PPP: Armour: A Herstory of the Scottish Bard
★★★☆☆ Tuneful
Traverse: Tue 1 – Sat 5 Oct 2024
Review by Hugh Simpson
Armour: A Herstory of the Scottish Bard, this week’s lunchtime theatre offering at the Traverse before continuing on tour, provides a melodic new slant on the familiar story of Robert Burns.
The latest Play, Pie and a Pint offering from Òran Mór (co-presented by the Traverse, Ayr Gaiety and Paisley and Johnstone Town Halls) is by Shonagh Murray, who also supplies the original music and lyrics which feature along with familiar Burns material.
Karen Fishwick with Irene Allen and Hilary Maclean. Pic: PPP.
The play is set years after Burns’s death and features Jean Armour, the poet’s long-suffering widow (Irene Allen) and Agnes Maclehose, the dedicatee of Ae Fond Kiss (Hilary Maclean). Their meetings (one historically attested, the others fictional) are depicted in a story that also features the relationship of Armour and her granddaughter Sarah (one of several parts played by the excellent Karen Fishwick).
There has of course been no shortage of plays about Burns over the years, with those in recent memory ranging from the informative through the puzzling to the frankly terrible. It is certainly important to have a corrective to the golf-club-bar sniggering about ‘the lassies’ that often passes for examination of Burns’s appalling treatment of women, but this is not the first time a play has been written dealing with a meeting between Jean and Agnes.
heartfelt dialogue
Murray’s version of events does boast some heartfelt dialogue, as well as music (recorded by Murray on piano and Emma Donald on violin) that provides the backing for some fine singing by the three performers, in a production whose sound design (by Ross Nurney) is notably strong.
Irene Allen and Hilary Maclean with Karen Fishwick. Pic: PPP.
Just as Burns was wont to combine words and music he had collected with his own work, those who write about his life are often remarkably keen to splice his songs with their own. The trouble is that, when a new song segues into the original, the joins are generally all too obvious.
Murray’s work does pretty well in this respect; while the lyrics are occasionally as awkward as some of the info-dump dialogue early in the play, the songs have a definite charm.
convincing
Allen and Maclean are utterly convincing as women struggling against expectations and reputation. Their portrayals are nuanced and subtle; as a result, Burns emerges as that perennially difficult figure, indulged and affectionately tolerated while simultaneously resented and even half-hated, that is recognisable to so many Scots.
Tom Cooper’s direction is energetic, if at times tending to the overly stagey. Similarly, Zephyr Liddell’s design is perhaps a little too busy, in another PPP that would be intimate in Traverse Two but seems a little lost in the main auditorium – although Ross Kirkland’s lighting design is certainly done justice.
The end result does end up as rather slight, but is nevertheless a vital telling of untold stories.
Running time: 50 minutes (no interval)
Traverse Theatre, 10 Cambridge St, EH1 2ED
Tuesday 1 – Saturday 5 October 2024
Daily at 1pm
Tickets and details: Book here.
Ayr Gaiety (Studio), Carrick St, Ayr KA7 1NU
Thursday 10 – Saturday 12 October 2024
Two shows daily: 12 noon & 6pm.
Tickets and details: Book here.
Paisley Town Hall, Abbey Close, Paisley PA1 1JF
Tue 15/Wed 16 October 2024
Daily at 1pm.
Tickets and details: Book here.
Johnstone Town Hall, 25 Church Street, Johnstone, PA5 8EG
Thurs 17/Fri 18 October 2024
Tickets and details: Book here.
Hilary Maclean and Irene Allen. Pic: PPP.
ENDS
Just left performance of Armour. It was one of best PPP I’ve ever seen at the Traverse. Made me think beyond Burns . So clever to write such an engaging play about the role of 3 important women in Burns’ life