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metromagazine30/ 3/2006
Trainspotting
The Lowry
SEEN the film? Read the book? Well now you can see the stage
version of Irvine Welsh's explicit novel which exposes the raw
underbelly of the drug culture that exists in most large
cities.
Adapted and successfully staged a decade ago by Harry Gibson, it's
been re-staged for a national tour and the story of the downward
spiral of a group of young Edinburgh heroin addicts still packs a
punch.
Amazingly, among the gloom and doom of their disintegrating
humanity, which brought groans of disgust and dismay from the young
audience, there is also some humour.
There are some terrific performances from Peter Milne, in his first
professional role, as Mark Renton, the part which launched the film
career of Ewan McGregor. His fellow addicts are played by Laura
Harvey, Brian Alexander and Ruaraidh Murray, who all pay the price
for their habit.
There's nudity and bad language, delivered in a strong Edinburgh
dialect but, while its shockability may have diminished over the
decade since it was first staged, this still makes powerful
drama.
I promise you that the harrowing images will stay with you long
after you leave the theatre.
Van Morrison
Bridgewater Hall
THERE is a showbiz parlour game called Six Degrees of Kevin
Bacon which assumes that everyone in Hollywood has worked with
someone who has worked with someone who has worked with that
jobbing thesp.
You could play a similar game now with Van Morrison and music's
rootsy luminaries, Van having shared a stage with everyone from
Lonnie Donegan to Ray Charles, the Chieftains to Solomon Burke. He
has ticked blues, jazz, skiffle, Irish folk, rock 'n' roll and his
own brand of Celtic mysticism off the to-do list. Now it is time
for him to share a stage with the ghost of Hank Williams.
The songs from Morrison's country album, Pay The Devil - including
gems like Webb Pierce's There Stands The Glass - did not dominate
proceedings.
But the country air was there in the plentiful pedal steel and
violin licks even as Morrison ambled through highlights from the
rest of his catalogue.
Trying on the shoes of the likes of George Jones seems to have
sharpened Morrison's act.
There was much less of that stuttering, ecstatic delivery he all
too often falls into, much less of the slightly indulgent jamming.
But this was not Morrison at the Grand Ole Opry, more like a very
superior Irish showband.
And that lent a particular poignancy to songs like Celtic New Year,
with all the familiar themes of longing for a lost time and place,
and Stranded, where the whiff of old soul music and gentle doo-wops
conjure halcyon days.
No lyrical ramblings then, just good songs well sung, his new piece
Playhouse given a particularly lusty reading. Gloria, Moondance and
Here Comes The Night were served up straight, lean and mean.
There were no smiles, no banter, no frills and, as he exited the
stage at 9.34pm, no encores either. A short but sweet gig by the
man they call Van.
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