Available online
National Theatre of Scotland retell the famous panto in a series of madcap monologues
Did Brian Friel ever write a Christmas show? If he did, it might have looked like this one from the National Theatre of Scotland. Responding to the need for social distancing – and the desire to spread the work around – this Rapunzel is a series of monologues written by half a dozen playwrights. As with Friel’s Faith Healer, the story gets more rounded with each successive scene.
It begins in panto mode with Johnny McKnight as a narrator-cum-dame. Sitting in a flurry of red, black and white dots on Kenny Miller’s set, he treads a funny line between waspish and benevolent as he promises “all six sides, all six chapters” of a story that’s not as familiar as we think.
