Drunk Woman looks at the Thistle

Karen Dunbar is far better known for her BBC comedy appearances, but here she brings her comic touch to some weightier material. Adapted from Hugh MacDiarmid’s nationalistic poem, Denise Mina’s script retains the original’s preoccupation with the Scots language and its thematic ambition. Cleverly, it discards much of the rest of its 20s roots, and so this drunken monologue manages to comment upon all things Scottish from a rather more topical perspective.

Dunbar energetically portrays the charming lout imparting inebriated wisdom to her audience, playing to and with the crowd as well as any stand-up. The drunkard’s backdrop has been swapped from the rugged outdoors to a sitting-room and couch, but the impression of a joyous ramble towards an alcoholic sleep is still strong.

Both the script and Dunbar make the most of the Scots dialect, using it to create a rolling rhythm that provides ample opportunities for comic effect and makes the monologue all the more lively. In this manner Dunbar almost raps through themes of national pride, empire, slavery, gender, sex and death, always circling the definition of the thistle in question. There are also—as promised on the flyers—cock jokes. Pretty good ones at that.

Drunk Woman looks at the Thistle is very funny, and deals with its subject with insight and integrity. Yet the whole show begs the question: why does such a successful and stereotype challenging treatment of Scottish identity sound so good when delivered as if pissed?