Showing @ Traverse Theatre, 10-19 March @ 19:00

With English being recognised world-wide as the primary language of international communication, those of us with the ever-increasingly strong language as our mother-tongue can find it difficult to appreciate the feelings of those whose first languages are disappearing.

To mark and reflect on the fading Gaelic language and its association with identity comes Somersaults by Iain Finlay Macleod. Central protagonist James (Tony Kearney) has it all – a Cambridge education, plenty of money and a beautiful wife. But things quickly fall apart as he goes bankrupt; his wife leaves him; and he learns that his father is dying of cancer. As the only link to his childhood and mother-tongue of Gaelic, James becomes desperate to return to his roots and recover the Gaelic which is quickly fading from his memory.

Kai Fischer’s Brechtian staging is simple with slight changes in lighting to denote different scenes with a square performance area that is earthy and natural. A rough gauze of untreated fabric surrounds the space, no doubt to link to the simplistic farming way of life associated with James’ past, of which strips are torn down as his world crumbles around him. Whilst an effective representation, the fabric itself is rather thick and makes observing the action within it a strain, and proves to be more of a distraction than enhancement.

As a play that promises to explore the grief of losing a dying language, the plot is a little too inwardly-focussed on James and his situation rather than relating particularly to the audience. With the simultaneous personal disasters that James experiences, it seems that his desperation to return to his childhood home on the Isle of Lewis and the Gaelic associated with his up-bringing comes through a search for security, rather than of a particular value or need for Gaelic itself.

The highlight of the performance is undoubtedly at the end, when the actors sit amongst the audience to speak in a much more personal, direct manner about individual experiences of their Gaelic. This is where the power of the piece finally comes through, and the audience can at last appreciate what Gaelic means to people in ordinary day-to-day situations, and the true grief and frustration that comes with an under-appreciated and fading language.