The Bloody Ballad

The music is the star of this highly enjoyable hillbilly schlockfest, which might really take off in front of a drunker, more riotous crowd. The conceit is that we're here to watch a band, the Missing Fingers, play a gig in some dive-bar in one of America's swampier districts. The singer, Mary (Lucy Rivers channeling Juliet Lewis in Natural Born Killers), turns up late, blood on her gingham frock. She's had a hell of a week.

She tells her story, starting out with a number about her abusive father and skipping quickly to her love affair with a charming greaser who turns out to be a psychopath. It's the most lurid kind of southern gothic, full of dismemberment, torture, and visions of the devil, but Rivers' controlled script (based on a murderous Welsh romany folk tale) rations the sweetness and horror without letting things get out of hand.

It's the songs, though, that really set this one apart, turning a fun show into a riot. The three actors—Rivers, Oliver Woods as her evil hick boyfriend, and Hannah McPake as his demonic mother—are all very handy musicians, between them playing bass, guitar, cello, accordian, and harmonica. The other two people onstage—drummer Tom Cottle and Dan Messore on guitar—don't get to do any acting, beyond the occasional louche smirk or some ambient caterwauling, but Messore in partcular is a stupendous blues guitarist. These songs go down just fine at the Roxy; they would go down a treat at 1am somewhere grimy on the Cowgate.