Brian Ferguson plays a man at his wits' end. He has been turfed out of his bedsit by a tyrannical landlady and faces a rainy night on the street. "Maybe if I had, like, a hat," is his hopelessly optimistic assessment.
It's a line that recalls Herbal Remedies, the first in the Arches' two-part season of undiscovered James Kelman plays. A Kelman character has so little that something as basic as a hat is a luxury.
But where many writers would wallow in the unmitigated misery of it all, Kelman finds a sweet humanity and a winning line of observational humour. Ferguson's unnamed young man is only a step away from the bottom of the social heap: unemployed, no prospects and living in an all-male hostel where electrocution from faulty appliances is as likely as a stabbing from one of the residents. Yet, as he hooks Danielle Stewart's nurse on a slow-burning night of seduction, he faces his situation with an attitude of wide-eyed wonder.
Buoyant and irrepressible, he takes innocent delight in the possibilities of cooking in a kettle (poached eggs, yes; boiled, no) or washing his underwear in the communal bathroom. Even his story of losing his dish-washing job after a fight with a merciless chef has a come-what-may relish. It's what gives They Make These Noises its charm.
Kelman's vision is of a decent man let down by an indifferent economic system. For all the feelgood fun of David McKay's production, however, it is only a sketch of a play, with the nurse's part underwritten and the story covering modest emotional ground. It would be heartening to think its warm reception will encourage Kelman to return with more ambitious fare.
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