From an article first published in Easdale People magazine, Issue No 20,
Autumn 2004.
I don't know any satisfactory explanation
for the causes of laughter. I do however
know that it is one of the most satisfactory
and life enhancing experiences. The
evening we spent with Liz Lochhead and
Michael Marra gave us full rein to express
it. We were helped to relax into it by the
atmosphere created in the hall. The cafe
style arrangement of the tables and chairs
suggested an intimacy that prepared us
for the intimacy of the performance. Liz
and Michael, from their fist offering, were
sharing not only their skills as performers
but the experience of their own lives.
We were given moving glimpses of life
in Dundee and Glasgow, with Michael
singing and playing on the keyboard
and Liz offering either her poems
or brilliant impressions of Glasgow
women she had encountered. I say
moving but these were also hilariously funny and perhaps this is one of the
secrets of laughter, that at its best it
has a hidden undercurrent of despair.
There was an almost tangible sympathy
between these two artistes creating a
flawless performance whether they
were performing individually or
jointly. Michael sang his own songs,
which are now available as a CD, and
Liz's poems ranged from the funny to
one about a lake which held us rapt
with its beauty.
For me a particular sense of significance
about this night was to be a member
of an audience which was treated as
adult by the performers playing to
it. There was no sense at any time of
being talked down to, as there so often
is, particularly by performers wanting
to make you laugh who go for the
lowest common denominator. Not so
with Liz and Michael. Their standards
were high and you had to be up there
with them. Their own concession to
pure sentimentality came at the very
end when, after rapturous applause,
they returned to do an encore in which
they abandoned their own material and
sang and played that marvellous song
"Two Sleepy People" - 'with nothing to
say, but too much in love to break away'.
It was a perfect way to end a splendid
evening.
Kay Carmichael
