“It’s a real rollercoaster – a real emotional trip,” says Cora Bissett, director of brand new Scottish musical Orphans.
The darkly comic musical about family, grief and forgiveness is based on the much-loved cult film written and directed by Peter Mullan.
Set in 1998, Orphans follows the Flynn siblings on a stormy night in Glasgow after the death of their mother.
While Thomas won’t leave the church, Michael is bleeding and roaming the streets. John has a gun and is set on revenge and Sheila wants to live life on her own terms. The question is… Will the siblings survive the night to get to their mother’s funeral?
“People have been very moved by the show because you really go on a journey with this family who’ve lost their mother,” said Cora.
“It’s a big, bold new musical. It’s very Scottish – it’s completely done in our style.”
Dark humour at the centre of Orphans
While the show deals with the aftermath of losing a loved one and its central theme is grief, Cora promises it’s not all doom and gloom.
She said: “It’s absolutely not bleak – it’s incredibly moving but you’re laughing and singing along at one point and then you go to tender places too.
“It’s funny and sad. And Peter Mullan’s original film was those things as well. I read reviews at the time and many London reviewers missed the humour in it and saw it as very bleak whereas people in Scotland really understood his black humour in the film.
“And we’ve taken that black humour and magnified it. We thought there were great opportunities to turn it (the humour) into a song moment and some of the songs are quite absurd.
“There’s a great and very enjoyable absurdity in Peter’s films and we’ve taken that as a launchpad and made his absurd moments even more absurd and the funny even funnier.”
Timely story will resonate with audiences
The show is both funny and sad – but that’s life, says Cora.
“I think that’s a very Scottish way of being where you can laugh in a very black way at some of the really hard stuff in life and that’s what the show does.”
Many lost their friends or family members during the Covid-19 pandemic – the emotional stages of grief are all too familiar. So a show about coming to terms with the terrible loss of a loved one will certainly resonate with a lot of people.
Cora said: “We’ve planned Orphans long before Covid entered our lives. We started working on it three years ago so it’s really interesting how it’s become more timely unintentionally.
“We loved the story and the incredible cult film and we were very excited at the idea of turning it into a stage adaptation… and then the pandemic happened and it took on this other resonance and importance.
“It’s about grief – both literally and metaphorically. People lost members of their family in the most awful ways. Some people weren’t able to have funerals or weren’t able to see their loved ones on the last days of their lives… horrendous things none of us had to live through before and I think we still have raw wounds and are recovering from that.”
Orphans as a giant metaphor
“But it’s also not just about losing life,” added Cora.
“Many people also lost businesses and a lot of relationships broke down during the pandemic and they lost their mental stability – the pandemic really rocked people’s lives.
“Orphans, for me, is also a giant metaphor for that. And with the financial crisis and just being able to afford to live, we’re kind of not out of the darkness.
“Those are really hard times for people. I think we all feel like Orphans a bit at the moment. This government is just ripping all the support away from the people in the most vulnerable situations.”
But the musical also shows us how people use humour to cope or make sense of horrible situations. Focused on showcasing the siblings’ true raw emotions, the show contains a lot of swear words – not to shock or offend, just to be authentic.
The director said: “The language is a bit of fruity and sweary but, to me, it doesn’t sound shocking – it’s just the way people speak and certainly in Glasgow people use swearing to punctuate things emotionally.
“It’s not trying to be shocking or rude, it’s just the language of working-class Glasgow and we wanted to recreate that truthfully and authentically on stage.”
Don’t miss Orphans in Inverness
The musical, which premiered in Glasgow in April, will soon travel to Inverness – something Cora is really looking forward to.
She said: “I was up in Inverness with my show Adam about the young Egyptian trans boy which was then turned into a film that won a BAFTA. I was also there with What Girls Are Made Of – the show I wrote and performed in, and I also took Glasgow Girls up there, which was my last musical.
“Whenever I’m touring Scotland, I take stuff to Eden Court.”
Orphans is at Eden Court from Thursday April 28 to Saturday April 30. Click here if you wish to book tickets.