Scotland On Sunday

CRITIC'S CHOICE

Lama drama: The Cinderella story comes under the spotlight

THROUGH THE NIGHT

David Leddy’s latest production sets out to examine the notion that wealth can bring happiness with a pastiche of the rags-to-riches story he recently described as "Cinderella rewritten by the "Dalai Lama."Through The Night follows the character of Stella Ashputtle, a middle-aged woman bored with her job in a betting shop who applies for a cleaning job with a top model and finds herself suddenly thrown into the heady world of stylists, PR people and media tycoons who all love her down-to-earth philosophies on life. Directed by Kate Nelson, the story revolves around the pop songs that we listen to when we have a broken heart. It focuses on the conflict that exists between pop and classical music as a metaphor for the ways that "high culture" can be used as a form of snobbery and class conflict. The accompanying music comes from artists as diverse as Aretha Franklin, Schumann and Björk. It is also a bold move forward form Leddy’s last production, On The Edge. "The first show was almost like a chamber piece," Leddy says. "It was never intended to be large-scale or flashy. This piece is almost the opposite. In terms of performance style it is much more thoughtful and mournful. Theatrically it certainly casts its net much wider, too. There’s a lot more use of lighting, music, movement, songs and so on. I wanted to avoid repeating myself and that last show involved so many long monologues that I wanted to move in the opposite direction."