Rabbler is a work in progress, progressing towards something very special indeed.
📍Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh
📅 18 Oct
💷 From £5
🕖 6:00pm
🕖 Running time (approx.): 1 hour
🗣️ Performer: Angela Milton
✍️ Writer: Jen McGregor
🎶 Music: Anne Wood
🎬 Director: Niloo-Far Khan
🎂 18+
🎭 Not fully Wheelchair Accessible
Daughter of Dundee (like myself), resident in Edinburgh (like myself), playwright Jen McGregor brought her continuing muse Jenny Geddes to challenge, and entertain a full house upstairs at the Waverley Bar. Played with conviction and no little elan by Angela Milton, 17th century Jenny holds court, a woman of no shy opinions, and a very low opinion of Catholics, English folk, and Fifers for good measure.
Being a work in progress, this isn’t so much a review than an acknowledgement of what a promising piece Rabbler proved to be. Setting the play in a tavern, and playing it in one makes for theatrical & storytelling magic, soundtracked by the murmur of lubricated conversations, and clinking glasses downstairs. This is a woman who takes no prisoners, a woman so emphatic as to be commemorated in statuary at St. Giles Cathedral for instigating the Edinburgh riot which sparked the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
Of course, she’s immortalised by the stool she allegedly threw at a minister whose Anglican words enraged the puritan Geddes for their proximity to the hated Catholic order of Mass (God forbid anyone should build a statue of an actual woman in Edinburgh.) She may or may not have existed all those centuries ago, but she was certainly brought to life by McGregor and Milton.
It’s a challenging, funny listen, steeped in the prejudices of its day, but wrapped up in an admirably forthright woman, who knows her mind and isn’t afraid to share it. Thanks to composer Wood, there’s song, and even rap interjected into the narrative, elements which emerge organically and without artifice. These are devices which help a modern audience to connect with Jenny momentarily as a contemporary, and to appraise her as a living human being.
Director Niloo-Far Khan has certainly helped craft a nicely paced story, one which emerges with gathering momentum, but no rush.
The story itself is one part historical lesson, one part series of adventures, and another part tragedy; a heady mix, but certainly an entertaining one. Future iterations of the show are intended to feature a live, interactive fiddler on stage with Jenny, an evolution which sounds absolutely fascinating to behold.
Do grab your chance to encounter Jenny Geddes when Rabbler comes to a pub near you in future; you’ll laugh, you’ll think, and you’ll probably find yourself liking her…even if you’re a Fifer.
(Featured Photography Credit: Scottish Storytelling Festival)
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