Written by Douglas Maxwell

Directed by Jemima Levick

Tickets from £12.00

It was a big ol’ year, 1994. The world of entertainment was changed with the PlayStation, and it was shocked with the tragic suicide of Kurt Cobain and the arrest of O.J. Simpson. Pulp Fiction, The Lion King, and Friends dominated the big and small screens, and the internet was an infant, its crippling anxious-inducing impact far off, while Brexit was only a whisper in the minds of those who would spend years pushing politics in the wrong direction. 

With all of that, would you still really want to go back? 

Apparently so, or at least that’s what Dion aspires towards. Well, an embodiment of it anyhow: Club 1994, where revellers can listen to the tunes and wear the clothes of the year whilst forgetting all their troubles in a drunken stupor. And it’s all Dion, the titular (and largely self-proclaimed) Sheriff of Kalamaki can think about, making sure that whatever he earns is safely kept by his friend in hopes that he can one day afford the entry fee. But as a man in a suit arrives on the island asking for Dion, the truth beyond the shoreline becomes apparent.

Douglas Maxwell’s exposition-crammed story may feature two leads but is closer to a prolonged character-driven one-hander with brief moments of interaction between real-life brothers Paul and Stephen McCole. Dion has spent the better part of the last twenty years fluttering between the bars and cafes on the Zakynthos seafront; pious chancer Ally remained in Scotland but finds himself in trouble for fiddling with the church finances. As tensions, and the climate, begin to become unstable, The Sheriff of Kalamaki culminates in two lengthy monologues bookending the production ready to engulf the men who perform them, cannily captured in Gemma Patchett and Jonny Scott’s crescent wave set ready to annihilate those underneath but still possessing the rich azure Dion is so taken with.

The hectic energy of Paul McCole’s Dion initially greets audiences and the endless bouts of enthusiasm – it’s an enormous role in carrying for such a long stretch of time. This is a character we’ve all likely encountered, both on holiday in areas where British tourists flock, and on the Scottish high streets: playful, but troubling. It’s a well-measured performance which is heavy with exposition to offer a more gripping sense of familial drama. But as the sun over the cliff-edge dips, so too can attention in the lengthy monologues which, though rich in descriptive bold and poetic language, drift a touch too far from the principal narrative.

Immediately the gravity of Stephen McCole’s Ally presses heavily on the production; a far more serious character, though perhaps broken in just as many (if different) ways than the alcoholic Dion. Arriving at the island, we’re immediately suspicious to the nature of the suited and tight-tied man who feels the prickling heat. The sternness and rigidity of Ally’s pursuit of a “good life” is stained with an all-together too familiar, and current, chasing of the definitive model of life. One in which his path of righteousness is held above all else, even the health and well-being of his brother for a time.

Wilting, the structure surrenders to the wideness of the script – though powerfully poetic, Maxwell’s writing achieves more significant impact when the McColes can bounce off one another to offer a clear opposition to the differences in life satisfaction and struggles. Jemima Levick isn’t afforded much in the way of momentum of movement but compensates with Paul’s endless bouncing or Stephen’s frequent up-tight posture which relinquishes in gasps of air in the scripts various pointed remarks at the encroaching climate crisis, where these holiday paradises find themselves dancing on the lips of forest flames and scorched beaches.

Pertinent, and powerfully performed by the McCole’s, The Sheriff of Kalamaki may lose its sharpness in its monologue bookending, but achieves a ripe intelligence in shattering the myth of the “good life”.