Theatre

Last Tango in Partick/An Tango mu dheireadh ann am Partaig

Oran Mor, Glasgow

Mary Brennan

two stars

WE ARE in Partick. Perhaps for no other reason than it allows the title to wink at the 1972 film, Last Tango in Paris. Actually, we’re in the realms of mid-life crisis, a perennially favourite terrain for writers to explore on page, stage and screen. Here it’s housewife Moira (Mairi Morrison) who is fed up and looking to bring some fun back into her life, since bringing fun back into her marriage with Iain (David Walker) seems a forlorn hope. He won’t dance, she’s asked him – he pleads back pain, she reckons it’s self-indulgent laziness. Hell mend him: she decides to learn tango anyway. Guess what happens next? Yes, bored middle-aged woman meets younger dance teacher (Iain Beggs) and takes steps towards self discovery in a plot with less meat than a bite of the lunchtime pie that shares top billing with the pint and play at Oran Mor.

Plot is not the main driving factor behind this production, however: language is. Alison Laing’s short Gaelic script was chosen following an open submission process which was judged by PPP and partners National Theatre of Scotland, MG Alba, BBC Alba and Bòrd na Gàidhlig. You can easily understand the appeal of a modern scenario to a selection panel interested in broadening out the general public’s perception of Gaelic but very little about this piece comes across as more than a half-hearted translation of familiar “marriage on the rocks” tropes. Especially since – along with the English subtitles – the dialogue frequently lapses into English as well, lending an awful irony to the comment by Moira’s husband that the Gaelic you hear at the Mod is “just for show”. The language that does come across well is that of tango, where compliant limbs can murmur of passion without recourse to words.

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