IN 1911, Captain Scott's race to be first to reach the South Pole as part of the Terra Nova expedition captured the imagination of the British public.
Scott, and four members of his crew – Wilson, Oates, Bowers and Evans – reached their goal on January 17, 1912 only to find they had been beaten to the prize by Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen.
On their journey back all five men perished. Scott was regaled as an iconic, tragic hero, although revisionist debate since has seen him castigated as being a disorganised, heroic blunderer. And it's this historic expedition that provides the inspiration behind Oliver Emmanuel's A Play, A Pie and A Pint co-production with Dundee Rep.
A monologue performed with ironic, tragi-comic warmth by Kevin Lennon as a hitherto unmentioned, and unlikely, sixth member of the team, Lennon charts not only Scott and his men's thirst for adventure, and their varying personalities, but also his own.
Driven to accompany them on their trek into the "dark interior", the unusual, lovestruck orphan paints a blow by blow account of the expectation and dashed hopes of hardy explorers driven by science and the sprit of empire clearly drawn from Scott's diaries. An insider/outsider his assessment that: "You cannot battle nature and win" is one that sadly dawned too late on Scott and co.
Scott's endeavour has been well chronicled in print and film. And here is nothing new added here. But Lennon makes for an engaging guide to a tale of derring do's and don'ts, with Emmanuel's left-field approach to the subject making for a surreal, but gripping history lesson.
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