FringeReview Scotland 2026

The Wars of Patie Crichton

Hot Rod Theatre

Genre: New Writing, Storytelling, Theatre

Venue: Duns Volunteer Hall

Festival: FringeReview Scotland

Low Down

Review

Another full house at the DunsPlayFest, where the lure of good old-fashioned, live storytelling is hard to resist, especially as it features an old Scots tale with a twist as Hod Rod Theatre unveil The Wars of Patie Crichton, John Nicol’s creative fusing of two tales published in the 1830’s by John Mackay Wilson as part of broad kirk of works released weekly over a five year period that were lapped up by readers in the Scottish Borders.

It’s 1803 and Patie Crichton, a poor but honest bicker-maker (crafter who made wooden cups, if you want a loose translation) from Birgham (a small village near Kelso, if you’re reading this from afar) marries Tibby, the girl of his dreams.  Or so he thinks.  Marital bliss, whilst initially enhanced with the arrival of twin girls, soon turns as sour as old milk as the kind and modest lass Patie fell for turns out to possess a barbed tongue that could nag for Scotland, reducing Patie’s life from the insouciant to the subservient.

Musing on how he might extract himself from such torment, Patie takes inspiration from a ballad that tells the tale of a husband in a similar quandary who threatens to take the King’s shilling (join the army), which then delivers a considerable thaw in relations.

Nicol has spent several decades specialising in dramatised storytelling and is a devotee of, and expert in the Scots language, which is a central feature of this production. This piece is based around The Hen-Pecked Husband, an old Berwickshire tale, with a contribution from The False Alarm.  Nicol (playing the role of Patie but with several diversions into an amusing caricature of his nagging truelove) weaves a dryly amusing tale of the vicissitudes of married life in the early 19th century.

As with Shakespearian texts, the 21st century ear takes time to accustom itself to the flow of strange sounding words but, like all masters of the storytelling art, Nicol’s mellifluous tonality, facial expressions and movement bridge any language barrier effortlessly.  And what wonderful, rich language it is too, Nicol playing with the words as he rolls them around in his mouth, his acute sense of pacing and comic timing extracting every nuance from the tale he relates.

Aiding and abetting the story telling is the superb Iain Davis as Patie’s sidekick, Davie, a man of few words, content instead to impart a stream of amusing whimsical wisecracks, triggered by the growing misfortunes of his mate at the hands of his sharply tongued betrothed.  This scene stealing role is combined with that of onstage musician providing live, traditional fiddle tunes that created an atmosphere redolent of the era in which this fascinating tale was set.

The simple set also reflected those times, a couple of chairs, a bench, a hatstand and a table conveying the impression of a home where money was tight and whoever held the key to the “siller in the kist” ruled the roost.  And you can guess who had a firm grasp on this chunk of metal in the Crichton household.

But does Patie succeed in taming the tongue of his beloved, and those of his twin daughters who have by now grown to teenagers equipped with the harridan-nagging skills of their mother?

Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to go and find out for yourself, hopefully when the play tours later this year as there’s nothing to beat a well told story and Nicol is an absolute master of his craft.  You can just sit and listen, let your mind conjure up the images created by the words, laugh at the wry observations of a life long ago and marvel that, as we hurtle through our fast paced, techno/material obsessed lives, there’s still this wee cranny called live performance storytelling to reinforce those essential human social bonds.  Highly recommended theatre.

Published May 7, 2026 by Tim Wilcock