I have not seen another show that gets a full standing ovation. Or one where the performer cannot leave the building because members of her audience are lining up to tell her how much the show has meant to them. We have laughed. We have (come on admit it) cried and we have felt heard. Olivia Caw is Bonnie – and many other characters – in a story that speaks to the soul of anyBuddy, brought up with a basic Paisley accent. We live in an age where everyone is out and proud about absolutely everything, where you dare not judge, much less discriminate in any way spoken or unspoken, against anyone for any reason. Colour, sexual preferences, gender identity, body mass, race, religion … everything in today’s big happy global family of person is an absolute no-go area for any existing ‘ism’.and any ‘ism’ that might be recognised as such in the future.
But try having a good old fashioned working class Scottish accent anywhere except good old working class Scotland and watch the side-eyes swivel.
Common Tongue takes us, with Bonnie, from school, through the trials of having a middle class teenage lumber, to university, the USA, and back. Through it all Bonnie holds proudly to her native vernacular. The performance is spellbinding, passionate, hilarious and heart rending in turn. Fraser Scott’s writing is pitch perfect – as it should be in someone from Foxbar. This is a very special piece of theatre. For those of us from Paisley this is f^^king brilliant by the way. It is pure bangin’,
