SIX BLACK CANDLES. To 3 April.

Edinburgh

SIX BLACK CANDLES
by Des Dillon

Royal Lyceum Theatre To 3 April 2004
Tue-Sat 7.45pm Mat 20, 24, 27, 31 March, 3 April 2.30pm
Audio-described: 25 March, 27 March 2.30pm
Touch tour 27 March12.30pm
BSL Signed 30 March
Free Playroom: 20 March 2.30pm
To 3 April 2004
Runs 2hr 10min One interval

TICKETS: 0131 248 4848
Review: Timothy Ramsden 13 March

Sisterly feelings at high comic pitch. An unmissable new Scottish comedy.Outrageous costumes, Occult humour and someone silently enthusiastic rock-band mimings are tokens of desperate comic strain. All three happen at the start of Des Dillon's play, which took so long to reach the stage, he's turned it into a novel meanwhile. As a choir blithely chirrups Bind us together, Lord we watch six sisters tear themselves, and anyone in range, apart through a mix of Catholicism and witchery. It could have been dreadful, but so finely observed it's hilarious.

There's a decent male presence Gavin Kean as the token inconsiderate male, terrified of the gangster his spurned wife's set on him but unwilling to give up the young baby-sitter he's living with or hand over the ten grand she needs to avoid repossession, plus Mark McDonnell doing well by his cherubic priest, no match for this woman's world he walks in on just as their black rites are kicking into gear.

But it's the women who steal, star and make the show. Every one's an ace, enhanced by Mark Thomson's direction, focusing on character differences among the family cooped in Caroline's council flat in a run-down Coatbridge estate. Becky Minto's design starts domestic but, higher up, looms with echoes of an empty church.

Kathryn Howden's fine Caroline has a resilience first expressed in her finger-waving hex on hubbie's burning underwear an effect later repeated chorically by the assembled sisterhood. All excel: Gabriel Quigley's black-lipped Donna, the witch spinning into obsessive growls when annoyed, Jennifer Black's polite teacher, the family member gone McPosh and ever-fearful for her Ford Focus parked outside, Julie Duncanson's loud-mouthed, sex-starved fall-girl, Wendy Seager's tough, tattoed Angie and Gayanne Potter's wheelchair-using Linda, are beautifully individuated.

Watching over the brood is Ann Downie's complacent mother and Eileen McCallum's granny with a tranny, listening in on police reports, relishing her ghoulish story in an exemplary performance.

The play's not quite a classic-to-be characters can drift out of the action, and later there's a sense the action's relying on, rather than developing, them. But it's well worth the wait and - so well done as here - an out-and-out joy.

Caroline: Kathryn Howden
Donna: Gabriel Quigley
Geddy: Julie Duncanson
Wendy: Jennifer Black
Angie: Wendy Seager
Linda: Gayanne Potter
Granny: Eileen McCallum
Maw: Anne Downie
Bobby: Gavin Kean
Father Boyle: Mark McDonnell

Director: Mark Thomson
Designer: Becky Minto
Lighting: Fleur Woolford
Voice: Carol Ann Crawford

2004-03-19 00:13:10