Theatre

Celestial Body

Oran Mor, Glasgow

Mary Brennan

Three stars

Pies heated and waiting to be plated up? Check! Pints ready to be pulled? Check! Plays? After months of lockdown, are there really plays lining up in the wings? Indeed there are – 12 of them, with Morna Pearson’s Celestial Body the first on-stage in this welcome return of Oran Mor’s lunchtime showcase of new one-act works.

So who – or what – is the “celestial body” that threads through Pearson’s noir-ish comedy? For Laura (Neshla Caplan) it’s her star sign, Pisces – and the horoscopes she dials up on her phone. Whatever the creepy-sounding, supposedly psychic voices say, Laura hears and obeys.

When Hamish (Samuel Pashby) arrives to fix her washing machine, we get the impression that Laura’s interest in him is a matter of singleton lust – Hamish, you see, is a gym regular and his toned ‘n’ honed physique might well be the “celestial body” in question. Bruce (Ross Mann) knows – and avidly admires – Hamish’s fab abs and effortless hefting of weighty dumb-bells: he’s joined the same gym to get similarly fit in order to recapture his wife’s affection. Fat chance, you think – Bruce is distinctly weedy, and he does seem overkeen to get close up and personal with Hamish.

To fill in any more details would give away a plot that’s frankly on the puny side. The cast, however, briskly keep up appearances – gosh! what a surprise for them (if not necessarily for us) that when they do meet, they turn out to have circumstances in common.

This is where the jokes disappear and the dark side to Laura and Bruce’s interest in Hamish emerges. True to the spirit of A Play, a Pie and a Pint, I won’t give the final punchline away…

A new seating layout is in place, by the way – otherwise it feels like old times at PPP.