South Bend

On tour

Multi-award winning Scottish theatre company Grid Iron, in association with Platform, bring you South Bend; a hilarious road movie for the stage. Read more …

In 2006 Martin McCormick flies across the Atlantic to be reunited with a woman he had fallen passionately in love with, a Californian Girl. But she’s changed. Completely. She’s in Indiana now, not California. With her step-mum who hates the British. Almost as soon as he’s arrived he’s on the road again, penniless and desperate to get home to Scotland in one piece.

Award-winning playwright and actor Martin performs his true(ish) story himself with Jess Chanliau and live foley by Paisley-based composer and musician David Pollock.

South Bend – A tale of hope, of love, of a small country and a vast one, of a good Samaritan and a relationship gone bad.

The critical consensus

It might not be the most remarkable production, but it’s good fun while it lasts and contains a fair amount of laughs.

(*) (*) Michael Cox, Across the Arts

A sharp, bittersweet comedy that is smart enough to know when to be clever and when to be stupid.

(*) Hugh Simpson, All Edinburgh Theatre, 02/08/2018

(*) Allan Radcliffe, 10/08/2018

(*) Neil Cooper, Coffee-Table Notes, 14/08/2018

(*) Clare McVay, The List, 16/08/2018

Mark Brown, Scottish Stage, 05/09/2018

South Bend is funny in parts, sympathetic and entertaining along the way, but there’s no real hardship, just a slightly lacklustre misplaced adventure.

(*) (*) Mary-Ann Connolly, The Wee Review, 10/09/2018