Good Things

Oh, what a play of sheer delight. The trouble is that if I reveal many of its delights, I’ll also be spoiling its many surprises.

Suffice it to say that it’s a four-hander with a large cast of characters. The ability of those characters to keep appearing so convincingly is largely down to the skilful design of Karen Tennant’s superbly convincing charity shop set. That those characters are so individually established with such immediacy is partially thanks to her costume design.

Ken Alexander’s direction keeps things moving with total realism and no awkwardness at any stage, something that cannot have been easy to bring off so well.

Nor do I really want to say which fairy tale provides the backbone of this charming, moving and very, very funny play. Again, it would be a shame to spoil any of the production’s surprises, and even the seemingly realistic set provides a few of those.

So what can I say? That Carol Ann Crawford gives a magnificent, warm and nuanced performance as Susan, the deserted wife looking for a new man in her life. That Dougal Lee is quietly effective as the maths teacher still trying to come to terms with the death of his wife. That Alan Steele is superb as Frazer, the camp assistant who loves window dressing. And that Isabelle Joss is a comic joy as Marjorie, the manageress who always seems to get the wrong end of the stick.

Then there are all those other people who play such a large or small part in the year of this particular shop. There is some delectable acting in creating them.

All I will say is that sharing a year in the life of Liz Lochhead’s Glasgow charity shop has been one of the most delightful and enjoyable events of my recent theatre-going.