![]() Musically, he has a nice way with yearning ballads, especially those hauntingly sung by Lillie Flynn and the quietly assured Jackie Morrison, but his lyrics are either generic or strained. ![]() Knopler wrote the original’s atmospheric score and for the musical he and orchestrator Dave Milligan again use its Celtic sound - the instrumentation runs to fiddle, accordion and double-bass alongside Knopfler’s more expected soft-rock electric and acoustic guitars. As the bouncy ensemble song puts it, they’re going to be “Filthy, Dirty, Rich.” Others may see the place as one of natural beauty, but to them it’s just their downtrodden, stuck-in-the-past home in which everyone struggles to make ends meet. He stays at the local pub run by Gordon (wholly engaging, wonderfully easeful Paul Higgins) who is also the town solicitor, and Stella (Lillie Flynn) who is both the chef and the free-est spirit around.īut while Mac is gradually seduced by the place and its values that make him reconsider his own life, the surprise of the story is that instead of being about a community up in arms about the desecration of the natural world, the locals are quick to spot potential. Under orders from his gazillionaire boss (Jay Villiers), Mac leaves his state-of-the-Eighties, gray-is-good Houston office after Sasha Milavic Davies’ snappily choreographed opening number “A Barrel of Oil” (the nearest the show gets to traditional musical theater), and sets off for Ferness. His company is intent on building a giant petrochemical oil refinery, and he’s going to buy the entire village and its coastline. The story of an American who arrives in a remote Scottish village and unexpectedly falls for its varied delights is hardly original - Lerner & Loewe got there as far back as 1947 with “Brigadoon.” But this story has more politics since the central character of Mac ( Gabriel Ebert) is a Texas oil company representative sent to the fictional village of Ferness to purchase not just a parcel of land. Phil Preps First True Orchestral VersionĪlthough there have been trims to the original film’s plotting, plus rewrites, the basic material remains largely the same. Rob Reiner Recalls Mark Knopfler's 'Princess Bride' Score, as L.A. 'Under the Volcano' Review: Rockers Recall the Remote Island Where Luxurious '80s Record-Making Had Its Last Stand In Bob Dylan's New 1980s-Themed 'Bootleg Series' Release, He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Mid-Period: Album Review Crowley left the project during the pandemic and Evans took over, keeping no one but Scots playwright David Greig, the music and lyrics of Mark Knopfler (formerly of Dire Straits), and lighting designer Paule Constable. What even he cannot give the show is true theatrical liftoff.Īn earlier version, directed by John Crowley, played Edinburgh to pleasing reviews in 2018. Turning Bill Forsyth’s 1983 Scottish eco-comedy-drama “ Local Hero” into a musical, Evans and every member of his first-rate production team create an often-idiosyncratic delight, the stage equivalent of one of British cinema’s tender-hearted, quirky-yet-cosy Ealing comedies. ![]() And, to audiences’ evident delight, it’s there in spades in director Daniel Evans’ wonderfully fluid farewell production at Chichester Festival Theatre. Charm, a sadly rare theatrical quality, is scarcely a fashionable theatrical virtue, but it’s nonetheless valuable.
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