The Stamping Ground Festival Theatre Edinburgh 23rd May 2023 Review
The Stamping Ground, a new musical featuring the songs of Runrig, is at the Festival Theatre this week (Tue 23 to Sat 27 May) and this show is not only worth going to if you are a fan of the band’s music, but also if you are not that familiar with the songs (and Runrig) as it is simply a good work of theatre in its own right.
For the fans of the songs, there are many to choose from here – “Going Home”, “The Place Where The Rivers Run”, “Dance Called America”, “In Search of Angels” to name only a few of them. If you are expecting these songs to sound like your favourite song by Runrig then think again though, and I mean that in a very positive way.
By their very nature, “juke-box” musicals can all too easily fall into the trap of trying to force music and lyrics of songs into new stories, scenarios and often dialogue, and the result is all too often an ill-fitting marriage of two very different creative visions. Here in “The Stamping Ground” this has been avoided by carefully selecting words and music from Runrig’s extensive back catalogue of songs over the decades and skilfully re-arranging them to tell a new unified story. Along the way, this approach has allowed these songs to be explored from different perspectives, given them different voices, but always retaining that feel for the people, the land, and that love and respect of past and its traditions that Runrig have become famous for through their music. No musical theatre that uses the music of Runrig would feel right without one of the great strands of their music running through it, the Gaelic language, and this production pays its respects here too.
Although The Stamping Ground uses the music of Runrig as its source material, this is not a Runrig production and the band, and in particular songwriters Calum and Rory Macdonald, have left everyone involved in this production to do their creative best with their “musical children” and together something a little bit special has been the end result on stage.
For me, good musical theatre always works best if you can take the music away completely and still be left with a story that you want to listen to being told, and characters in that story that you can start to believe in and maybe even care about. The Stamping Ground has these two important elements, and at its heart this is a story of returning to where you came from, relocating not with the people of your past, but also the landscape itself.
In this story, two forever together people, Annie (Jenny Hulse ) and Euan (Ali Watt) relocate 500 miles from their present world to make a fresh start for not only themselves but their teenage daughter Fiona (Caitlin Forbes) by returning to their island home village of Glenbeag. For Annie and Euan this becomes not only a culture shock as they come to terms with a village very different from the one that they left many years ago, but also a journey of self-exploration as they begin to examine through their reconnection with their cultural roots exactly who they are as individuals and come to terms with how this could change their relationship together. For their daughter who has never known this life, this is a strange new world until she befriends the free spirited woman known as Summer (Naomi Stirrat).
In an island community though, people are always connected in some way to one another and writer Morna Young skilfully reconnects the past with the present here in often surprising ways whilst at the same time weaving stories of the lives of everyone on stage together. Along the way, very individual people are created and their stories are told in the words and music of Runrig, often with unexpected endings.
This is a story which has something to say on many different layers as we touch upon environmental issues, out of control tourism and the impact that has on local housing and the changes that it can bring to a tightly knitted community. All of this and the individual stories are told with humour and warmth and Runrig’s music fits seamlessly into this new narrative.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com
For the fans of the songs, there are many to choose from here – “Going Home”, “The Place Where The Rivers Run”, “Dance Called America”, “In Search of Angels” to name only a few of them. If you are expecting these songs to sound like your favourite song by Runrig then think again though, and I mean that in a very positive way.
By their very nature, “juke-box” musicals can all too easily fall into the trap of trying to force music and lyrics of songs into new stories, scenarios and often dialogue, and the result is all too often an ill-fitting marriage of two very different creative visions. Here in “The Stamping Ground” this has been avoided by carefully selecting words and music from Runrig’s extensive back catalogue of songs over the decades and skilfully re-arranging them to tell a new unified story. Along the way, this approach has allowed these songs to be explored from different perspectives, given them different voices, but always retaining that feel for the people, the land, and that love and respect of past and its traditions that Runrig have become famous for through their music. No musical theatre that uses the music of Runrig would feel right without one of the great strands of their music running through it, the Gaelic language, and this production pays its respects here too.
Although The Stamping Ground uses the music of Runrig as its source material, this is not a Runrig production and the band, and in particular songwriters Calum and Rory Macdonald, have left everyone involved in this production to do their creative best with their “musical children” and together something a little bit special has been the end result on stage.
For me, good musical theatre always works best if you can take the music away completely and still be left with a story that you want to listen to being told, and characters in that story that you can start to believe in and maybe even care about. The Stamping Ground has these two important elements, and at its heart this is a story of returning to where you came from, relocating not with the people of your past, but also the landscape itself.
In this story, two forever together people, Annie (Jenny Hulse ) and Euan (Ali Watt) relocate 500 miles from their present world to make a fresh start for not only themselves but their teenage daughter Fiona (Caitlin Forbes) by returning to their island home village of Glenbeag. For Annie and Euan this becomes not only a culture shock as they come to terms with a village very different from the one that they left many years ago, but also a journey of self-exploration as they begin to examine through their reconnection with their cultural roots exactly who they are as individuals and come to terms with how this could change their relationship together. For their daughter who has never known this life, this is a strange new world until she befriends the free spirited woman known as Summer (Naomi Stirrat).
In an island community though, people are always connected in some way to one another and writer Morna Young skilfully reconnects the past with the present here in often surprising ways whilst at the same time weaving stories of the lives of everyone on stage together. Along the way, very individual people are created and their stories are told in the words and music of Runrig, often with unexpected endings.
This is a story which has something to say on many different layers as we touch upon environmental issues, out of control tourism and the impact that has on local housing and the changes that it can bring to a tightly knitted community. All of this and the individual stories are told with humour and warmth and Runrig’s music fits seamlessly into this new narrative.
Review by Tom King © 2023
www.artsreviewsedinburgh.com