Written by Nat McCleary

Directed by Johnny McKnight

The idea of everyone being so radically different should, by definition, make a superb team: diverse ranges, differing strengths and assets. Yet, in a world where we segment ourselves into various identities and social media projections, it’s becoming easier to see why a more corrosive and singular right-leaning voice emerges so clearly.

The audience is always ring-side with Karen Tennant’s set for Thrown, Produced by the National Theatre of Scotland. It slides into the gym area at the Dunoon Queen’s hall, merging with the backdrop seamlessly. From those palm-drying wooden P.E. climbing frames to the Wrestlemania spotlights and padded matting, it’s a very evocatively engrossing set, though one which never intrudes on the story.

And tossing themselves all over these mats are the spectacular cast of five for Nat McCleary’s marvellously assertively gutsy story. With clenched teeth and bite, Thrown is the debut production from McCleary, working with the terrific Johnny McKnight, who directs this swift and quick-witted show which finds five mismatched women forming a wrestling team. But for everything they don’t share there’s a common loop in ambition. Oh, sorry, they do share one thing: they’re all Scottish. Right?

The physical act of wrestling is the tangible manifestation of this linguistically quick-paced production: wrestling with the self-identity, spiritual identity, with national-identity. And for wanna-be influencer and trend-setter Chantelle, it’s about the followers and the reserved hope of escaping the distress of home. While Helen, truthfully, is looking for company, something new to try out amidst the loneliness of age, a stark difference to Chantelle’s best pal Jo, a mixed-race woman living in a world without her mother and a missing connection to an entire half of her being. A world that Imogen, a wealthy Black woman from London reconnecting with her Scottish roots, understands all too well, struggling to adjust following the death of her twin sister.

Here, on the wrestling mat, diametrically opposing forces meet in harmony, in agreement for that moment as they enclose shoulders and form one mass of unity, sweat and adrenaline. In the ring – you’re equal. Even as you hit the ground. It makes for gut-churningly tense moments and a humongous amount of praise to Lucy Glassbrook for the movement direction. Not solely for the intricate elements of the wrestling but the flow between scenes and microcosms of attitude which ripple between the performers: Chloe-Ann Tylor and Efè Agwele exude a visceral antagonism for one another’s characters without so much as a word between them at times.

There is little, if any, nuance here. Thrown grasps you around the shoulders, plants your face into the muck, and confronts every aspect it can at 100mph – so it damn well should. But it isn’t just the physical clash of identity between the characters, the arcane rhetoric of Scotland, the Tartan, the Bru, and the Wallace is colliding head-on with a Scotland attempting to form a shape and national consciousness apart from this. It’s right there in McKnight’s direction, as tension hangs at every sentence in one form or another, even as the humour flies or the music is blaring, nothing is left to rest on its laurels.

There’s a rational flow to the pacing, switching between ensemble to monologues from each of the performers, and though it becomes repetitious, it never dilutes the intensity or drive in McCleary’s writing or the sensational performances. For the likes of Lesley Hart, this solitary moment allows their role as team-coach Pamela the opportunity to evolve one of Thrown’s boldest elements, the self-identity on the spectrum of gender and sex. As with many of Hart’s intensely raw roles, time is treasured by the performer – a rare touch amidst the chaos, it makes for a painful, but harrowingly beautiful performance.

While Tylor’s sharp performance channels passion and fury through Chantelle, who finds it exasperating being lectured about oppression by someone she considers privileged and indifferent to her working-class struggles. It’s such an intense performance, which never oversteps or overshadows, met with an equal, though entirely different form of aggression and power from Agwele’s Imogen – who finds the microaggressions and words all too familiar. Then there’s Adiza Shardow’s layered and sincerely captured Jo, trapped between the pair, unable to side with either, instead struggling with her national identity and place within Scotland, as a non-white Gaelic speaker.

But delivering the swansong, with frankly exquisite closing remarks, clad in a surprise addition to the cast with an original tartan for the show, Maureen Carr’s Helen has been a part of the comedy throughout. The genuine sincerity and summation of McCleary’s story tie together this vivacious Scottish production in a touching manner, a firm reminder that though famed for their humour, Carr truly has always been one of the dramatic best in Scotland.

As we lament the loss of tolerance, and the rejection of accepting one another’s vulnerabilities, disagreements, and empathies, McCleary looks not to channel their voice into a singular area. Thrown isn’t a play about race, about austerity, or even solely about ‘Scottishness’, as Luke Sutherland and Tom Penny’s thundering soundtrack roars amidst Liz Powell’s spotlights, Thrown is about the fragments of unity: political, personal, however way you’d like to interpret it.

Sometimes, you just have to be big, be bold and talk about it all, or pack it in and go home. And what McCleary chooses to do, is to sit in the room with the ‘big’ names, match their eye and dare them to even think of trying it. For a debut production: Thrown is sen-bloody-sational.