Anna Burnside reviews a ‘delightful little miniature’ with a ‘crisp, hard-working script.’
Jack and Kathy’s granddaughter is doing a school project about the olden days. To this end, she has persuaded her grandparents to relive the 1976 camping trip when they went to visit Paul McCartney.
Zipping around the Mull of Kintyre in a borrowed van, the pair encounter everything from an Argyll traffic jam (cows blocking the road) to a relationship-changing revelation, all while using a hand-drawn map to look for a former Beatle.
Like many family legends, the McCartney-hunting camping trip was the very opposite of a picnic at the time.
This delightful little miniature is the opening show in A Play, A Pie and A Pint’s new season, touring to Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Written by award-winning young playwright Milly Sweeney, it is a perfect two-hander.
Maureen Carr is one of Scotland’s great comic talents, and her understatement and forensic timing are showcased here. She time-switches effortlessly, from the teenaged mum trapped with a baby while she’s still a kid herself to the hindsight-wise granny.
Jonathan Watson is a great counterpart, a music-obsessed west of Scotland man stuck in a situation he has neither the vocabulary nor maturity to handle. Together, he and Carr ring all the comedy out of the two sides of their story.
This is made possible by Sweeney’s crisp, hard-working script. The Beatles theme is seeded cleverly throughout, and there are contemporary jokes about Bad Bunny and the deprecating humour of a couple comfortable with each other. Emotional twists are well handled.
Sally Reid directs with a light, confident hand and designer Heather Grace Currie uses a couple of flowery camping chairs and projections on a washing line to great effect.
Way to start PPP’s spring season.
Someone’s Knockin’ at the Door has completed runs at Oran Mor and the Traverse. It performs at Aberdeen’s Lemon Tree from March 10-14 and Pitlochry Festival Theatre from March 18-22, 2026.
Photo by Tommy Ga-Ken Wan.
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