Review: Maggie & Me – National Theatre of Scotland

I went into Maggie & Me full prepared to dislike it. Memoir or not, stories written about writers, by writers are fated to walk the shaky ground overhanging a pit of self-reverential hell. However, Damian Barr, from whose best-selling memoir the play is adapted, wants the truth – not myth. The result makes his theatrical counterpart DB (played by Gary Lamont when older, Sam Angell as a youth), a fully relatable human being.

Very wisely, Maggie & Me avoids a straight adaptation of the book, this play is a fresh means of understanding his history. Barr, co-writer James Ley, and Director Suba Das construct a meta-fiction frame, opening the play on a mature DB sitting down to write his memoir. It doesn’t begin well, DB unwilling or unable to immerse himself in his past without being bogged down in relived trauma. Deadlines whistle past, calls from his agent go ignored, and his supportive husband Mike (Douglas Rankine) grows increasingly worried.

In a move akin to Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit, DB’s subconscious finally conjures a version of Maggie (Beth Marshall) to whip him through the process. Quite literally rising from the rubble of that bombed hotel in Brighton, she has no time for weakness or self-pity. She may not be kind the play avers, but maybe she’s useful. True or not, her actions loom over Barr’s story, first closing the Ravenscraig Steelworks where his beloved dad worked, before ushering in the notorious Section 28.

It’s a bold, unapologetic move, rejecting absolutes, and broadening the conversation. Bringing to mind A Christmas Carol, this ghost of the 80’s past accompanies him through shades of his past – forced to watch, and unable to change everything except himself in the present.

“Damian Barr, from whose best-selling memoir the play is adapted, wants the truth – not myth.”

What follows is a comic tragedy with a happy ending – Barr is very much alive, and thriving as one of the nation’s leading cultural figures. From the first shattering blow when his family home collapses due to his parents’ divorce, the pace of Maggie & Me never falters. Das propels the action through the times and places which have made DB, from the safety of the school library, or the gift shop at Carfin grotto, to the dangers of new homes dominated by abusive, or addiction-ruined adults. There are plenty of laughs stemming from the awkwardness of youth, older DB’s urbane wit, Maggie’s utterly cast-iron lack of sympathy, and a smattering of abstract scenes including a rather fraught game show and a country music song battle!

A woman and a man in school uniform are leaning on a bookcase, holding books.

From Maggie & Me from the National theatre of Scotland. — **Joanne Thomson** and **Sam Angell**

An older man, covered in dirt and oil, has his hand on the shoulder of a young man, who has blood on his face.

From Maggie & Me from the National Theatre of Scotland. — **Joanne Thomson** and **Sam Angell**

If you, like myself, were born around the same time as Damian, then the cultural references will also pat you on the back like old friends throughout. It’s the first time in decades since I last heard the theme of the Story Teller stories on tape I grew up with. It was all I could do not to audibly sigh with nostalgic happiness.

Of course, it’s not all smiles. There’s relentless bullying from toxic adults and in the schoolyard, plus a growing self-hatred. These survived traumas achieve a terrible climax – a formative moment of sheer horror which threatens everything else. Like all demons, exorcism is impossible before it is named. It’s visceral, awful, and heartbreaking – but DB finally decides hearts can heal, and love doesn’t run out.

Production-wise, Maggie & Me is excellent. Kenneth McLeod’s set offers a somewhat stylised writer’s office in the nearer past but transforms into a far more abstract historical terrain dominated by a winding stair leading to a rather ominous closet. Maybe that sounds a bit on the nose, but given Barr’s particular, and fairly brutal history with a real closet, it more than earns a spot on stage. The stage is also speckled with small TV screens, where a blend of live filming and Tim Reid’s innovative reimaginings of 80’s media spring to life, augmenting the play’s dream/nightmare-like sensibilities.

The performers are uniformly excellent, Lamont offering a most graceful pastiche of the older Barr, cheeky, vulnerable, but fiercely protective of his loved ones. Angell brings youthful vitality and physicality to his younger avatar. The first Scottish actor to play Billy Elliott, he embodies the innocence, fragility, and joys of childhood and young adulthood. Marshall turns in a blazing performance as Maggie, absurd as she is toxic, but bristling with a punishing array of truth bombs. She brings laughter and winces in equal measure.

Kudos are due to the 4 person band of Nicola Jo Cully, Douglas Rankine, Grant McIntyre and Joanne Thomson who create an impressive and memorable array of characters to populate DB’s journey through his history. As DB’s mum, Cully glows with love for her ‘three gifts’ – Damian and his siblings – whilst unable or unwilling to see how her choices manifestly harm him. McIntyre shines as DB’s childhood first love Mark, a fearless self-explorer who would ultimately lead him to the validating safety and freedom of ‘The Scene’. Thomson makes Heather every bit the open-minded, whip-smart hero she clearly is in Barr’s mind, whilst Rankine strikes a broken yet noble figure as DB’s dad.

“A hard, but uplifting story of overcoming and becoming, wrapped in agile direction, and winning performances.”

Production values and performances aside, Barr’s story is both interesting and important. The traumas he experienced growing up gay in the 80’s in an unstable home, with an abusive step-parent, and under the horrors of Section 28 speak to anyone whose formative years were, or are, subject to social and state-endorsed inhumanity. His openness in acknowledging everything that made him, good and bad, speaks to everyone.

More broadly, Maggie & Me is also a welcome antidote to a public perception of those working in the arts as exclusive products of the privileged classes. It fearlessly states that creative work is work and that genuine memoir is a dangerous undertaking.

Practically speaking, Maggie & Me is simply excellent theatre which deserves to play to full houses. It’s a hard, but uplifting story of overcoming and becoming, wrapped in agile direction, and winning performances. You may cry, you’ll almost certainly cheer, and maybe – just like me – you’ll spend the walk home meditating on the events that made you…you. Searing, cheering, and blisteringly honest, Maggie & Me is bold, nuanced, and important theatre.

Maggie & Me is presented by the National Theatre of Scotland.

All Images: Mihaela Bodlovic