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Scotsman
27-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Theatre reviews: Man's Best Friend The Inquisitor
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Man's Best Friend, Tron Theatre, Glasgow ★★★★ The Inquisitor, Oran Mor, Glasgow ★★★★ The Croft, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh ★★★ It's a truth universally acknowledged that during the pandemic, the relationship between people and their pets gained a whole new significance and intensity. I'm not sure, though, that that inflexion-point in human-pet relations had ever been celebrated in theatre, until the moment in 2022 when Douglas Maxwell's monologue Man's Best Friend first appeared at A Play, A Pie, and A Pint. Jordan Young in Man's Best Friend | Mihaela Bodlovic The monologue tells the story of Ronnie, who, after the tragic loss of his wife, and a decision to walk away from his job, finds himself - as the world opens up again - working as a dog-walker to five rowdy canine charges, four of them owned by his Glasgow neighbours. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Now Ronnie reappears - at the Tron and on tour - in an expanded 80 minute version of the play, directed by Jemima Levick, and performed by Scotsquad star Jordan Young; and three years on, Man's Best Friend emerges as an even more powerful response to a moment in history that changed so many lives, and left unresolved pain in so many hearts. In this version, the show receives a slightly more elaborate staging, courtesy of designer Becky Minto and lighting designer Grant Anderson. In truth, though, it hardly needs them, so clearly does the play's strength lie in Douglas Maxwell's writing - often hilariously funny, yet also profound, and sometimes richly poetic - and in the performance at the centre of the show. In this version, Young takes centre stage as a fine tragi-comic actor at the absolute height of his powers; younger than Jonathan Watson's original Ronnie, but all the more poignantly lost for that - until the play's pivotal moment, when his own dog leads him towards s shocking discovery that, at last, begins to awaken him from the long sleep of grief. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad This week's final spring season Play, Pie and Pint show is likewise a profound and thoughtful monologue; but in Peter Arnott's The Inquisitor - a 2007 play restaged to mark Arnott's 40th anniversary as a playwright - the speaker is not alone. He is an investigator conducting a final interview with a man accused of terrorism; but he finds that his interviewee will not speak, and sits in silence throughout the encounter. The effect is to create a monologue in which the speaker - powerfully played by Tom McGovern - spends an all but fruitless hour trying to bring his interviewee (an eloquently silent Michael Guest) back from his exalted commitment to a martyr's death, to the compromised, messy yet magical stuff of ordinary human life. McGovern's style, in making these arguments, is deliberately quixotic, and a shade hyperactive, as if he barely trusts Arnott's powerful words to carry the weight of the play. Carry it they do, though; to a conclusion that has only become more telling, as definitions of terrorism and hate crime grow ever more far-reaching, and the morality of those in power ever more compromised, and contested. The Croft | Contributed There's no such gravitas, alas, about Ali Milles's touring play The Croft, at the Festival Theatre, which takes a potentially powerful drama about love between women across three generations - all connected to a remote seaside croft in the western Highlands - and makes the fundamental mistake of trying to turn it into a horror movie. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad An impressive cast give the show their best shot, with Gracie Follows and Caroline Harker as lovers Laura and Suzanne, and Liza Goddard as 19th century crofter Enid, all turning in bold performances. In the end, through, a dramatic script has to play to its strengths; and here, that strength lies in the portrayal of brave women trying to defy patriarchal thinking down the ages, rather than in the cheap suggestion of some nameless supernatural evil, lurking in the very stones of the place.
The Herald Scotland
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
The Inquisitor - A cerebral theatrical battle of wits
The Inquisitor, virtually a monologue in which a silent prisoner is being interrogated, was set to be produced at Glasgow's Oran Mor theatre. But just before curtain up, the writer's luck collapsed like cheap panto scenery. Arnott recalls: 'The main actor – let's call him 'Actor A' who was signed up to perform pulled out because he was offered more money for another job. So, we then recruited 'Actor B', but he also pulled out, and this was now just a week before rehearsal. The option we had was to bring in yet another actor, who at this point would have to go on stage with script in hand.' But there was another possibility; Arnott had acted while at Cambridge University. And being the writer, he knew every word, every beat. 'Yes, but even though I'd written it I was insecure about the script,' he admits, with a rueful smile. 'So, what I did was I arranged a prompter to be at the side of the stage. Yet, when I began the performance, I looked around and he wasn't there. I panicked. And I completely lost the script. I then suffered that sort of blush that explodes in your body and creates a nimbus of sweat. It was truly awful. At the time all I could think of was 'I'm following Stephen Fry to Belgium!'' (Fry fled the London stage later citing a breakdown and bipolarity as reasons.) The playwright adds; 'This experience cured me of ever wanting to do it (acting) again.' Playwright Peter Arnott (Image: unknown) Now, however Arnott is 'revelling' in the chance to see 'a proper actor' such as Tom McGovern take on the role. (McGovern won plaudits for his performance in Arnott's acclaimed play, The Signalman. 'Tom actually brings a spiritual quality to the role,' he suggests. 'Peter Brooke once said that the theatre is like a holy place, and I agree with that. And when you look at Tom in rehearsals, he takes what could be considered as a ponderous piece of text and turns it into a light piece of dance. I was open-mouthed watching him.' He grins. 'If anyone comes to this production wearing socks, be prepared to have them blown off.' The Inquisitor is a deep think play. The prisoner (played by Michael Guest) doesn't speak but his silence speaks volumes, prompting his inquisitor to confront his own belief systems, his faith and his reasoning. The idea was [prompted by an episode in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov we discover that prisoner is being tortured, yet the torturer argues he is not a torturer. 'We are asked 'What does the prisoner stand for?'' READ MORE Arnott adds; 'I had the basic shape in mind for the play,' says Arnott, 'and the idea is that the interrogation turns into a confession.' The writer was influenced by thoughts of Al Queda and imaginings of what would have happened if Osama Bin Laden had been caught. 'What would you say to him?' The play takes on a more contemporary resonance and prompts thoughts of Russia and its onslaught against Ukraine. Peter Arnott's work is being celebrated for his tremendous canon of work for 40 years, with plays such as The Boxer Benny Lynch and his huge success White Rose. This will be his 11th production at Oran Mor. But has he changed in this time, as a writer? As a person. 'Oh yes,' he laughs. 'I was so sure of myself in my mid-twenties. Now in my Sixties, I can look back and say, 'Who was this w**ker?'' As for my writing, I love the quote Denis Potter once offered when asked of his previous work, that he looked back with 'affectionate contempt.'' The writer loves to pose questions. He loves to take us to dark places in the search for answers. He loves to suggest the themes and create the storylines which then insist we question our own judgements. But what is the stand-out thought Peter Arnott has had in terms of understanding geopolitics, and indeed how our world has changed? 'We are asking more questions,' he says, with a wry smile. 'But what we know for certain is that we shouldn't trust anyone who thinks they have the answers. Like Donald Trump.' The Inquisitor, A Play, Pie and a Pint, Oran Mor, Glasgow, June 23 – 28
