Mayflies @ Brown's of Leith
Grid Iron grip us in the teeth of 1980s post-industrial Manchester in this exuberant, heart-splintering performance of Andrew O'Hagan's novel
Two lads sit swinging their legs high on a scaffolding tower waiting for the audience to fill the cavernous warehouse space at Brown's, by the dockside in Leith. A riot of high chairs, stools, wooden chairs, plastic chairs and benches are wedged against the raw, exposed brick walls. There are posters for the Cocteau Twins and The Sisters of Mercy, and vinyl records reserve seats. Homegrown site-specific specialists Grid Iron Theatre Company clasp us in the jaws of 1980s post-industrial Manchester.
This works brilliantly for the staging of the first half of Andrew O'Hagan's semi-autobiographical novel Mayflies. Bookish young Jimmy/Noodles (Kieran Devine) and rebellious young Tully (Jude Bain) are both superb as they commit to their vow to "go at life differently". It is notoriously tough to stage a novel; written thoughts are staged out loud, requiring precise and believeable physicality and dialogue. Narrator Jimmy (Matthew Pidgeon) achieves this transition effortlessly. Some of the dialogue gets lost in the roof and there is a 10-minute technical hitch that stops the clock. None of this dents an excellent performance. What follows is an effervescent, heart-splintering story of youth, counter culture, male friendship and mortality.
Adapted and directed by Ben Harrison, the performance is staged at two poles. First, a forgotten town in Ayrshire and the fleeting hedonism of a trip by the lads and their friends to Manchester to the Festival of the Tenth Summer, to the hallowed ground of the Hacienda and to Piccadilly Records. All set against the backdrop of Thatcherite Britain. Sounds fills every corner. The Fall. The Smiths. Life itself is captured in a bell jar over that weekend.
In the second half, we are pulled towards the second pole. This is a much quieter performance, but the magnetic charge holds. Thirty-odd years on and Jimmy receives a call. He learns that Tully (Graham Mackay-Bruce) is facing a terminal diagnosis. The rebellious spirit captured in that bell jar is released as the two navigate Tully's request for assisted dying. Tully's partner Anna (Lucianne McEvoy) and Jimmy's wife Iona (Carmen Pieraccini) are excellent in bringing emotional counterbalance to Tully and Jimmy's determination to prove there is life in death.
Mayflies is another triumph from Grid Iron, full of life-affirming exuberance and an abiding commitment to place.
Mayflies, Brown's of Leith (Rear Warehouse), until 30 Aug (not 25), 4pm, sold out