A Play, A Pie And A Pint
Oran Mor
Glasgow

Script:   Stagecraft:  Performance:  

——————————————————————————————
Question – When is your uncle not your uncle?
Answer – When he’s a priest and you have to make confession to him.

Kevin is an altar boy rapidly outgrowing his cassock as he tries to deal with nascent stirrings for the opposite sex. His Catholic family have that old dilemma, should their son join his uncle in the priesthood or fumble for happiness with ‘the one’, gum popping siren, Katherine? Mom and dad, granny, and grandpa, ‘God’s anointed’ Uncle Ignatius, even Kevin’s teacher, all have their say but could the answer lie in the concise thesis our hero presents to the Church? Set in the 1980s, this entertaining comedy by David Weir lightly treads familiar ground, with the cast of Jonathan Watson, Sally Reid and Cameron Fulton, all in fine, multitasking form.

The living room set is excellent, with a background of white shelving (displaying items of the period) framed by black curtained, confessional doorways. Through these, the rapid coming and going of characters becomes at times, appropriately farcical. The precise use of numbers throughout (14 cousins, 40 days of lent, 1,973 pupils, 56 hours of romance) lends a strangely satisfying counterpoint to the broad, brush-stroke humour. Verging on the cartoonish (Mr Watson does faces) this is a play that may not surprise but will amuse.

Reviewer : David G Moffat