Wee Home From Home

★★★★

archive review (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes

By Catherine Sylvain

Published 15 Aug 2010

115270 original

Productions at the Fringe can often seem so broadly international and so infested with tourists that you forget you're in Scotland. Wee Home From Home refuses to let that happen. It's a paean to Glasgow written in Scots dialect, and if this wasn't esoteric enough, it's primarily performed through the medium of contemporary dance. These elements may on the surface seem alienating, but the piece is both enigmatic and devastating.

This is mostly due to Michael Marra, who provides and performs A Wee Home's original songs. It turns out he's Scotland's answer to Tom Waits. Gravelly-voiced, he sits crooning at the piano of Mother Glasgow while Frank McConnell prances, dodges and swirls as the nameless protagonist. The story is simple: a man returns to his parents' home, and during his forays about town he relives his whole childhood. And while buckie, bairns and Billies may be specific to Glasgow, it evokes a universal nostalgia.

Only in the final scene does the piece becomes somewhat impenetrable. When McConnell finally opens the door to his home, he finds it transformed into a Highland kitsch nightmare, with 70 different types of tartan and elevator bagpipe music booming. From idolising the grim streets of Glasgow, he gazes horrified at walls of Scottish memorabilia, before the show reaches its rather grim climax. Nostalgia, it seems, will eventually destroy you. Or maybe just Scotland will. As quaint as its title sounds, the real message of Wee Home From Home is simply that you can never go back.