Theatre review: The Bookie

THE BOOKIE ***CUMBERNAULD THEATRE

SOME theatre shows prowl like panthers, others gambol around the stage like puppies. Douglas Maxwell's new touring musical The Bookie, though, comes on like a bunch of ferrets in a sack; stylish ferrets in dark glasses and designer black, maybe, but still fighting tooth and claw for dominance, and leaving a trail of confusion in their wake.

Set in the dismal Scottish small town of Quarry, the show revolves around the character of one Jonny Queen, who has left town in his youth to become the founder of a global gambling empire, and is now offering to build a giant casino there. Meanwhile, though, his stay-at-home brother Banjo has killed himself by jumping through the roof of a local betting-shop.

And the strange provisions of Banjo's will has set a different game in motion, involving Jon's glamorous model daughter Penelope, his old-flame-turned-town-councillor Maggie, two hapless betting-shop employees, and the singing ghost of his brother, eloquently played by Steven Wren in a show about the risks we take not only for money, but for love.

The dominant impression The Bookie leaves behind, though, is one of huge vitality combined with thematic overload and sheer dramatic confusion, as a complicated heist-style plot and an underlying sense of moral parable vie for attention with a glittery downmarket night-club set, and an exuberantly overwritten live musical score by Alasdair Macrae, featuring almost a dozen original songs.

Stir into the mix an immensely variable series of performances, featuring one or two voices that would be nixed within seconds on any TV talent show, and you have a show that looks more like an interesting experiment than a finished piece of theatre; although at any moment, given a few judicious cuts, the formula could fizz into shape, and produce something sassy, timely, and remarkable.