Personal letters, diary entries … the years between original writing and re-reading give these artefacts both ‘another country’ and utterly immediate status, and this is what makes a show like Home work.

Well, that, and a sequence of Scottish songs, including ‘Annie Laurie’ and ‘Skye Boat Song’; only resolutely impervious hearts could resist.

An unexplained fifteen minute delay to the start time and a stubborn English Flower Garden gate that jams, preventing entrances to the performance space, has the potential to put the audience off-side. Any minor annoyance is soon sung away by ‘Maggie’ (Rowena Simpson) and ‘Johnnie’ (Stuart Coats ) supported unobtrusively by Douglas Mews on piano.

Beginning with diary entries and letters from 1873 and ending with telegrams from 1915, the three performers and writer/director Jacqueline Coats keep things unfussy in the English Flower Garden.

Serendipitously, birds land on a backdrop tree perfectly on cue during ‘Flora Macdonald’s Lament’ (about the escape of Bonnie Prince Charles after the Battle of Culloden in 1745).

A loose narrative tracks Maggie and Johnnie’s meeting, romance, clannish Cunningham and Montgomery differences, and separation when Johnnie becomes an infantryman.

Early on Rowena Simpson is at times a little coy and Stuart Coats sometimes mugs; but I quibble… This show connects in another zone. Raindrops smudge words on the letters progressively pegged to the framing clotheslines as tears smudge mascara.

A few overly sentimental moments when the couple are in parallel worlds – Maggie in New Zealand and Johnnie in Egypt, an ANZAC in the desert –could be clipped. The performers can trust the material; you have us at ‘Are you Sleepin’ Maggie?’ (the programme helpfully tells us that in old Scottish custom, a couple could sleep together for a year before marriage).

A potent image in one of Johnnie’s letters, of the boys singing together on the ship going to war ‘with nothing but the seagulls to witness it’, endorses theatrical simplicity. Maggie’s quietly determined pragmatism, sewing silk underwear to deter lice, aligned with the singer’s plangent version of ‘The Flowers O’ the Forest’ reminds us, as many of the songs do, of both Scottish victories and loss of life on battlefields from 1314 to WW1.

One does not have to be a Scottish ex-pat to respond to this show. For me, Home’s inclusion of Robert Burns ‘A Man’s A Man for a’ That’ brings vividly to mind my grandfather, John Fleming, and ‘Now is the Hour’, and ‘Auld Lang Syne’ take me again to childhood days at Laguna guest house in Noosa Heads where these internationally popular songs were typical guest farewells.

Sung offstage by Johnnie and onstage by Maggie to inscribe distance, ‘Po Atarau’ (the Maori version of ‘Now is the Hour’) – the song used to farewell Maori soldiers fighting in WWI – made this a touching and irrefutably New Zealand edition to the Scottish expat narrative.

I am left with the precious lifeline letters fluttering on the rope clotheslines… How easily broken a line that is.  

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Although Home sits in the music category of the Fringe, it could easily be classified as theatre. Whether you view it as a series of story chapters with musical interludes, or a musical performance separated by spoken pieces will depend on your personal preference. For me it was a winning example of the former.

Rowena Simpson and Stuart Coats portray the romance of Maggie and Johnnie during the 1910s. Both have immigrated to Wellington from Scotland, from the rival Montgomery and Cunningham clans.

Their story, from first meeting at the Opera House, is told via a combination of exposition, letters read aloud and direct interaction. We see them make plans to attend the Masterton A&P show, disagree over politics when Massey is elected as Prime Minister and become engaged. The advent of World War One accelerates their marriage plans, when Johnnie signs up to join the troops – “better to be a war widow than a fiancé with nothing to show for it.”

Johnnie’s experiences in Egypt and Turkey and Maggie’s back in New Zealand, allow the story dramatic tension and it is genuinely moving at times.

That Rowena Simpson and Stuart Coats can sing is of no surprise for a show in the music category. Both are excellent with, I believe, operatic experience. This is not the end of their talents; they can act too. Their style is confident and natural. Director Jacqueline Coats has coached them perfectly and they use the space well, with a minimal set consisting of clothes lines and relevant stage props.

Pianist Douglas Mews provides musical accompaniment and also provides a character figure for one scene.

The music consists of traditional Scottish songs. I have to admit that for many, this was the first time I’d heard them but there are familiar numbers such as Po Atarau (Now is the Hour) and Auld Lang Syne.

Overall, this is a heart-warming production with a beautiful, elegant simplicity. Easily recommended.
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