What a lovely thing to have done. When the great actor Andy Gray was being treated for leukaemia before his Covid-related death in 2020, his friends agreed to stage a play inspired by his time in hospital. Hearing their plan, the nurses imposed one condition: it had to be funny.
Hard to see how it could be otherwise with this team. Chemo Savvy – a play on Kemosabe, Tonto’s name for the Lone Ranger – is written by panto stalwart Alan McHugh and stars Gray’s comedy colleagues Grant Stott, Jordan Young and Gail Watson, all experts in landing a punchline. So, yes, it is unashamedly about grief, guilt and the agony of treatment, but it is also about hope, reconciliation and laughter in the face of adversity.
In a pacy production directed by Sally Reid, Stott plays Robert, a man forced to face up to his past when he is diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS – cue joke about MDF). Young is his estranged brother William, still bitter at Robert leaving home when their mother was dying, but whose practical jokes suggest an unbreakable fraternal bond. Watson is excellent as the put-upon mother and no-nonsense ex-girlfriend, and particularly funny as the nurse doing a hallucinogenic Julie Andrews routine every time the drugs kick in.
On the waiting list for a bone-marrow transplant, Robert goes nostalgically through his old cassette tapes. His encyclopaedic knowledge of pop has become a trainspotter-like reflex action – with every situation a song title, with every title a release date – but the life-and-death threat helps him reconnect with the emotions locked into the music itself. Chemo Savvy is less about death than about rebirth.
The result is a breezy wish-fulfilment comedy, thinly drawn but heartfelt. It is willing to look death in the eye but, like Gray himself, insistent on having the last laugh.
• At Gilded Balloon at the Museum, Edinburgh, until 24 August
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