Reviews: Fergus Lamont
From rags to riches and back again
**** Sunday Herald – Mark Brown
The decline, and seeming death, of Communicado Theatre Company in the late- 1990s was a disaster for Scottish theatre. The company, which was led by director and actor Gerry Mulgrew (an overlooked national treasure) had helped to revitalise live drama in Scotland with its robust-yet-intelligent mix of continental performance styles, ensemble playing and live music.
It may be breaking wind in the Kirk to say so, but those who find it hard to deny that Mulgrew’s outfit contributed more to the renaissance of Scottish theatre over the last 20 years than even John McGrath’s 7:84 or the late, lamented Wildcat theatre company.
It was a great relief, therefore, when Mulgrew relaunched the company five years ago; even if the work which followed (Brave, Zlata’s Diary, The Memorandum) never quite lived up to past Communicado triumphs such as Athol Fugard’s A Place with the Pigs and Nikolai Erdman’s The Suicide). Now, however, with this superb stage adaptation of Robin Jenkins’s famous rags-riches-to-rags novel Fergus Lamont (co produced with Perth Theatre), Communicado is looking very much it’s old self again.
Theatrical translations of prose fictions are either typically pretty unprepossessing prospects; one is usually in for a long night of exposition and narration.
Dramatists tend to be too respectful to the original; text, ending up with a mediocre show which trades on little more than its well-kent name.
For those of us still haunted by memories of dreadful Dickens and stale Scotts past, Mulgrew’s adaptation and staging of Jenkins’s novel is nothing short of an antidote. Enjoying a fabulous ensemble cast (led by the excellent Sandy Grierson, with the likes of Irene Allan, Beth Marshall, John Kazek and Malcolm Shields in attendance), it seeks out the theatricality in the book in the same way Richard Branson seeks publicity.
From the moment Grierson appears, as a huge-headed baby Fergus, the actor absolutely lives through his character; no easy task, given that he not only grows older but also consciously changes his social status (thanks to his dead working-class mother’s past affair with a member of the aristocracy). The actor has long shown a remarkable, almost effortless grasp of his craft, but this production is so ambitious that we can finally see the breadth of his skill.
From Fergus as a young boy to the pretentious toff who unexpectedly backs his former socialist sweetheart in an election campaign, Grierson puts in a virtuosic performance which is one of the best seen in Scotland in recent years.
Not that the rest of this talented cast are far behind.
Typically of the old Communicado, there are visually memorable moments of ensemble playing, from shoulder-to-shoulder schoolroom to the pathos of a remarkably contemporary looking anti war protest during a patriotic first world war rally. Accordionist David Vernon, with actor-cum-fiddle player Aly Macrae in support, provides beautifully appropriate live music in a wonderfully humorous, often affecting production that will live long in the memory.
Certainly a piece of theatre not to be missed.
**** PERTH THEATRE
JOYCE MCMILLAN
After such a bleak glimpse into the abyss of social breakdown and alienation, it comes almost as a relief to turn to the bustling social and political world of Robin Jenkins's great 1979 picaresque novel Fergus Lamont, now brought to the stage for the first time in a fine, passionate and witty adaptation by Gerry Mulgrew and his Communicado Theatre. Set in the strife-torn Scotland of the first half of the 20th century, Fergus Lamont follows the career of its eponymous hero from the slums of Gantock - a thinly-disguised Greenock - to the commanding aristocratic heights of Scottish society, where Tory MPs and moody poets in kilts hang around in New Town drawing-rooms discussing the SNP's prospects in the forthcoming election.
Part Walter Mitty fantasist convinced of his own noble blood, part upwardly-mobile working-class meritocrat, Fergus carries with him echoes of Evelyn Waugh, AJ Cronin, Emlyn Williams, Anthony Powell and a dozen other epic chroniclers of 20th century British life. Mulgrew's vivid three-hour production - featuring dozens of characters played by a cast of just nine actors - sometimes, inevitably, creaks a little under the strain of carrying so much narrative with such relatively slender resources.
The show benefits, though, from a wonderfully simple and ingenious yet bleak indoor/outdoor set by Gordon Davidson, from a tremendous accordion score by Karen Wimhurst played live on stage by David Vernon, and from a thrilling central performance by rising stage star Sandy Grierson.
With its profound tensions between war and peace, individualism and solidarity, Scottishness and Britishness, this show makes a near-perfect curtain-raiser for the imminent Holyrood election. It also represents Mulgrew's best and most timely work for more than a decade, and a welcome return to form from one of the most inspired and inventive theatre-makers Scotland has ever produced.
• Aalst is at Tramway, Glasgow, until 31 March, and on tour, with final dates at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, 15-19 May. Fergus Lamont is at Perth Theatre until 31 March, Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow, 3-7 April, then touring, ending at the Traverse, Edinburgh, 2-5 May.
**** The Herald
Neil Cooper
It Is no coincidence that the late Robin Jenkins's trawl through this country's psyche in the first half of the twentieth century arrived on the scene in 1979. If Thatcher's first Westminster victory wasn't bad enough, the devolution referendum earlier the same year had already left confidence shattered. Today's climate finds us eight years into the real thing, and, with elections pending both sides of the border, Communicado's adaptation is a timely encounter.
Not that the story - of a be-kilted back-street hero who acquires a double-barrelled name and confidence enough to wheedle his way into bourgeois society - is in any way a polemic. Rather, with parallels easily drawn with Candide, Peer Gynt and Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, director/adaptor Gerry Mulgrew has stayed true to the yarn's picaresque origins. Self-knowledge rather than revolution is its epicentre in a tale of class, social climbing and ambition. So Fergus moves from an officer and would-be poet in the trenches of the First World War to a sexless marriage to a rich-bitch romantic novelist and an extended Highland retreat before arriving full circle.
