PPP: Righ Iasgair: The Fisher King
★★★☆☆ Jarring
Traverse: Tue 28 Oct – Sat 1 Nov 2025
Review by Hugh Simpson
Righ Iasgair: The Fisher King by Kenny Boyle, the last in the current series of the Traverse’s presentations of Òran Mór’s A Play, A Pie & A Pint, is an evocative presentation of Scottish language and culture that fails to carry off a drastic shift in tone.
Two friends since childhood, Leagsaidh (or Lexie) and Oighrig (or Effie) are traipsing across the moors of Lewis to find the loch where Lexie used to go fishing with her father. Lexie is obviously hiding a secret, and Effie feels entitled to find out what it is. And it’s not to do with the loch’s supposed inhabitant, the Righ Iasgair or Fisher King, who is an altogether scarier proposition than the figure of that name from Arthurian legend.
Fiona MacNeil and MJ Deans in Righ Iasgair: The Fisher King. Pic: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan.
The portrayal of a long-time friendship is beautifully done by Boyle; the dialogue is charming, believable and slides from English to Gaelic and back in a way that seems utterly natural and easily comprehensible. Fiona MacNeil, as Lexie, has both a grit and a sadness, while MJ Deans provides an excellent comic performance as Effie, to the extent that those jokes that don’t quite land still appear completely in character.
Director Lana Pheutan makes good use of Heather Grace Currie’s apparently simple but deceptively complex set. The production has a rare fluidity for much of its running time, with the difficult business of showing characters making a long trip on foot working very well indeed.
Unfortunately, not everything is so well integrated. Ross Nurney’s sound design and Ross Kirkland’s lighting are often on the intrusive side, which doesn’t help with the play’s shift into more Hallowe’en (or, in this case, Samhainn) adjacent territory.
clunky metaphor
The attempts to conjure up a spooky atmosphere are far less successful than the funny and touching buddy comedy up to this point. It is something of a spoiler to say too much about Adam Buksh’s role, even if the briefest of glances at the cast list outside the venue gives it away anyway.
Despite Buksh’s best efforts, it doesn’t quite work; his character is something of a clunky metaphor, and one that rather undermines some pointed and necessary remarks earlier regarding the cliché about ‘bravely fighting’ illness. Once again, that Lexie’s secret involves a medical condition is not exactly a spoiler, as this is clearly signalled very early on.
It’s a shame, as it’s always good to see an attempt at horror on the stage. However, in this case the depiction of the horror falls some way short of what has come earlier.
Running time: 55 minutes (no interval)
Traverse Theatre, 10 Cambridge St, EH1 2ED
Tuesday 28 October – Saturday 1 November 2025
Daily at 1.00 pm
Tickets and details: Book here.
ENDS
