A Play in Three Acts by GEORGE BLAKE
(From Glasgow)
This play, as well as its title, is Clyde-built, for its author was a young Glasgow pressman twelve years ago when it was first produced by the Scottish National Players. It has weathered the years-unlike the ship that plays so potent a part in it-the North Star. But then, though she was built on the Clyde, she was jerry-built by interlopers, Mersons Ltd., and she foundered in the first gale.
If this play was only about the Clyde and shipping, it might have had no longer a life, but, as the author with some tenderness confesses, it is the love story of Jean Bannerman. We see the story unfold from three points of view. The firm of Crockett has been building ships' boats for nearly a century, and Jean's honest and unpretentious grandfather, Matthew Crockett , has retired, leaving affairs in the hands of his son, Tom. The old people believe that things are still prosperous, and get their awakening.
Then there is the point of view of Tom, Jean's uncle, and of Helen, her ambitious aunt, who, to stave off bankruptcy, would sell the business to the Mersons-and sell Jean, too. For Stanley Merson would make that part of the bargain.
Lastly comes Jean's point of view.
She loves Captain Harry Douglas , whose first ship is to be the North Star on her maiden voyage. But Jean's mother will not hear of her marrying a sailor because the girl's father was lost at sea. In a poignant farewell she cries : ' Take me and kiss me and hold me-close, close close !'
She is left alone in spirit in the house at Greenock, overlooking the Clyde. Time passes and the North Star is reported overdue and then lost. Pressure to marry Stanley Merson is brought to bear on her by nearly everyone. What does it matter whom she marries now Harry is dead ? The bargain is to go through ; Crockett's to be sold. But Jean's grandmother says : ' It's sellin' an immortal soul that makes me feel like killing somebody'.
That is the situation, steeped in tragedy and pity and human suffering, which leads up to the drama of the last act. George Blake wrote stuff to endure when he wrote Clyde-Built. Twelve years old it may be, but it doesn't date, because our loves and passions and cupidities have a way of not changing.