Kev Campbell Was He
Stepping in, at short notice, to replace Hell from the indisposed Jonny & The Baptists, creator & performer Alexander Tait resurrected his debut play Kev Campbell Was He and filled the gap in style. Endearingly humorous, the play opens on 18-year-old Glaswegian Kev in a nightclub toilet cubicle – remarkable for its utter lack of graffiti.
A failed attempt to christen these virgin walls leads to a most unusual meet-cute with the occupant of the next cubicle. The rest is a voyage of unlikely friendship, culture shock, and surprisingly traumatic self-discovery.
Director Ivan Hamshaw-Thomas is smart to keep the play in motion, avoiding the least hint of static monologue, whilst Gillian Argo’s row of cubicles with a different chair in each helps to signpost and structure Kev’s story. However, in a one-person play, its success or failure will always rest most heavily on the actor making it a reality – all the more when they also wrote it.
“Cleverly written and deftly performed, Kev Campbell Was He singles Tait out as a promising theatremaker”
In this respect, Kev Campbell Was He singles Tait out as a highly promising theatremaker. He makes Kev a thoroughly likeable character with bags of patter, not all of it precisely A-grade, and easy to invest in. The two characters who dominate Kev’s social life in the weeks we spend with him, are distinctly voiced, and sufficiently nuanced to escape caricature in the main. Divided into short scenes by our hero’s evolving conclusions to the statement, ‘Kev Campbell was he who…’, the play flows well and finds a satisfactory ending in its beginning.
Yes, it raises issues of persistent intolerance of LGBTQI+ individuals and the challenge of confronting bigotry in lifelong friends. Yes, the play highlights the power of self-image to empower or curtail an individual. Most of all, however, it points to the power of storytelling to explore ourselves and our ‘what might be’s, whether reality confronts us with a given dilemma, or not. Fingers crossed then for Tait’s next steps after the funny, meaningful, and thought-provoking, Kev Campbell Was He.
“Funny, meaningful, and thought-provoking, Kev Campbell Was He who made for superb afternoon theatre”
Eilidh, Eilidh, Eildh
Lana Pheutan’s compact and highly entertaining sitcom, Eilidh, Eilidh, Eilidh, finds 20-something cousins Eilidh (MJ Deans) and Eilidh Bheag – Wee Eilidh (Chelsea Grace), falling out of a Skye pub, and into what they think is an unoccupied Airbnb. It’s only illegal entry, the key lurking beneath the rock the more gallus Eilidh was planning to break a window with.
However, the protest-hungry Eilidh and her reluctant cousin soon find they aren’t as alone as they thought. But before the sleeping resident arises to set about them with a hockey stick, the two dive into a wine-lubricated argument over the virtues and depredations of Skye’s tourist industry and the concomitant housing crisis. Hospitality worker Wee Eilidh, safe in social housing, sees tourists as her wage-payers, whilst teacher Eilidh, stuck with her boyfriend in her mother’s home, blames them for the lack of an affordable alternative.
“Their mix of banter and bickering is continually funny, effectively capturing the mix of love and hostility which often coexists within close family bonds.”
Ok, so the chat is a little on the nose in terms of playing both sides of the issue, but the dialogue flows naturally, and the two young performers have plenty of chemistry to make it work. Their mix of banter and bickering is continually funny, effectively capturing the mix of love and hostility which often coexists within close family bonds.
The drama only improves, however, when they are rumbled by resident non-tourist, Mrs Nicille Mhicheil (Annie Grace) – their old school teacher. Once the apologies are out of the way, the now three-way chat swiftly takes a turn for the radical. Suffice it to say our two Eilidhs have very much underestimated their former mentor’s wild side. The elder Grace is simply a hoot as the home-invaded senior citizen.
All of this takes place within Heather Grace Currie’s efficient, yet elegant set which does more than enough to evoke a sense of place. Cognisant of the non-Gaelic facility of most of its audiences outside of the highlands, Pheutan still manages to invest the text with authenticity through accessible smatterings of the native language. It’s essential as, whilst housing shortages and second-home capture is a nationwide problem, this is a play about people and place and not a docudrama.
“Ultimately, Eilidh, Eilidh, Eildh is no love letter to second-home ownership…”
Ultimately, Eilidh, Eilidh, Eildh is no love letter to second-home ownership, but Pheutan certainly puts steel, rather than strawman arguments in the mouths of its defenders. That isn’t to say it ever feels like a treatise on the subject, far from it. The three actors have a grand time together, cascading towards an almost inevitable conclusion, but the journey is never dull. Perhaps it does feel a little like an episode in a longer-running drama, but then again, I wouldn’t be sad to see another instalment.
Show Details
Kev Campbell Was He ran as part of Glasgow’s A Play, A Pie and A Pint season at Òran Mór from 3-8 March 2025, with a subsequent run at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre from 11-15 March 2025. Eilidh, Eilidh, Eildh followed suit at Òran Mór from 10-15 March 2025, before playing the Traverse Theatre from 18-22 March 2025. Both productions, now concluded, offered tickets at £14-£18 in Glasgow and £15-£20 in Edinburgh, with performances typically at 13:00 and running approximately 50-60 minutes without interval.
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