Growing up a Catholic in Glasgow, Martin McCardie (writer of Tinseltown) always felt Irish. Only when he moved to Liverpool did he suddenly realise his Scottishness, and the romantic quality of his alignment with Ireland. This background is what gives his rites-of-passage drama, written in 1993 and now performed by new theatre company Roughcast, its substantial emotional depth. It is also what gives the writing such a deep, dark humour about the foibles of desperate identification with a cause, a football team or a nation, rather than facing up to the ordinariness of who and what you might be.
Michael O'Hanlon (Keith Warwick), a Glaswegian, kidnaps a English soldier, planning to kill him to prove his worth to the IRA. He does this in Liverpool, by the docks, so he can make quick escape on the ferry to Belfast. As a sign of his delusional Irish identity, things quickly begin to go wrong - his victim is a young cadet (Tommy Mullins) with his own experience of violent oppression, the ferry goes to Birkenhead, not Ireland, and he doesn't have the number for his IRA contact: "I'm gonna help free Ireland, except I've lost the number."
The exchanges between kidnapper, armed only with his grandfather's pistol, and victim are sharply observed and hilarious in places. O'Hanlon might sport Celtic boxer shorts, but he has never been to Ireland; his grandfather may have taught him never to say sorry to the English, but he can't bring himself to be really bad either. Both actors infuse the writing with strong performances: Warwick as an edgy dreamer whose plans collide with a harsh reality, Mullins as the gentle cadet who teaches his kidnapper more about identity in an hour than he has learned in a lifetime.
In the second half, a woman who has been living in hiding by the docks joins them and from here the drama feels more predictable. She is Irish, has suffered at the hands of the IRA and despises outside sympathisers with what they perceive to be their cause ("Noraid think we're cheeky little leprechauns waging war against Basil Rathbone"). This part feels more like edutainment than the painfully sharp observation of earlier scenes, but the play should still be compulsory viewing for anyone who has ever entertained romantic, shamrock-infested notions about the old country.
Ends tomorrow. Box office: 0141-552 4267.
