KELI | ROYAL LYCEUM, EDINBURGH
★★★
‘A thought-provoking piece that generally entertains…’
There’s nothing like the sound of a big brass band to stir the soul, whether by evoking melancholic memories of times, people and places long gone, or by rousing the spirit despite the curve balls fate throws along the path of life. Just ask Keli Wade.
Keli is a co-production from the National Theatre of Scotland and Lepus Productions, and if the mere mention of a brass band in the same breath as a play set in a one-time mining town instantly conjures up thoughts of Tara Fitzgerald and Ewan McGregor in Brassed Off, don’t worry, playwright and composer Martin Green has that covered in his expletive laden script – “Oh, like in Brassed Off? … so are you like that posh girl?” asks one character, to which Keli replies, “It’s nothing like Brassed Off. Alright it is a bit, but I am nothing like that posh girl”.
If anything, Keli is the polar opposite, f-ing and c-ing her way through life to the point that the swearing becomes tiresome, the words surrendering their impact. Here, f**king becomes nothing more than a filler word like, well… ‘like’. Consequently, the constant use of the F-word and more divisive C-word proves nothing more than a crude and lazy short-hand to highlight the working class nature of the community of Snaresbrook.
That aside, Keli is a thought-provoking piece that generally entertains. At the heart of the play, 17-year-old Keli is star of the town’s brass band, Snaresbrook’s last remaining link its once proud past, back when the local mine provided local families with their weekly wage. Or it would be, but for the scars that remain from the miners strikes of 40 years ago and, in the case of Snaresbrook, a 1912 pit collapse.
It’s a tale of a divided community still tending the wounds of its past; of a place where industrial and class politics clash and where the line between responsibility and priorities are blurred… and it has indeed all been done before.
Caring for her fragile mother, while holding down a job at the local Scotmid, the last thing Keli needs is to be strong-armed into joining her band in London for the Nationals. The only Scottish band to make it that far in the contest, they’re relying on her skill on the tenor horn to win it again, for the first time in decades.
And so unfolds a story of flashbacks, eked out of the young musician, after she mysteriously finds herself in an abandoned mine, by the equally mysterious Willie.
In the title role Liberty Black is a bubbling mass of teenage anger, frustration and fear. Spitting out Green’s caustic rejoinders with such vehemence that lines at times become garbled, their sentiment, however, is never lost. It’s a visceral performance that is also laced with tenderness and helplessness that only really surfaces in scenes with her fragile and distractingly youthful mother, Jayne, played with nuance by Karen Fishwick.
Fishwick also impresses doubling-up as the wonderfully ‘establishment’ Lady Snaresbrook, as does Olivia Hemmati, as London ‘It Girl’ Saskia. Billy Mack, one of the finest actors working in Scotland, is also in good form and quite unrecognisable in the role of Willie, a character that anchors the piece securely.
With multiple themes vying for the spotlight throughout, the flow of the play remains uneven, despite the best efforts of director Bryony Shanahan who still manages to hold the attention with one or two surprising choices along the way, while Alisa Kalyanova’s set design is suitably claustrophobic and craftily realised.
Ultimately a study of community and all its parts, Keli is a jumble of ideas that don’t always land, the one exception being Green’s mellow score that provides the play’s soundtrack. Performed by on stage musical director Louis Abbott and his musicians it is richly evocative, while a special mention must go to the sublime brilliance of Andrew McMillan on tenor horn.
With the cast joined on stage by the Whitburn Band (at this performance) to ensure a stirring finale, the West Lothian musicians do not disappoint, effortlessly filling the auditorium with melodies that swell and boom in an unexpectedly emotional finale, one that perfectly encapsulates the healing power of music. But then as band leader Brian, an intriguingly layered performance from Phil McKee, reminds us at one point: “The band is the toon, and the toon is the band.”
Run ends 17 May. Tickets here.
