Glasgow has A Play, A Pie and A Pint. And thanks to a winning collaboration between Behind The Wall and the award-winning Tryst Theatre, Falkirk can now boast of having a play, a pizza and a pint aka the Ronseal-inspired Play with a Pizza. Though surely A Pizza the Action or Guffaw Kirk would suffice.

Grumbles aside, the first of four quarterly co-productions is an undoubted triumph – in terms of venue, play and performance – and sets a high standard against which Tryst’s next offering of James Scotland’s rarely-performed comedy Hallowe’en will be judged.

John Godber, a prolific yet vastly underrated writer and performer, is the perfect choice for their inaugural venture for the simple reason that he wrote most of his early plays – including the 1992 April In Paris – with a limited cast and non-theatrical space in mind. Tick, tick as far director Jim Allan and his fellow cast member Carol Clark are concerned.

And with Falkirk Town Hall’s future in doubt – allied with an abundance of local talent in search of an audience, and loyal audience in search of talent – it bodes well that Tryst’s four performances are sold-out. Something which the producers of A Play, A Pie and A Pint should take note.

To the play…

Bet and Al love and hate one another in equal measure. Together they are insufferable, but apart they are lost. How many couples fit the bill? A fact poignantly realised when they part company in a Parisian restaurant after Bet wins a competition in the appropriately named Take A Break magazine.

Like Al’s work-in-progress painting, their mutual relationship and individual aspirations are “not quite finished”. But will they ever be? And even if they are not, so what? What matters most: where you are and what you have, or who you are with and what you are doing?

Godber’s two-act play is reduced to an hour-long cauldron of stifled ambition and unspoken love, but his talent for capturing ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances remains intact. Al won’t hug, but will tap a foot on the dance floor so as “not to look so sad”. And Bet yearns for a hug, but will settle for a cardigan.

Poignant, funny and so relatable. Much like Behind The Wall and Tryst Theatre’s inaugural co-production, which is followed by a bigger cast with a grander ambition of staging James Scotland’s spooky comedy Hallowe’en which, if not in April in Paris, is (monsoon permitting) in May in Falkirk.

Peter Callaghan
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