National Theatre of Scotland World Premiere
Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh
It’s not too much of a stretch to replay Kidnapped as a romance.
Robert Lewis Stevenson’s tale of young David Balfour, becoming a man as he lies in the Highland heather with his mysterious friend Alan Breck, has love and friendship at its heart.
This new musical interpretation adds the story of Stevenson’s wife – Frances Matilda Van de Grift Osbourne Stevenson – an unconventional American journalist who treasured and supported her husband.
F.V.De G.S. – as she was known in her introduction to her husband’s novels, is wonderfully played by Kim Ismay, who sings and accompanies herself, adding insight, comment and an extra emotional dynamic to the story.
The ensemble cast is fantastic, singing and playing a soundtrack of popular songs, as we rip through this roaring tale of danger, adventure and heroism in the Highlands.
Playwrights Isobel McArthur and Michael John McArthur play cleverly and irreverently with Scottish history, while showing us the passionate struggles of the oppressed clans, fighting with villainous and corrupt agents of the King.
Malcolm Cumming is tremendous as the dashing, brave and mysterious Alan Breck, swirling through the Highlands in his fancy blue coat, showing young David Balfour just what it means to be a man.
Ryan J MacKay, as Davie Balfour, finds the right mix of innocence and honour as he faces the trials of finding his place in the world.
There’s a beautiful and lyrical shipwreck scene, which shows David Balfour falling underwater to a Kate Bush soundtrack. Fanny Stevenson reappears to explain that the sickly author Robert Lewis Stevenson was perilously ill and had to be willed back to life to complete his novel.
The adaptation takes a playfully surreal approach to the gaelic speaking Highlanders – styling them as followers of a mystical eastern cult who are secretly running wild raves to a disco soundtrack. They are exotic, different and other – which they may have seemed to contemporary lowlanders like Balfour –or middle-class city dwellers like Stevenson.
Less successful is the portrayal of the seafarers – who are bogged down by bad pantomime acting, awkward physical comedy and a script clunking with terrible stereotypes. A recurring gag about a pirate called Karen made me wince into my popcorn and at times I could hardly believe I was watching a National Theatre of Scotland production intended for adults.
In Stevenson’s story the seafarers are sad, enslaved, brutalised teenage alcoholics. His descriptions are politically charged and bursting with humanity.
This retelling of Stevenson styles itself as a Rom-Com. But while the Rom is delightful the Com falls short.
The introductory scene, which plays on the supposed lack of emotion of the Scots, is also bizarrely misjudged. In the novel Kidnapped, Balfour has the making of a man because of the love and care he received in his childhood.
When it is not recycling bizarrely tired cartoonish caricatures there is a lot to love about this production. The clothes, the music, the love story, the adventure and the sense of fun are irresistible and the story races along.
It’s good to take risks – to strip away familiar stories and familiar history and to rebuild them afresh for a different age. And at its heart this production celebrates and rediscovers the soft heart and the edge-of-your-seat excitement of this classic Scottish adventure story.
It is also lovely to discover the story of the strong woman behind one of Scotland’s best-loved writers.
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