Keli

Royal Lyceum Theatre 17/5/25

National Theatre of Scotland and Lepus Arts

Martin Green writer and composer, Bryony Shanahan director

Liberty Black, Phil McKee, Billy Mack, Karen Fishwick, Olivia Hemmati, actors

Whitburn Band

‘Keli’ written and composed by Martin Green is the National Theatre of Scotland’s new touring production, and visits Dundee, Perth and Glasgow after its previews in Stirling and its Edinburgh performances this week. An audio version of the play appeared in association with the Royal Lyceum at the same time as Martin Green’s recording of the associated music called ‘Split the Air’ in 2021: both were popular.  A tribute to Scotland’s brass band tradition, and with recollections of the 1984-85 strike and the closure of the mines which sponsored so many of them, the play, now set in 2025, is also about music education and the vital role the arts play in the community.  Its heart is definitely in the right place, and many in the audience, perhaps like me, with fond memories of excellent music education at state schools, will be drawn to the play by its promising subject material. and a chance to hear some interesting brass playing. A fine cast and onstage musicians, including at the end, an entire brass band, present a committed performance of this new full-length play  But there are difficulties in the stage presentation which affect my enjoyment.

Keli, played by Liberty Black in a stunning performance, is a forceful personality. Sweary and mouthy, she stirs up trouble, mainly for herself, and is fierce in her support of her mother, Jane (Karen Fishwick) who has mental health problems. She’s a talented tenor horn player – one lies in a case on the stage before the play begins. Keli’s band leader and teacher, Brian, is willing to tolerate her behaviour because of his high hopes for her. Brian, Keli, her mother and the other main character, the mysterious William, are tied together by two significant periods in the town’s history, the miners’ strike of 1984-85 and the band’s success in the 1948 Brass Band competition in the Royal Albert Hall.  So a bit like ‘Brassed Off’, maybe?

Well there’s a couple of good ‘Brassed Off’ jokes, but in its attempts to defy stereotyping, the play moves awkwardly through various formats.  It starts like Doctor Who: accompanied by weird music Keli and a couple of others come out of a Tardis/lift and take the silver horn from its case, which lies in a cave, with papier-maché rocks and billowing dry ice. Are we in a Voldemort scene from ‘Harry Potter’ or stuck in some heavy symbolism about being trapped? Keli can’t get out, William claims he can’t either, and some of the papier maché recedes to unveil scenes from Keli’s life.  With only five speaking actors, rather than the ten in the audio version, some of these scenes lack impact – the mother’s meltdown in the supermarket might have made more sense if we could see the supervisor who frightened her; band practices seem rather sparse with only the non-speaking actor musicians, Andrew McMillan, Hanna Mbuya and Louis Abbott joining Keli and the band leader. Plays with small speaking casts seem to have become the new normal in Scottish theatres since Covid.  I understand funding issues, but I don’t know why casts of half a dozen or fewer are deemed sufficient for major plays by a national theatre company.

The second half begins with this year’s brass band competition in the Albert Hall, represented by three tie-back velvet curtains hanging across the cave. This is not the revelatory moment for Keli,  which comes later after one of the play’s best scene – her meeting in a London bar with a clued-up posh city trader Saskia, played with some style by Olivia Hemmati, who also takes the role of Keli’s fellow-worker, Amy.  Unfortunately, it’s at this point that my irritation with the play’s sound increases.  I know that the immersive musical score is part of the play’s experience, but there are very few moments in which we hear just voices or music: nearly always there is music behind the voices, from brass instruments and the on-stage drum-kit and frequently from underlying groaning, buzzing and fizzing noises.  It’s difficult to hear what’s being said, and this means that actors have to use head microphones. I was interested to hear Martin Green’s music, but I don’t feel that listening to it in this disconcerting multi-layered approach shows it to best advantage.

So others may have more fully appreciated Keli in her moment of triumph in the club scene,  with a white rabbit compering, but I’m afraid I had my hands over my head throughout to avoid bleeding-ear syndrome. Thereafter Keli goes home and the plot lines are tied up fairly neatly, perhaps too simplistically.  Certainly this applies to Keli’s mother, Jane.  Karen Fishwick is a splendid Lady of the Manor with some good one-liners, but as Jane, she seems one dimensional, defined by her illness in the first half, and with too sudden a step towards a happy ending in the final scenes. The various historical links to 1984 and 1948 are resolved, as is the least convincing part of the narrative, Brian’s belief that Keli is such a genius on the tenor horn that she does not need to practise!  Music teachers may recognise natural talent, but would never believe it could appear without practice.

At the beginning of the play, Brian gets the band to repeat the mantra handed down by Willie Knox, the band’s most famous player, “The band is the toon, and the toon is the band” they intone.  Community matters.  Keli’s last speech sums up many of her feelings about the community she lives in and the place of music in it.   She says that nobody seems to make anything anymore – even in her house, they only ‘make a mess’.  Music is what gives her the chance to make something. - a message which ends the play positively.  Andrew McMillan, an onstage bandsman throughout, has a magnificent tenor horn solo before the Whitburn Band conclude the show with my first real chance to appreciate Martin Green’s music. 

See ‘Keli’ at Dundee Rep in four performances from Thursday May 24th to Saturday May 26th, with a matinee on Saturday 26th.  Tickets priced from £22.50.

 At Perth Theatre for six performances from Wednesday 4th June to Saturday 6th June, with matinees on Thursday 5th and Saturday 7th.  Tickets priced between £16 and £30.

And at the Tramway Glasgow for five performances from Wednesday 11th to Saturday 14th June, with a matinee on Saturday 14th.  Tickets £25 full price, £20 concessions

 photo credit: Mihaela Bodlovic