Anna Burnside reviews a production with a ‘nimble and convincing’ cast but a play that ‘suffers from too many ideas’.
John Witherspoon, a preacher who makes John Knox look laid back and liberal, bounds stagewards. As the audience finishes pies and turns off mobile phones, he lambasts everyone and everything associated with the theatre, including those who indulge in decadent entertainments while ingesting greasy pastries.
The 18th-century minister is particularly dismayed by Douglas, a play written by his fellow Edinburgh clergyman John Home. Home is, in a neat Enlightenment small world moment, related to the philosopher David Hume. There are several jokes about the different spelling of their surnames to underline the connection.
The cast of four play out several scenes from Douglas while charting Witherspoon’s case against the play in particular—and people having fun in general.
Home, meanwhile, struggles to interest London theatres in a Scottish play and is terrified to admit to his authorship to his congregation.
Writer and director Brian Logan shoehorns several strands into his hour-long slot. There are political flashbacks, religious beefs, the continually vexed relationship between Scottish culture and imports from elsewhere. This is summed up in the show’s title, which comes from a famous audience comment at a performance of Douglas.
The four-strong cast are nimble and convincing, playing their principal characters, the characters in Douglas and, occasionally, themselves. Gavin Jon Wright is particularly strong as the anti-theatre mouthpiece. But despite their best efforts, Whaur’s Yer Wullie Shakespeare Noo? suffers from too many ideas and not enough space to separate them out and let them breathe.
Whaur’s Yer Wullie Shakespeare Noo? performs at Oran Mor’s A Play, A Pie and A Pint until 3 October 2026. It then tours to the Traverse Theatre (6-10 October) and The Lemon Tree (13-17 October).
Photo by Tommy Ga-Ken Wan.
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