9 hours ago
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The title is ironic. There is nothing legendary about Davie McKenzie. Scarcely out of prison after doing time for possession, the fictional hero of this lunchtime play ends up dead, having scored a batch of tainted drugs. It is three days before anyone even notices.
That sounds like a spoiler, but it happens surprisingly early in a play that is less about a worthless death than a meaningful life. Surviving him is his cellmate and childhood friend Sean Molloy, good-natured despite circumstance dealing him a bad hand. Naive and powerless he might be, he is desperate to invest significance in the life of a friend who has died so young and needlessly.
If a council funeral looks inevitable, Sean can at least try to give the cinematic send-off the film-loving Davie would have wanted. Davie’s life had more in common with the kitchen-sink drudgery of a Ken Loach film than the high-stakes drama of a Hollywood blockbuster, but his head was full of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Sean wants to give him a heroic finale.
The themes of addiction, recovery and male bonding are familiar from Dancing Shoes, last year’s comedy by the same writers, Stephen Christopher and Graeme Smith. That one went down so well it was brought back as the Christmas offering at Edinburgh’s Traverse. By contrast, The Legend of Davie McKenzie is less certainly constructed, and the interplay of the characters less spiky, for all its good humour and poignancy.
Under Jake Sleet’s direction, Sean Connor powers his way through the role of Davie, investing the character with the head-in-the-clouds energy of a young man seeking meaning in big-screen myths. As Sean, Afton Moran is a gentle soul, trying to do right by the friend who has been the only source of stability in an unfortunate life. Supported by Ruaraidh Murray, they paint an empathetic picture.
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At Òran Mór, Glasgow, until 7 March. Then at Traverse, Edinburgh, 10–14 March
