Cosmic Scallies

Cosmic Scallies—the latest show from the deaf and disabled-championing Graeae theatre company—is packed to bursting with the names of people and places. From Dufflecoat Dave to Supergran, its setting, Lancashire new town Skelmersdale, is shored up by memories.

Dent (Rachel Denning) and Shaun (Reuben Johnson) went to school together, but they’ve not seen each other since she went to university. Now Dent’s back – her mum has died and she’s in pain. She doesn’t want Shaun's help, but she needs a prescription and she can barely walk.

Writer Jackie Hagan was raised in "Skem" and the play is full of fierce love and pride for the town – for its streets, for its inhabitants, for its failings. Dent, who grew up teased about her bookishness and her height, and Shaun, with his drug-addicted mother, aren’t Channel 5 scare stories. As brought to life by Denning and Johnson, they’re broken, funny and unique.

Bethany Wells’s set is a jumble of outsized, broken benches, nooks and ledges, mirroring Skem, a town buckling under the weight of soulless government bureaucracy. Much like Dent and Shaun’s relationship, it’s both an obstacle course and somewhere they fit. The pair’s conversations are projected onto the various surfaces around them.

Amit Sharma’s direction is clear and fluid. But Cosmic Scallies could do with a few sharper edges. Not much actually happens. And in its preference for slipping into quip instead, it doesn’t really probe the lurking tragedies that would give its story more weight.