‘Bringing Bob Dylan songs to city stage

ANYONE who has listened to the music of Bob Dylan will know that a musical crafted around his songs is unlikely to be a frivolous affair.

- CLARE AINSWORTH

From the outset, Girl from the North Country packs a punch, both musically and with the hard-hitting content of the storyline.

Challenged to write a musical play using the work of one of the greatest songwriters of all time must have been a daunting prospect for playwright Conor McPherson. Yet he does Dylan justice while delivering a plot that races through a multitude of themes.

The story is centred on a run-down boarding house in 1930s America, in the middle of the Great Depression. Owner Nick Laine and his wife, Elizabeth, who is stricken with dementia, face desperate times.

Their drunken son dreams of being a writer while their black adopted daughter is pregnant at 19, abandoned by the child’s father.