgow flat, where MacBryde (Stephen Clyde) is posing naked, but for his moth-eaten socks, for Colquhoun (Andy Clark) to the strains of You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile; to working on the frontline, to finally getting their own exhibition and faces in the press.

Soon it becomes clear that Colquhoun has a strong work ethic and is highly principled, even going as far as driving an ambulance without a single driving lesson to earn money, while MacBryde chases 'cock', serenades the pubs uninvited and moons everyone. It should all be uproarious fun, but as with the company of real-life imbibers, it becomes tiresome pretty quickly, and the cliches of poverty feel hollow rather than engaging. A traditional linear narrative doesn't help matters.

Both are wonderful, particularly Clark who elicits sympathy as a doggedly determined painter 'nursed at the paps of Durer' but eventually, cynicism turns his disposition as ugly as that of his ranting partner's. Scarred by witnessing 'Prussian blue lips' after a spell working as a war artist, Colquhoun would never be the same again, and it's sad to see both Roberts spouting words with the kind of clarity that comes from claret. It's all fun and games until someone loses an easel.

There are some lovely moments of tenderness, and it's great to witness a same-sex relationship that doesn't fall into stereotypes, with fun touches from director Andy Arnold such as the men plying their trade by running into the audience, scrapping together about nothing in particular, or their first reaction to a Jackson Pollock, but it should roar with more debauchery and passion, and it's all too chaste by half. Not a Byrne masterpiece, more a cute doodle. Time, gentlemen, please.

Colquhoun & MacBryde is at the Tron until November 8.