Shelley Middler’s The Collie’s Shed, returns to the Edinburgh Fringe, a time-hopping tale following the lives of four friends, lives blighted by the mine closures & acrimonious strikes which tore apart so many working class communities in the 80’s. The titular shed is a contemporary Men’s Shed in East Lothian, where grizzled ex-miners occupy there days doing woodwork.
The play opens with the clamour of Newtown Neurotics’ ‘Kick Out The Tories’, the resurrected voices of Margaret Thatcher and Arthur Scargill, culminating in an all-voice shouting protest chant from the 8 strong cast. It’s an immersive, and bracing opening, but a little like a boxer over-committing to a swing, it takes them a little long to recover. However once the tables and chairs of the Collie’s club have been arranged in darkness, the lights open on a fine cast, and a nuanced story.
The life of the shed is a peaceful, and predictable affair. That calm is soon disrupted by the shed’s new manager, Glen (Paul Wilson) , returning home after 30+ years. His presence immediately riles Billy (Kevin Parr), and unsettles Tommy (Alasdair Ferguson), but thanks to the moderating presence of Charlie (Stephen Corrall), a sort of peace is maintained. That is until a historic review into 80’s policing of the strikes is announced, and old wounds break wide open.
The play hops back and forth through time, detailing the 80’s crisis which has followed each down through the decades. For when the pit closures brought industrial Britain to localised civil war, the 4 did not see eye to eye. Young Billy (Joey Locke) is a righteous firebrand at the front of the picket line, his cannier friend Young Tommy (Dom Fraser) like-minded, but less blinkered to the suffering of starving miner’s families. Young Glen (Rory Grant) in contrast has accepted the doom of the UK coal industry, and intends to cross the picket line to feed his family. Young Charlie (John Gray) , father figure to Billy, is the most tortured of all, an absolute believer in the need to strike, forced to break the strike to keep his family from ruin.
The play is careful never to side with any of the cast, their conversations never allowed to sink into lazy ideas of right or wrong. In a way, each of them is firmly in the right, but their truths intersect each others’ at right angles. It’s a rich vein of conflict, and one played with no little vim, and sensitivity by the cast. Further revelations certainly heighten the drama, and coupled with some nicely observed moments of pathos, the drama avoids falling solely into recurring rehashes of the same argument.
It’s in filling out the lives of the four, that the play deepens its exploration of grudge, and its lasting power. Tommy is bereft at his wife’s entry to care due to advancing dementia. Memories of folded socks create a history quicker than any autobiography. Glen’s young dreams of emigrating to Canada have been realised by his children, not he. More however could be made of the present relationship between Glen and his adopted father Charlie, given how pivotal that connection is to the entire piece.
Still small moments, rather than grand declarations of reconcilation make the play’s finale ring true, and in the final reckoning it’s refreshing to experience such a dynamic performance from a cast so rich in grey hair!
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