Lorna Irvine is charmed by an odd 'antidote to the youth-obsessed Twilight franchise'.
Morna Pearson's new play for A Play, a Pie and a Pint, co-produced with Dundee Rep, is a doozie this week.
Childhood sweethearts Annie and Johnny have a small problem—Annie has a tendency to be forgetful and set fire to things. The budding arsonist's long-suffering, bluff husband, who uses a stick to get around, has no other option but to put his wife into a care home—and she is having none of it. Soon, it emerges that Annie has more troubling aspects of her personality—a fondness for chomping on rats and tasting blood, for example. She starts seeing the fellow residents in her care home as evil bloodsuckers and hatches a plan to escape.
We're talking a Doric Dracula tale here, all gore and makeshift stakes.
Barbara Rafferty's mischievous eyes have never been put to better use—she is wonderful: one minute a carefree feisty woman and the next a delusional, lost soul. Scanlon is fine, with a twinkle in his eye, but Rafferty is breath-taking and heart-breaking in equal measure.
Pearson's ear for Aberdeen dialect is spot-on with some terrific lines. Who could resist “let's not be biscuit lickers,” as the twosome craves regaining youthful energy. The set design is sweet too, with scrawled memories on the floor and a cardboard bus stop as Annie's sense of time and place eludes her.
Scratch all of the knockabout humour, the cheeky use of the Buffy the Vampire Slayertheme playing throughout and the Auld Scots slang, and what emerges is not only a nice antidote to the youth-obsessed Twilightfranchise but a lovely, moving meditation on ageing, illness and enduring love. That Rafferty and Scanlon are a real-life couple only makes it all the more heart-rending.
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