Pitlochry Festival Theatre - Sunshine On Leith.

The Guardian 2 June 2022

We’ve romped most of the way through Life With You, the title track from the Proclaimers’ seventh album, when the lead actors fade out of view and hand the stage to the musicians. Six of them come to the front with their assorted string instruments and belt out the remainder of the song. They are full-voiced and joyful.

It is a lovely moment and not just because it foregrounds Richard Reeday’s musical direction and David Shrubsole’s acoustic-led arrangements. It is also because it acknowledges how much Stephen Greenhorn’s superb 2007 musical, based on the songs of the Proclaimers, is about community. Keenly tuning in to the romantic and political vision of songwriters Craig and Charlie Reid, the playwright fashions a story that brims with ideas about nationhood, democracy and economics just as much as the awkward tensions of boy-girl relationships. [READ MORE]

By Mark Fisher

MARK FISHER is a freelance theatre critic and feature writer based in Edinburgh and has written about theatre in Scotland since the late-1980s. He is a theatre critic for The Guardian, a former editor of The List magazine and a frequent contributor to the Scotsman and other publications. He is the co-editor of the play anthology Made in Scotland (1995), and the author of The Edinburgh Fringe Survival Guide (2012) and How to Write About Theatre (2015) – all Bloomsbury Methuen Drama. He is also the editor of The XTC Bumper Book of Fun for Boys and Girls and What Do You Call That Noise? An XTC Discovery Book (both Mark Fisher Ltd).