Theatre
Chic Murray: A Funny Place for a Window
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
Five stars
Two words have again translated into ‘hot ticket’ at Oran Mor. The words are: Chic Murray – and if you haven’t already secured your ticket for this week’s Play, Pie and a Pint production, you could try early queueing at the box office where a few have been held back. What makes this revival of Stuart Hepburn’s rollicking salute to Chic Murray, the Scottish comedian and actor who died in 1985, such a draw? Put simply – it is a terrific tonic to the spirits. A kindly chance to relish the skew-whiff, observational take on everyday occurrences that Murray spliced into the humorous anecdotes and pithy rejoinders that left post-war audiences helpless with laughter.
That gleefully uplifted laughter now greets Chic Murray: A Funny Place for a Window at Oran Mor – just as it did when the piece was premiered there last May. Nicely representative elements of Murray’s own comedic material are cannily woven into writer/director Hepburn’s pacey biographical script while Dave Anderson – once again sporting Chic’s signature bunnet – subtly goes beyond the flights of freefall eccentricity to reveal the self-centred needy side that played to the gallery and philandered in the wings... finally alienating his on and off-stage partner, Maidie. Kate Donnelly originally played Maidie.
Maureen Carr now steps into the Small Doll’s silver-glittery shoes and finds them a perfect fit. Like Anderson, she catches the profound bond that brought her, and Murray’s Tall Droll, together. You see it when they go into their sweetheart song’n’dance but her increasing silence, her stillness, speak volumes of hurt inflicted over years of being taken forgranted. Brian James O’Sullivan returns as the ‘ensemble’, playing everything from the piano to long-time pal and more. If the Blackpool Wedding escapade makes you laugh, the final song may move you to tears – and you may wish you’d bought tickets for the rest of the week.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here