The Stage

Rainbow Kiss

Published Wednesday 12 April 2006 at 14:50 by Alistair Smith

Umpteen floors up in an unwholesome part of Aberdeen, university graduate Keith lives a painful life of monotonous call centre work and violent visits from a money lender, while attempting to look after his eight-month-old son.

His relatively stable world is thrown dramatically out of kilter following a one-night stand with Shazza and what starts as a quick ‘fuck’ turns into an all-encompassing obsession, as Keith starts to completely lose it.

Simon Farquhar’s debut stage play is a powerful, visceral experience, which packs a punch and slash across the face for good measure. Joe McFadden puts in a fantastic turn as Keith - out of place and unable to cope in the desperate world in which he finds himself. His relationship with Shazza generates real chemistry, thanks to Dawn Steele’s forthright performance as the object of his obsession.

However, what lifts this offering above the pack of other ‘gritty’ northern dramas is the amount of bleak humour that Wilson’s excellent direction manages to extract from the world Farquhar has created. When Keith’s neighbour Murdo comes round after another failed suicide attempt, he warns him, “one a these days you’re gonna kill yourself”.

The quartet of strongly drawn characters are creations of the city they inhabit and despite being confined to a single room, Keith’s bedsit, the play gives a real sense of a world outside of it. The author had originally intended to call his play Fuck Off. I detect a sense of mischief in his choice of a replacement title, which certainly doesn’t tone down the explicit nature of his hugely impressive debut.