David Greig’s latest production for Brighton Festival follows a group of academics gathered in Kelso, Scotland, to determine why the Border Ballad is neither border nor ballad.
Though it’s a suitable question for pedants more bothered with post-structuralism than life and love, there is nothing fusty or parochial about the storytelling.
Its gaze is as much on the paradoxes of modern Scotland – the grim Asda car parks, the grey council flats – as the romanticism evoked by Robert Burns’ words.
Things begin to go afoot for the prim and studious Edinburgh darling Prudencia Hart when she is led astray by cocksure colleague Colin Syme, who sees The X Factor as Scotland’s real expression of modern working-class culture.
In a pub after the conference, instead of finding the true beauty of the Border ballads between the tweed and the Teviot, Hart discovers karaoke and Katy Perry.
From one licentious location to another – next it’s a B&B run by the devil, who appears at first a soulmate, someone who sees folk as being more than words, having something elusive – Hart takes a mythical, folkloric journey of her own.
As she enters both her heaven and hell, the script, metered and sharp, becomes a game of wordplay on love: its timing and phrasing and rhyming always either poignant or witty.
The versatile cast, who race around the crowd, dance on tables, have us rip up serviettes for snow, are blessed with a soundtrack integral to the storytelling. Indeed, at the end, it’s as if you’ve just heard one long folk ballad.
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