Edinburgh Little Theatre’s Wallace (Braw Venue @ Hill Street) is a one-man play about the last hours of Scottish rebel William Wallace. Wallace is shackled hand and foot and in a cell, waiting for what he knows will be a mock trial with a foregone conclusion. He has no-one but himself to talk to, having been denied even a priest to hear his confession, so this is a 45-minute monologue.
Wallace is played by Bobby Bulloch, who is passionate in his support for Scotland and her people against the ‘usurper’ Edward, and anguished at the brutal treatment of his kinsmen and countrymen. This explains a lot about the reasons for his retribution and the actions he has taken, and he relishes them.
He recounts the barbarity of the oppression of the Scots, including the murder of his father and of his own pregnant wife. He describes the Battle of Stirling Bridge in great detail, glorying in the clever tactics that led to Edward’s army being defeated, but then has to relive the overwhelming defeat of his own men not long afterwards.
His descriptions of what he has done and what he has witnessed are unsparing. Wallace is full of harsh realities and it’s not easy listening. It made me ponder on the nature of warfare and the lessons mankind just never seems to be able to learn. ‘An eye for an eye’, revenge and retribution permeate Wallace’s world, and perhaps still do today.
Although Wallace is the only actor on stage, there are disembodied voices which add some nuance to the piece. The would-be inquisitor gaoler wonders who Wallace is speaking to and tells him that he will be given no mercy, no matter how much he pleads, hinting at the agonies to come.
Edward also speaks to Wallace, giving a balance to the story, with an assertion of God-given right on his side. Fervent belief can come from different places and in this case neither side accepts the other’s point of view and entirely justifies his own.
Wallace doesn’t glorify, but it tells this very bloody and brutal part of Scotland’s history, and one real man’s history, in gory and visceral detail.
It’s full of foreboding and it’s not for the faint-hearted. Bobby Bulloch gives it his all, as indeed did Wallace, as another disembodied voice tells us in awful, gruesome detail at the end.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
