Review of The Legend of Davy Mackenzie – Butch, Sundance and the Final Cinematic Farewell | stage

TIts title is ridiculous. There is nothing legendary about Davy Mackenzie. Barely out of prison after serving time for possession, the fictional hero of this lunchtime play ends up dead, having scored a batch of tainted drugs. It was three days before anyone noticed.

This may seem like a spoiler, but it happens surprisingly early in a play that’s not so much about a worthless death as it is about a meaningful life. Surviving is his cellmate and childhood friend Sean Molloy, good-natured despite the circumstances that damaged him. Naive and helpless he may be, desperate to invest significance in the life of a friend who died too young and needlessly.

If a council funeral seems inevitable, Sean can at least try to give the movie-loving Davey the cinematic farewell he wanted. Davey’s life has more in common with the kitchen-sink drudgery of a Ken Loach film than the high-stakes drama of a Hollywood blockbuster, but his head is full of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Sean wants to give him heroic closure.

The themes of addiction, recovery and male bonding are familiar in Dancing Shoes, last year’s comedy from the same writers, Stephen Christopher and Graeme Smith. This was a huge success and was brought back as a Christmas show at the Traverse Edinburgh. By contrast, the legend of Davy Mackenzie is less assuredly constructed, and the interactions between the characters are less prickly, for all its good and poignant humour.

Under the direction of Jake Slate, Sean Connor works his way through the role of Davey, investing the character with the energy of a young man searching for meaning in the mythology of the big screen. As Sean, Afton Moran is a gentle soul, trying to do right by his friend who was the only source of stability in an unfortunate life. With the support of Rurad Murray, they paint a sympathetic picture.