5 STARS *****
Homegrown talent showing audiences where Scotland’s true heart is. That is Athens of the North.
Visiting the Scottish Storytelling Centre for Mark Hannah’s Athens of the North, I have not read too much into what the show is about, in the hope for an exciting surprise. The stage is set almost empty, blank except chairs of the kind you’d find in a Lothian bus. About to travel into town for a story or two.
‘Edinburgh’s a village, eh. Villages dinny normally huv castles, palaces and parliaments. But we do. And in villages, everybody kens everybody. Whether ye like it or no.’
We get three stories, in all of which, for those familiar with the city, we know those characters. We’ve met them ourselves. The working-class man, doing what he can to provide for his daughter, in an ever-changing world talking politics, protests and pronouns. A student who would risk it all for a Scottish girl he has fallen in love with at first sight. A Scottish granny who’d make you a cup of tea, light a fag and tell you all about Leith Street back in the 70s.
However, this show is so much more than that. One by one, Hannah manages to show a softer and emotional side to Edinburgh through his gorgeous writing that leaves us in tears, from both laughter and heartache. The characters are flawed human beings, trying to find their place in the city they are so attached to. Some feel they are losing.
The play’s rhythm has such a natural fluidity to it, through a combination of Jack Webb’s movement and Fraser Scott’s direction. Both truly excelled in shaping Hannah’s vision through the staging of this production. I am drawn to Hannah’s eyes, what his characters are thinking and how effortlessly he manages to engage with all the audience in such a short space of time. Connect with the stories, we all certainly did.
In a production which gives Irvine Welsh a run for his money, I leave feeling more in love with the city I grew up in.