Epics like this were made for Mulgrew, a master of stage tableaux, even if some elongated moments aren't always thought through.
Despite this, hilarious set-pieces such as act one's pro-war rally finale are wrapped up with enough substance to keep things rollicking along. A bright-eyed cast of eight led by Sandy Grierson as Fergus never run away with things, but allow the deceptively complex array of onstage entrances and exits space enough to breathe through the breeziness and accompanying accordion music. As Fergus belatedly throws himself into the front-line, it's as if a nation has just woken with a start. Where to next is the interesting part.
**** Metro
Having scored a hit in 1991 with n adaptation of novelist Robin Jenkins’ The Cone Gatherers, Gerry Mulgrew and Communicado now turn their attention to Jenkins’ novel Fergus Lamont, a picaresque rags-to-riches tale of a working-class schemie (Fergus) with ideas of grandeur who pursues his dream of being a highland gentleman with relentless and selfish fortitude.
The novel is a rollicking read, stretching from the turn of the century to World War II, and deflates Scottish politics and the Scottish psyche. At one point Fergus is described, like his country, as not ready to be independent. Mulgrew’s adaptation, which he also directs, is not without it’s flaws – an at times heavy-handed use of industrial language, and an ending that peters out so far that the audience weren’t sure that the play was over.
But the sheers brio, energy and ambition of the production, in bringing to life the novel’s comedic, tragic nd political strands as Fergus moves through a loveless marriage and ends up settled in the Highlands, more than make up for any shortcomings.
As JM Barrie wrote; ‘There are few more impressive sights than a Scotsman on the make.’ As Jenkins knew, there are few more depressing and ridiculous ones either, and Sandy Grierson shapes up well as the soldier, poet and would-be aristocrat whose voyage of self discovery inevitably brings him full circle.
Onstage Scotland
Communicado in association with Perth Theatre
Condensing an epic novel into a two-act play requires plenty of determination, and Communicado's Gerry Mulgrew has made a commendable effort with his adaptation of Robin Jenkins' Fergus Lamont.
"Plenty of humour ... focuses on the story's political rather than personal conflicts"
However, with so much plot to fit in and a vast number of characters to introduce, there's barely a second to reflect on the subtler aspects of this cautionary tale, about a Glasgow boy born in a slum who strives to be acknowledged as a gentleman.
Gordon Davidson's flexible set is put to good use as young Fergus (Sandy Grierson) journeys through life from schoolboy to soldier, kept man to crofter... the stage is consistently gloomy regardless of whether the setting is slum, battlefield or Hebridean coast.
Much of the novel's satirical humour is to be found in the title character's frequently exasperating first-person narration; here, his arrogance and delusional tendencies are suggested by a handful of very funny lines.
There's plenty of humour elsewhere, though. John Kazek plays socialist schoolteacher Limpy Calderwood as a left-wing, male Jean Brodie, and Malcolm Shields has fun with Major Holmes, who coaches our anti-hero in the ways of the landed gentry.
A cast of eight play many dozens of characters, with Irene Allan and Lesley Hart particularly strong as Fergus's radical schoolfriend Mary and his true love Kirstie respectively, although the fact that Hart also plays his mother leaves some room for confusion.
A couple of scenes of birth and death are at odds with the rest of the production, while lively ensemble interludes provide welcome relief from the somewhat repetitive accordion music between scenes.
Mulgrew has chosen to focus on the story's political rather than personal conflicts, and nods to current events garner the biggest laughs. A sly reference to cash for peerages is perfectly woven into the dialogue, and the first act ends with a brilliant slapstick scene involving a gang of unruly anti-war protesters.
A consequence of this approach is, however, that the final scene lacks emotional resonance, for which the unnecessary intrusion of strobe lighting cannot compensate.
Shona Craven
*** Perth Theatre
Mark Fisher
Friday March 30, 2007
The Guardian
Robin Jenkins' 1979 novel Fergus Lamont is a wonderfully eccentric rags-to-riches story that speaks powerfully about the peculiarities of the class system and the events of the early 20th century. It echoes the story of Pip in Great Expectations, but in Jenkins' book, the hero sets out to claim the noble heritage he believes he deserves as the illegitimate son of a Scottish earl. Despite his lowly background, he wears a kilt and prefers to be known as Fergus Corse-Lamont.
Distancing friends and family, he reinvents himself as one of the gentry, outdoing his officer class in his patrician attitudes. Only his uncharacteristic gift for poetry gives vent to his humanitarian heart. It takes the failure of his hubristic scheme for him to reconnect to the people he has denied.
There is much going for Gerry Mulgrew's actor-centred Communicado production, which draws on the techniques of 1980s east-European theatre to create a bustling sense of community. In this context, Sandy Grierson's Lamont is tied not only spiritually but also physically to the people he despises. It's hard to see him as an individual when he is juxtaposed with so many inventive tableaux created by the ensemble. For all his regal airs, he never ceases to be the boy from Gantock (Jenkins' fictional Greenock).
Although his staging is strong, Mulgrew's script is episodic and at times unfocused, losing sight of the extremes of Lamont's reincarnations. In shifting from the novel's first-person narrative to the communality of the stage, he inevitably sacrifices some psychological detail. But he also underplays Lamont's capacity for callousness and rushes his eventual redemption, giving us a bland hero and an ending that lacks emotional power. The result is a colourful and engaging piece of storytelling theatre that doesn't fully deliver on the promise of the book.