"There's no war going on in Iain Finlay MacLeod's Somersaults, the last play in the current National Theatre of Scotland Reveal season of new work, but there is a profound struggle for the survival of a language that has been almost overwhelmed by history. In MacLeod's 50-minute play - directed with flair by the NTS's Vicky Featherstone - James is a wealthy banker in London, with a beautiful wife and a dream lifestyle. Back in Lewis, though, his father is dying, and when the financial crash strips him of his wealth, he is forced to reassess how much he cares about his past, and about the slow disappearance of his mother tongue, the language of his childhood.
In the end, Somersaults seems more like a series of sketches for a play about these issues than the play itself.
It features five strong characters - including a strange, eerie bailiff-figure, beautifully played by John Ramage - as well some fine design and lighting by Kai Fischer, a memorable performance from Angus Peter Campbell as James's father, and a rousing theoretical debate on the issues raised, which makes up the last ten minutes of the action. Conventionally speaking, the energy of that debate should be within the playwriting, rather than served as a side-dish. But challenging convention is part of what the Reveal season seeks to do; and Somersaults certainly offers an powerful theatrical snapshot of the position of Gaelic in our society now, written in both Gaelic and English, and all the clearer - and more beautiful - for that."
Joyce McMillan 18 March 2011, The Scotsman