In Nikolai Gogol’s short story Diary of a Madman, Poprishchin is a lowly Russian civil servant driven mad by his lack of status and his confusion at a changing world. In Al Smith’s play, he has become Pop Sheeran, whose family trade is painting the Forth Bridge. It takes a year, and as soon as he finishes he has to start over again. The future is rushing towards Pop faster than the 7.05 express and his instability is starting to show.
The marauding English have arrived in the shape of Matt White (geddit?), the Harrow-educated son of a knight who Pop thinks has designs on his daughter, Sophie. Meanwhile, a Qatari company has bought the bridge and is insisting that Pop uses a new kind of paint. With the future uncertain and his identity under threat, Pop retreats into fantasies of Scotland’s glorious past, fuelled by the dialogue he has with a soft-toy replica of the Skye terrier Greyfriars Bobby.
There’s plenty of meat in this exploration of globalisation and its impact on the daily lives of ordinary people blown hither and thither by the winds of change, but the play is way too baggy and while some of the writing is sharply funny, the production fails to balance the farcical and the tragic. It is well worth seeing, though, for Liam Brennan’s tender performance as Pop, a tragic clown out of time and out of a job.
•At the Traverse, Edinburgh, to 28 August. Box office: 0131-228 1404.
