SIMON Donald's play, The Life of Stuff had its first performance in the 1992 Edinburgh Festival and went on to London to earn its author some impressive awards. The production now at the Project, by the lively Bedrock company, has its moments, but it is hard to see what the original enthusiasm was all about. The play is set in a club in a Scottish city, owned by Willie Dobie, a sort of local Don into drugs, protection and prostitution. He is planning a party for some criminal associates and there is some tidying up to be done. A young man he has forced into committing a murder is confined downstairs he must be disposed of, together with a woman who has stumbled on to the scene.
The plot is, presumably with intent, on the ludicrous side, for this is clearly a comedy of the pitch black kind. It generates a reasonable amount of laughter, but not enough to distract attention from the limitations of the author's invention, which falls between the realistic and the surreal.
Some excellent acting enlivens the evening. Robert Price is a splendid hard man and Declan Byrne a persuasive Dobie. Shane Lynch and Debbie Leeding are nicely quirky as his intended victims, and Patrick Leech has genuinely comic moments as an eczema plagued henchman. Sarah Pyle, Camilla Dalby and Alex Johnston complete the hardworking cast.
Jimmy Fay's direction could do with rather more pace and the Scottish accents he elicits from his cast are occasionally hard to unravel Johanna Connor's set design is practical, as is Lee Davis's lighting.
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