The Stage

Be Near Me

Published Tuesday 27 January 2009 at 18:00 by Susan Elkin

This intensely moving play, which never overstates, tells the story of a man gradually acknowledging his own unhappiness. Father David Anderton (Ian McDiarmid) works in a community in Ayrshire that struggles with unemployment, poverty and the raw ugliness which scars damaged people. Anderton’s Oxford education, classical music, bookishness, love of fine wine and suppressed homosexuality makes him a misfit who eventually admits that ‘the church has been a beautiful hiding place’. Getting personally involved in the lives of two teenagers (one of whom says that her life ambition is to own a pair of Gucci sunglasses) that he teaches part-time at the local comprehensive is bound to lead to trouble, although the scene where he takes Mark (Richard Madden) and Lisa (Helen Mallon) out to explore Ailsa Craig is beautiful in its risky innocence.

This is McDiarmid’s show. Not only is he on stage almost continuously but he also wrote the script. He gives us a deeply troubled Catholic priest who is decent at heart and immensely likeable, even when he’s being exasperating or foolish. It is a performance of remarkable range and depth - a joy to watch.

The supporting cast is flawless too. Mallon gets a perfect blend of insolence and vulnerability and Haddon finds plenty of soft decency in Mark beneath the loud bantering and swearing. Blythe Duff’s feisty housekeeper, later struck down by illness, is powerful, especially in the court scene and Jimmy Yuill is enjoyably sincere, both as the oh-so-reasonable Bishop Gerard and as the school teacher haltingly giving evidence in court.

This fine piece of theatre is immaculately staged on Peter McKintosh’s smoky grey sets with corrugated iron backdrop. The aural backdrop of muscular singing of traditional songs by on-stage cast members could have been cheesy but in fact adds to the poignancy.