This autumn, set sail with the irrepressible captain of The Vital Spark and his ramshackle crew - mate Dougie, engineer Macphail and cabin-boy Sunny Jim - as they travel from a West Coast breakers' yard to the sea lochs of the Highlands and Islands. Read more …
Warm, witty and utterly charming, this rare chance to enjoy the hilarious misadventures of Para Handy on stage is accompanied by a rousing, foot-stomping musical score performed by a live band!
It was not until the second half that the action got up a good head of steam and the audience really started responding. This was partly due to the fact that the stories of Para and crew were told directly and a host of mad characters inhabited the stage.
The likeable characterisations, the cheering music, comfortable, amusing episodes and lack of jeopardy come to act as a warm blanket, wrapping the audience up on deck for a couple of hours before we return to the choppier waters of the real world.
Director Liz Carruthers’s production is beautifully timed, perfectly pitched and excellently cast.
For all their efforts, the result is a show so couthy, undistinguished and undemanding that it feels as though an entire 45 years of positive change and achievement are being wiped from the record-books, in Scottish theatre as elsewhere.
Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Pitlochry from Thursday October 27, 2016, until Sunday November 13, 2016. More info: www.pitlochry.org.uk
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