theatreSCOTLAND

23 November 2004 The Guadian

Riddance

By Linda McLean. A Spartaki review

LINDA McLean likes to tell her stories backwards. Her most recent play, Shimmer, presented six people sheltering from the rain in a rural hostel. It was only after we'd seen them, prism-like, from three different perspectives that everything made sense. Although structurally less sophisticated, her first play, Riddance, dating from 1999, takes a similar reverse journey. She offers us three characters - the obsessively clean Kenny, the nightmare-stricken Clare and the impulsive Frank - and teases us about the cause of their behaviour. It is built like a psychological thriller.

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