Loose Ends
★★★☆☆ Melancholy anger
theSpace on The Mile (Venue 39): Mon 5 – Sat 10 Aug 2024
Review by Hugh Simpson
1TWO1 Productions and New Celts’ Loose Ends – at theSpace on the Mile for the Fringe’s first week only – is a spare and affecting display of vulnerability.
Stuart Hepburn’s play was written in the late 1980s, but (shockingly) there are only a couple of references to dates and events that show this. Otherwise, its portrayal of loneliness, homelessness, mental illness and of men struggling to connect with themselves and each other is even more likely to have been written today.
Mark Benedict Murphy and Jordan Mennie. Pic: Iain Davie
Glaswegian street trader Spud (Mark Benedict Murphy) has enlisted the help of displaced Skye native Callum (Jordan Mennie) while ‘acquiring’ some of his stock. Back at Callum’s flat, the true precariousness of both men’s situations is revealed.
Loose Ends came early in Hepburn’s career, which has included huge amounts of work for stage and screen, with his play about Chic Murray for A Play, Pie and A Pint being one of the most memorable recent efforts. This play certainly deserves revival; its pointed dialogue, humour and sharp observation and occasional Pinteresque absurdity make it compelling.
Director Iain Davie and assistant Jake Sleet have fashioned a production that proceeds at just the right pace, suffused with equal amounts of melancholia and angry bite. Those relatively small Fringe auditoriums with the audience on three sides often present a challenge, but here it all proceeds calmly and lucidly.
threat, self-delusion and a terrible sadness
It does take a while to warm up, with Murphy and Mennie needing a few minutes to establish their characters firmly. Murphy, however, soon slips into what seems a gallus Glaswegian equivalent of Del Boy, but whose brittle exterior conceals underlying threat, self-delusion and a terrible sadness. The contradictions of the character are successfully evoked.
Mennie’s apparently stoical Highlander also conceals a deep unhappiness as well as a possibility for anger, and his stillness contrasts very well with Murphy’s twitchy energy. The differences between the two men could easily become a cliched Highland/Lowland clash, but here it is handles with sensitivity, and the whole situation becomes much more real as a result.
Jordan Gagan’s technical operation is noteworthy in a play where the nostalgic power of music plays a big part. The particular music used is now much further in the past than it was when the play was written, but this hardly matters.
This is certainly a short play, and is presented in a way that is almost unassuming, but the poignancy of the acting and the careful staging have considerable appeal.
Running time: 40 minutes (no interval)
theSpace on the Mile (Space 1), 80 High St, EH1 1TH (Venue 39)
Monday 5 – Saturday 10 August 2024
Daily at 10.05 am
Details and tickets: Book here.
Facebook: @1two1 Productions
Instagram: @1two1_productions
Mark Benedict Murphy and Jordan Mennie. Pic: Iain Davie
ENDS
