Experimental but populist, historical but playful, and musical in the fashion of a carnival, this rousing Told By An Idiot production now at Wilton’s Music Hall in the East End riffs on the life of Thomas Aitkenhead. Who the fuck was he, the show asks? Fair question. He was an Edinburgh university student found guilty of blasphemy in 1697 and sentenced to death – the last person in Britain to be executed for such a crime.
A diverse company of eight play all sorts of characters, including seagulls, the footballer Archie Gemmill and a sheep. Everyone takes turns playing Thomas himself, including a rag doll slumped in a chair, and there are frequent ‘Match of the Day’-style interludes (complete with the show’s theme music) offering a wry commentary on events. Periods come, go and blur into one: the show begins with a contemporary debate over which statue should occupy a prominent plinth. Dolly the Sheep perhaps? That’s the spirit of the show: it’s anarchic but it’s also soulful and big-hearted. It has the feel of a Complicité show but with more of a cabaret vibe to it. There are some storming musical numbers, each of them crowned with Simon Armitage’s ear-grabbing, sharp lyrics. The beautiful, moving voice of one cast member, John Pfumojena, rises above all the others and carries the pain of Aitkenhead’s tragedy at the close.
The cast’s ‘I Am Thomas’ t-shirts nod to the outrage over the Charlie Hebdo murders, but this is no solemn, dryly political affair. Inventive and funny, the show sends up the sad absurdity of private hang-ups inspiring public rough justice. Thomas’s nemesis is the thrusting Lord Advocate James Stewart (Dominic Marsh), whose Brian-May-a-like wig threatens to steal the show. The suggestion is that his own past inspired such wanton cruelty, though ‘I Am Thomas’ is so bursting with movement and ideas that some story details become blurred en route. That said, getting lost in such creativity is hardly a burden.