Written by Isobel McArthur

Directed by Gareth Nicholls

In looking at the grandeur of opera and an addictive fixation on the nostalgic, Isobel McArthur stumbles into an entirely new genre-hybrid: romantic farce, part operatic, and part supernatural mystery.

For much of our stay at the hotel, it feels pleasant, if pedestrian. Giddy but not the grandeur the converted opera house-hotel initially promises. And amidst all the well-timed humour, both visual and situational, a slow-burning tale of romance is charmingly passionate and good-natured, but the weight of it all builds, almost like an opera…

The melodrama of the form is magnificently shaped across the floors of this doldrum-inducing hotel, orchestrated to be as ‘inoffensive’ as possible with its endless cookie-cut-out cloned rooms. But rippling through the vents, a sweet aria offers a glimmer of hope to one new start at the hotel, Aaron (charmingly earnestly played by Ali Watt). It’s not the best job, certainly not with Christina Modestou’s terrifically volatile and skittery supervisor, but it does come with free bed and board! Beige board. Very beige. Distressingly beige thanks to Ana Inés Jabares-Pita’s triple-decker set piece that rises and folds as the story requires it to, turning the traverse stage into an eternally endless Tartarus-like punishment.

Threaded through these many hundred doored beasts of a hotel are clear illusions to Bluebeard’s Castle, and Orpheus and Eurydice. But you know, funnier. Aaron finds himself scouring the rooms, interrupting the guests and coming to the floorboards for any sign of Amy (excellently captured by Karen Fishwick), if she’s even alive, or hell if she ever existed. And who can blame him, this light in the darkness beigeness of repetitive monotony is the lifeline many of us cling to in our 9-to5 routines.

The pair’s endlessly optimistic outlook is a pleasant change from much of the Fringe’s more intensive offerings, coupled with McArthur’s trade-mark lash of comedy under Nicholl’s direction. The compassion and genuine sense of forlornness emanates – even as the pair spend the entirety of the production apart. But they’re far from alone, as McArthur’s writing is channelled through the right spirits thanks to a belter of an ensemble consisting of the spritely and energetic Laura Lovemore, a multi-faceted Betty Valencia taking on various parts, and absolute gems Ann Louise Ross and Barry Hunter who are having a hoot and drawing the most from the crowds.

Thus far, melodrama and the exaggeration of opera have been present, but not unyieldingly in control. If anything, McArthur’s tale has been more haunting than Handel. But then there’s Michael John McCarthy’s score. And as we reach the crescendo of this jaunt through the halls of a once grand opera space, the romantic motions begin to stoke the fires and spirits of a long-gone form of theatre: old-fashioned, but strikingly played with thirst and zip push themselves out against the monotonous hegemony of the Scomodo hotel. And as the past repeats itself, an eruption of aria sends us to our maker, as The Grand Old Opera House Hotel fully emerges as a playfully wild and hectic piece.

In a similar vane to the classic Hollywood musical, this form of storytelling was once thought ‘stale’ by some. But she’s only gone and bloody done it again: the ultimate respite to the crippling world of modernism, McArthur’s shift from staggeringly successful adaptations (Pride and Prejudice *sort of and Kidnapped) proves that they are an absolute treasure of Scottish theatre. In this co-production between the Traverse and Dundee Rep, the adventurous spirit of it all is carried with charming eccentricities to make audiences wish they had booked a longer stay at this extravagant and delightful Grand Old Opera House Hotel.