Written by Taylor Dyson & Calum Kelly

Directed by Beth Morton

Tickets from £12.00

If you were to think of that one pal you haven’t spoken to in a while (but really should of), it doesn’t take long for a name to crop up – does it?  

The next ‘serving’ from the Play, Pie, and Pint’s season to ‘introduce’ new writers for the company, finds remarkably calm, contemplative, and accomplished hands in Dundee duo Taylor Dyson (who also performs) and Calum Kelly – more familiar as Elfie Picket, creators of Fringe-success Ane City. Originally written for the Dundee Fringe, Pushin’ Thirty lives up to the name, a reflective but bittersweet comedy with original music, reflecting on a generation turning thirty who were born in the emergence of an era of hope and plenty, but now having had the rug pulled out and left with expectation and a world in crisis.

Getting closer to that big milestone birthday, Scott has everything going for him. Or so he would tell you. But his finances are non-existent. His girlfriend is tired of his sponging, and his bandmates are looking for security in new employment. Scott’s dreams of making it big in London didn’t even make it off the ground before the embers of a dream flickered out – that big chance that just never happened.

Twelve years later, broken-hearted and with just enough cash for one last Scotch Pie, Scott is back in Dundee with nowhere else to turn. And though the lives took differing paths, Eilidh shares a similar loneliness and sense of unfulfillment as we come to learn of the hardships she’s endured caring for her widowed dad and balancing work at Baynes the bakery with her ambition to bake and create cakes in her spare time for online customers. And for as authentically (and inoffensively) fresh as Dyson & Kelly’s script can be – the reunion of the pair was bound to happen with consequences. But where they stand and where this friendship is going is entirely in their hands, and handled in a far more reserved manner than many writers would have. 

Steeped in affection for Dundee: from Desperate Dan (I was always more a fan of Morrow’s Dragon) to the shadow of its former self Wellgate, the two-hander from Dyson and Kelly is swift and sharp, bridging the narrative gaps between musical bouts which slide into the plot with comfortable exposition, but a more soulful element of existential poignancy and relevance for those who grew-up in the mid-late 2000/2010s. Refreshing, not strictly in the plot, which poses a familiar form and mawkishness, Dyson and Kelly’s score and plaintive humour make Pushin’ Thirty a remarkably easy watch.

Much comes from the platonic nature of the star’s chemistry, where elements of a perceived or expected romantic push are negated, irrelevant to the story. Yet the time apart, twelve years with zero communication, still comes over a tangible in the distance and unspoken connection the pair have in a pair of brilliant performances from Dyson and recent Royal Conservatoire Graduate Sam James Smith. Vocally, Dyson has a yearning voice, soulful and unique, and carries everything the character wants to communicate – even outside the lyrics. Smith, the principal instrumentalist, strums their way through the production, the pair very comfortable in Morton’s direction which channels a natural sense of performance of gig-theatre amidst Gemma Patchett’s set – dressed in a collage of Dundee references and loose instruments and sound systems, just cluttered enough to convey that sense of ‘lost’ friendship.

Morton’s direction carries this easy-going script with a fluid sense of movement, where everything works without much struggle or strife. Dyson and Kelly’s score is homespun and atmospheric, moves some of the pair’s great humour forward and expands just enough on the characterisation. There are arguments to be made that Pushin’ Thirty is a touch too placated as the drama has room to heighten or pitch but instead feels much more grounded. For a fifty-minute piece, this is one of the more compact and accessible pieces of the Play, Pie, Pint season so far – one with plenty of momentum behind it to be produced further.

Come for the pies, stay for the pehs. The misdemeanours of adolescence and the paths not taken haunt many of us for decades after we ‘grow up’. And unlike Eilidh and Scott, we rarely get the opportunity to look them in the eye again. Pushin’ Thirty offers a fresh breath through a nostalgic heart of folk-styled music with an authentic tale which rejects melodrama for something easy to bite into.

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