★★★★★
It’s great to see Jamie Rea, a figure central to Scotland’s deaf creative scene for years, finally taking centre stage in The Singer. Opening with the divine Hannah Jarrett-Scott and Petre Dobre, as vivid narrators painting the scene, telling us about Joe, a deaf nursery worker with dreams of being a singer. Joe runs into Andy (Dylan Wood), a disillusioned hearie performer, and an unlikely bond forms. Joe has to patiently explain to Andy (and much of the audience) how he hears music. Andy’s ignorance is played for laughs, but hopefully pricks at the privilege and ableism us hearies have.
Cora Bissett’s direction and book is fun and dynamic, there are plenty of laughs and emotional beats, it’s not groundbreaking, but it makes for a good scaffolding for the play’s central message.
The play unfolds in a filmic narrative, the underdog and the buddying up. And beyond that we get these incredible songs written by KT Tunstall; anthemic and beautiful. Rea’s singing is passionate and the show’s fundamental core. The idea that deaf people like music and are even musical performers is a challenge to hearies, but the play doesn’t try to win over or attain some parity with hearing people, it is actually a provocation and invitation into the rich world of deaf performance.
