Theatre
Tally’s Blood
Perth Theatre
Neil Cooper
Four stars
Why Ann Marie Di Mambro’s Scottish-Italian family saga has never been made into a film is a mystery. First seen in 1990, Di Mambro’s drama charts the lives of the extended Pedreschi clan from just before the Second World War to the 1950s. Through this we see an entire diaspora move from being the core of the local community to becoming pariahs once Italy sides with Germany. As peace falls, an international game of kiss-chase ensues as the play moves into rom-com territory.
At the heart of this are Massimo, Rosinella and their niece Lucia, who sets the tone as a small but defiantly strong willed child. Lucia bonds with local lad Hughie, who ends up helping out in Massimo’s ice cream shop while his sister Bridget steps out with Massimo’s brother Franco. Such alliances, alas, are shattered by war and the prejudices it provokes. For Rosalina and Bridget, the costs are even greater.
Ken Alexander’s production embraces the initial breeziness of Di Mambro’s writing to help heighten the play’s depths, brought to life by a set of wonderfully empathetic performances.
Andy Clark and Carmen Pieraccini capture the long-term side effects of enforced separation as Massimo and Rosinella, while Dani Heron shows a similar change in Bridget. Paul J Corrigan meanwhile, makes a smitten Franco before doubling up as Lucia’s father, Luigi.
It is Chiara Sparkes as Lucia and Craig McLean as Hughie whose sparky interplay offers some kind of hope beyond their own enforced travails. Their joyful performances are played out on designer Fraser Lappin’s small town tenement exterior, with Hilary Brooks’ sound design lending an understated emotional drive to proceedings.
While Di Mambro has packed an entire mini series into her down the generations epic, one can’t help but wonder how things turned out for Lucia and co in the swinging sixties and beyond.
As it stands, this co-production between Perth Theatre, The Gaiety Theatre, Ayr and Cumbernauld Theatre is a welcome revisitation to an ever-maturing work that taps into notions of exile and integration with wit, warmth and a huge heart.
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