★★★★
Scottish folklore has such a vibrancy, it’s living poetry, and as such feels immediate. We might be talking about magical beings and selkies, but they are weaved into the very fabric of our Scottish identity. It means, that when traditional folk imagery bristles against the contemporary vistas of Sauchiehall Street on a Saturday night out, it feels right!
Emery Hunter and Bobby Bradley understand this intrinsically. As the image of the selkie is conjured up, out of the River Clyde, surrounded by upturned trollies and other detritus, she ends up stranded on land, in a private club for magical folk. Enter a human stranger, or rather a strange human, who helps the selkie through Glasgow and into the night.
Hunter and Bradley make for an impressive double-act, they are completely in sync. Playing the selkie and the stranger respectively, they also tell the story together, bilingually, in both BSL and English simultaneously. It’s more performance prose poetry than theatre. The scene they set is dense and full of detail, sometimes you need to catch a breath, yet there isn’t many moments left for a pause. Still, they have built a brilliant world, a solid fantastical story, that captivates and makes you yearn for the selkie’s safe return to the water.
Dregs is on at The Scottish Storytelling Centre until August 24th.
