DAMN'D JACOBITE BITCHES. To 21 December.
Glasgow
DAMN'D JACOBITE BITCHES
by Stuart Thomas
Citizens' Theatre Circle Studio To 21 December 2002
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat 14 December 3pm
Runs 1hr 30min No interval
TICKETS 0141 429 0022
Review Timothy Ramsden 29 November
A peep under the skirts of a significant historical moment usually obscured in the mists of myth.Just how 'bonny' was Prince Charlie? Three of the articulate, self-confident women gathered round a London dining-table after the Catholic Stuart aspirant to the throne had been seen off by the English, Protestant Hanoverian forces at the 1745 Battle of Culloden, have different reason for wanting to see him back again. They're part of the fascinating historical mix Stuart Thomas serves up in his rewarding new play.
For Jenny Cameron – Anne Marie Timoney severe in black with brushed-back hair – it's a matter of the right religion. For Nicola Burnett Smith's loudly commanding Anne Macintosh, who like Cameron claims to have led troops into battle for the Prince, and who you believe could have held her own with any male officers in drink and swagger, it's politics.
Least focused is their hostess, Mrs Walkinshaw. Rae Hendrie's attractive neatness doesn't mean she's short of a dry, waspish reply. But her love for the Stuart's eventually shown to be more personal than the others and it's a transition Thomas leaves feeling forced.
Meanwhile, outclassed and outspoken by them all, fainting at London society,Vivien Reid's Flora MacDonald sits in a corner of the room and on the edge of tears. She's sharing Walkinshaw's hospitality but is also focus of the others' hate and envy. The one who rowed the Prince to safety, speeding her bonny boat over the seas from South Uist to Skye, into song and historical myth, she went on to save her own skin by naming names to the English.
One fine legend gone. But despite generating the warm-afterglow of defeated comrades, all the women – 'Damn'd Jacobite bitches' to the pro-Hanoverians - are up to earning much of the title for themselves. Yet the big demolition job's on Charles himself. Stephen Scott's confident entry soon slips into arrogance, and as first the stylish wig then the elegant clothes go – he has to escape disguised as a woman – man and monarch move further apart.
For all their ideals, these women's hopes rest on a lecherous, self-seeking being without a touch of royal responsibility. Scott and the four women give sharply characterised performances. Mary McCluskey's production is sensitive to pace and mood, using the restricted in-the-round area fluently.
Jenny Cameron: Anne Marie Timoney
'Colonel' Anne Macintosh: Nicola Burnett Smith
Clem,entine Walkinshaw: Rae Hendrie
Flora MacDonald: Vivien Reid
Charles Edward Stuart: Stephen Scott
Director:Mary McCluskey
Designer: Annie Curtis Jones
Lighting: Michael Lancaster
Fight director: Carter Ferguson
2002-12-03 13:47:33