Beyond the ordinary at Tron Theatre Glasgow

What I'm Here For a Co production between Vanishing Point and Teater Katapult.

Is an urgent story of Nurse Flora called in to work on an understaffed night on the 21st December.

We first meet Flora standing on the roof of the hospital trying to get some breathing space after a hellish night on the wards.

Her patient in room 22, due to be discharged that day, however for some reason it's been delayed. The reason becomes painfully obvious as the night unfolds.

The woman in room 33 is constantly calling Flora for the most trivial of reasons.

The doctor is avoiding her, and also avoiding speaking to patients. 

Flora stands front stage. Back stage, for the most part, the other performers are seated, speaking in to mics as the chorus of voices all calling for a bit of Flora.This is quite terrifying when they all rabble at once. 

Performed in English and Danish with excellently clear surtitles this highlights the story of nurses across many borders all struggling to keep people alive.

The tension of the play never lets up under Matthew Lenton's immaculate Direction, with lighting by Simon Wilkinson and an excellent soundscape by Mark Melville.

Since Covid we are much more aware of the pressures of hospital staff, and the lack of people coming in to that vocation.

Black Hole Sign seen at the Tron Theatre recently tells a very similar story however both pieces are so stylistically different it's well worth seeing both.

David Greig's play, The Events, takes place in the aftermath of a mass shooting. Leaving choir organiser and priest Claire alive but questioning the reason behind the killings.

The perpetrator, The Boy, Claire finds has come from a sad upbringing his mother dying young and his father an alcoholic. Bullied at school and influenced by racist politicians and literature he decides to enter the place of community and togetherness and cause distruction.

Claire played by Claire Lamont goes through every emotion, wanting to know why he did it, she becomes consumed by The Boy pushing her partner away. Interviewing his friend, the politician, the journalist. Trying to come to terms with the atrocity.

Sam Sopford plays a blinder as The boy and all the other characters Claire meets, this casting makes you think she sees the boy everywhere.

The choir in each venue is made up of a local group, bringing joyful songs at the beginning and becoming more mournful as Claire delves deeper into the mind of the boy.

This play is as relevant now as it was when first written and performed in 2013, with the rise of violence against migrants and spiteful rhetoric spewed by the likes of Farage. This is a play that has hope and resilient strength from the community to regroup and reform after the worst of times.

Produced by Wonder Fools

📸 Tron Theatre promo pic 

Auntie Empire, a toffee nosed, gobbledigook speaking lady of the Empire of Great Britain welcomes her hugely extended family in to the theatre.

Auntie of course is the Empire, using puppets, of her parents she describes in Punch and Judy fashion how Britain raped and pillaged it's way through the world.

However Auntie starts to fall apart as independence is won, in quite the most visceral way possible with arms, bowels and scat. The days of old blighty literally eviscerate themselves in front of us.

This excellent play uses puppetry and audience participation it's a party and a funeral to colonialism. 

It's almost like an unhinged version of the Stag part of The Cheviot, the choice of For These are My Mountains as audience entrance music was not lost on me.

Julia Taudevin is wonderful as Auntie, her performance has to be seen to be believed 

Pics Brian Hartley