Dead Dad Dog and Right on Cue

Dead Dad Dog

Once again, Nomads offered an interesting pair of short plays in their intimate studio theatre. Dead Dad Dog is a 1980s Scottish play, quite different from The Scottish Play, the only similarity is that there is a ghost here too. Eck (short for Alexander) is a young fellow with the world at his feet, about to embark on what promises to be quite a special day, (as it turns out for all the wrong reasons). He has a promising job interview lined up with BBC Scotland, for which he already has concrete plans concerning programming. He also has an equally promising first date that evening with a fabulous girl. He is somewhat scathing about his many friends who have gone south to London to find work. His place is very much Scotland, he feels.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, appears this character in 1970s suit, dark shirt, orange tie with an astonishing 70s head of voluminous shiny brown hair. This turns out to be Eck’s dad, Willie, who died 12 years previously. The shock is great. Dad is to be here it seems for just the one day. He knows not why he has come back to earth, he certainly didn’t apply to, up there’s just fine, thank you. Today of all days! Things get worse as they discover that, should they be separated, into different rooms, maybe, they both develop terrible stomach cramps, so dad will have to accompany Eck to the BBC for the job interview. Worse still, as Eck buys just one bus ticket, he’s asked ‘What about him?’ – so Willie can also be seen by everyone else. What horrors!

Moreover, dad is not one to sit quietly in a corner, he interferes in everything, most inappropriately. Consequently, the job interview is a complete disaster, the first date too. There are recriminations not just about this day’s disasters (Willie’s singing of Roamin’ in the Gloamin’’ was something Eck could really have done without, along with many other such awful interventions), but also about Willie’s parenting, always too busy selling hoovers to pay much attention to his young son. There were some touching flashbacks, visits to the beach, paddling pool in the garden where the boy soaked his dad, so there were mixed emotions on both sides, affection too.

Rab Hemphill, a real Scotsman as Willie, challenged us with his broad dialect, thankfully the programme included a helpful glossary! Josh Locke as the perpetually embarrassed Eck (he does embarrassed well, we felt with him), had a Scottish lilt there too, that must have been challenging, working with a broad Scot by his side, but he carried it off!

There were few props, just a clothes rail and a couple of chairs. Everything else was mimed: the chopping of food, the burnt pasta – ‘Couldn’t you have turned it down?’ Eck barked at dad, who was quite perplexed to see his son cooking, and such an odd  meal at that, not what he was used to from the 60s and 70s. Drinking in the bar from imaginary glasses and bottles, all this miming was fun. The bus conductor, the interviewers, the bar men, the girl, they spoke in some kind of electronic babble, a great touch. All quite fascinating! The humour and comic timing were great – ‘What’s wrong with my suit, it’s my best suit! I got buried in that!’ And later ‘You were smoking – Embassy Regal sent a wreath to your cremation!’. Son made dad change into something more ‘cool, 80s style’ to go to the nightclub. Both danced, Dad embarrassingly 60/70s style. Dad interrupts son and girlfriend at the worst possible moment, wanting desperately to know if his wife were still alive. ‘You’re bloody dead – now STAY bloody dead!’

So this little gem of a play was full  of great comic ideas and lines and Director Graham Botterill and the two actors made a marvellous job of the humour, the frustration and anger, and guilty anger too (the son), and bewilderment, a certain amount of disdain for the 1980s lifestyle he found on his return (the dad).

However, the final scene, where the two reminisced about the favourite song dad had taught son, which they had always loved to sing together (the Quatermaster’s Stores. What a fun song that was.) As they sang it together joyously (very difficult not to join in!) a great tenderness was there between them. Then suddenly dad was gone, as quietly as he had arrived.

A challenging piece, well done to all involved!

 

Right on Cue

Things are not going well in Wandsworth Police Station CID incident room. There is already a long list of 16 incidents of violent attacks by the Battersea Batterer. DI Whalley (pronounced wally) is totally at a loss. Worse still for him, his usual detective constable is off sick, so the useless PC Hitchcock has been drafted in to fill the gap. Even worse, it has been decided to call in a psychological profiler, Miss Bright, all that namby pamby mumbo jumbo that Whalley despises! To complete the inspector’s woes, is boss is on his back at the delay in solving the crimes, the lack of ideas, of leads. To cap it all, the bossy Dr Boffin makes no effort to hide her disdain for the DI, and teams up with the very bright Miss Bright to come up with some possible solutions.

The list of victims is up on the flipchart, so we all puzzle to find a connection between them, as do our poor detectives. The first suggestion, so obvious to the ladies, is that all the names in some way contain the word red, a significant colour for the perpetrator, maybe? The next idea, following a further 4 attacks, is alliteration, which worked when you included short forms of the first names. The third theory was for nominative determinism – at which point Whalley nearly exploded at the madness of the idea – where Bobby Redpath was a cyclist; Richard Dredge a chef (dredge is evidently a cookery term); Miss Tredwell a dance teacher, and so on. So possibly the attacker had a similar such name, as well as an aversion to red, and possibly an alliterative name!

All the while, DI Whalley was scathing, PC Hitchcock nonplussed, the Super getting more and more impatient. Eventually the dozy PC turned out to be not so dozy after all, and it was he who finally cracked it, all to do with snooker ball colours! The perpetrator was at last brought to justice.

Loads of humour here, the piece whizzed along at a fine pace, the cast of DI Whalley (John Want), PC Hitchcock (Julian Edney), Dr Boffin (Moyra Brookes) and Julie Bright (Grace Hemphill) were well balanced and brought out all the comedy in this rather intriguing piece. Well done to Director John Want who had had to step into the part of Whalley at short notice, he carried it off with great gusto!

A fun evening in the studio once more. Lucky Nomads, to have 2 super venues in their lovely theatre.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.