Standing ovation welcomes The Stamping Ground before start of Scottish tour
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REVIEW: RAW Material/ Eden Court: The Stamping Ground
Eden Court, Inverness
4 stars
Settling back this week to see the slightly tweaked Highland musical The Stamping Ground – about to set out on tour across Scotland – there was one burning question.
How much difference has a year made to the RAW Material and Eden Court production?
It’s similar to the way the lighting by Simon Wilkinson changes to gold near the start of the show and transforms the contours of The Stamping Ground set by Kenneth MacLeod.
Everything looks a little different.
Overall, a few cast changes subtly shift the dynamics, but the main difference is that the world around us and the show is altered.
And that probably can’t help affecting how an audience will see the Highland life of Glenbeag created by writer Morna Young from the original concept by Alan B McLeod.
For example, how much more powerful has the whole idea of home become in the last year?
It beats at the heart of Runrig’s music powering the musical and the core story of The Stamping Ground and now after watching the war unfold in Ukraine on TV, we have witnessed the pain of so many Ukrainians losing and mourning their homes, sometimes a long way from their country, here in Scotland?
The Stamping Ground musical opens as parents Euan (Ali Watt) and Annie (Jenny Hulse) are packing up to leave their London home for the sake of a better life for teen daughter Fiona (Caitlin Forbes). They are heading back to the couple’s Highland home village Glenbeag to stay with Euan’s widowed mum Mary (Annie Grace).
They are not long arrived, when a community crisis – the threatened loss of the pub – galvanises the whole village into staging an event to raise funds for a buyout.
But that dramatically highlights the divisions between Euan, writer of “bodice-rippers” as his mum Mary calls them, and talented Annie who feels undervalued. Around them, a rich mix of characters bring life to a range of contemporary Highland issues – young Malcolm (Robin Campbell) struggles to find love in the rural environment, elderly Donnie (Barrie Hunter) faces isolation, returning exile Johnny (Robert Grose) must adjust to being back and rural ways, Mary has a dilemma about embracing change for a romantic second chance.
And there are wider issues, from the political – such as getting a balance between tourism and local life; and the personal – giving youngsters the freedom to make their own choices; embracing forgiveness.
Fast-moving dialogue sparks with one-liners.
“Usually I get the joke about being the only Summer in Scotland,” says tour guide … Summer.
And there’s plenty sending up of clichés about the Highlands, maybe more obvious when you can imagine a wider Scottish audience taking in the musical’s vision of its contemporary Highland world.
“There are more hot tubs than sheep dips!” comments exile Annie registering the tourism boom.
And there's a bit of resigned weariness with Highland history.
“You are still deep in the Clearances?”
“Aren’t we all!”.
Talking in the show's programme about the huge part Runrig's music played for her, writer Morna Young reminds her audiences that she had: “… let the songs speak and allowed them the space to guide the story”.
The emotional highs and lows of the story are still very much driven by Runrig’s music and that is one of the biggest strengths of the production.
Stunning dramatic moments include the start of Act Two’s funeral scene with black brollies and the cast’s tender singing of The Old Boys. Annie Grace’s voice shines in her performance of Worker For The Wind. And a fragile understanding – at last – for central couple Ewan and Annie is played out in Ali Watt and Jenny Hulse’s heartbreakingly sincere vocal performance of Somewhere, a song that could have been written to express this moment in their characters’ lives.
This tweaked ensemble cast work as fluidly together as last year’s did. New addition Julia Cadzow adds a spiky extra edge as Mary’s friend Maggie.
Euan may be a character it is hard to warm to for much of the musical – but new to the role, Ali Watt’s commited performance strongly adds to the sense of the character’s insensitivity and borderline bullying behaviour to the women in his life. Without any spoilers, let’s just say it makes the character’s story richer. The feistiness of Morna Young’s five independent leading female characters carefully counterbalances his behaviour.
Returning cast member Caitlin Forbes seems higher profile in this production and brings extra sassiness to her cockney-accented teen city girl Fiona, seduced convincingly and almost instantly by the landscape and life celebrated in Runrig’s music.
Will it be the same for audiences seeing The Stamping Ground on its first Scottish tour?
Who knows. But Eden Court got to their feet to welcome the return of a homegrown musical with a Highland heartbeat powering human stories, thorny issues, laughs, pain, and all soundtracked by some of Runrig's most epic anthems.
The Stamping Ground is on at Eden Court until Saturday and then heads for Stirling, Edinburgh, Greenock, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Perth.
