Ceilidh: A New Musical review – a joyous, riotous celebration of Scottish culture gets the audience on its feet

Shoreditch town hall, LondonScott Gilmour and Claire McKenzie’s audience participation musical gets toes tapping and bodies spinning – even if its story lacks a little depth

There’s only one thing you need to know before you dance in a ceilidh, we’re told at the start of this show: “In 2,000 years, no one has ever looked good doing it.” But who notices, or cares, when they’re spinning dizzyingly in a joyful mass of bodies? Certainly not the audience at Shoreditch town hall, as they took to the floor in Scott Gilmour and Claire McKenzie’s interactive new musical.

Staged in the round, with ample space for stripping the willow, Ceilidh is directed by Sam Pinkleton, whose Tony-winning Oh, Mary! proved what he can do with anarchic energy. It began its UK tour at the Pitlochry festival theatre after a short run in the US and feels like an authentic community event. Before curtain-up, actor-musicians mill sociably with the punters on the dancefloor, and by the time the bodhrán rhythms kick off in earnest, every toe is tapping in anticipation.

Which is important because, as our caller Ramsay – played by Gilmour himself – explains, we’re all invited to join in the dances, which punctuate the story of his father, Leo (David Rankine), and his blossoming romance with English rose Uena (Kirsty Findlay). Gilmour and McKenzie’s book and lyrics are full of Scottish wit, delivered with a bracing bluntness (Star Penders’ hilarious Granny Maclavaney is a woman who can “eat an entire shepherd’s pie in 90 seconds”). There’s a glorious meet-cute in a Glasgow chippie, and Laura Lovemore is a grinding, pouting riot as Uena’s best friend, to whose wedding we become de facto guests.

These vignettes are overlaid with a full bingo card of Scottish traditions, from piping in the haggis to the bells of Hogmanay. The fragility of memory is a key theme – one barnstorming number traces the comically hazy passing down of dance moves through the generations – alongside a message of inclusivity that’s heartwarmingly, if unsubtly, conveyed. As an inveterate joiner-inner, I loved the experience; I also wondered whether those who chose simply to observe would feel well enough served by a narrative that never quite allows the characters enough time or depth.